In a much-awaited verdict, the Cherbourg county court ruled Feb. 3 that Australian spent materials test reactor (MTR) fuel and unirradiated mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel elements imported by Cogema for reprocessing at La Hague aren't waste in the eyes of the law and that Cogema thus isn't violating French law by storing them at the reprocessing complex.

The ruling was the first on the merits of two cases brought by Greenpeace and by Manche Nature, a local environmental group, against the imports in 2001. In March 2001, Greenpeace won a temporary injunction from the same court stopping unloading the Australian MTR fuel from its transport vessel.

That summary ruling was overturned by the Caen appeals court three weeks later, and the case was mired in jurisdictional squabbles until mid-2002, when a high court ruled it could be heard by the Cherbourg court under civil law. The Greenpeace and Manche Nature suits were combined.

In its ruling, the court said that the Australian fuel and the MOX elements, made from fabrication scrap from the former Siemens Hanau MOX plant, were covered by reprocessing contracts and that they "must be considered as recyclable materials, (or) in any case as materials destined to be transformed and not to be disposed of" as is.

Although Cogema didn't have an "operational" license to reprocess them at the time of import, the court said the fact that they were clearly destined for reprocessing and that Cogema had authorizations in principle to carry out the reprocessing was enough to disqualify them as "waste" under France's nuclear waste management law of Dec. 31, 1991. Article 3 of that law forbids long-term storage of foreign radwaste on French territory.

Kiril Bougartchev of Gide Loyrette Nouel, who represented Cogema in the case, said the court had "accepted our arguments in whole."

Greenpeace announced immediately that it would appeal the verdict, saying that Cogema's "propaganda about so-called 'recycling' has even intoxicated the legal system."

At the hearing Dec. 2, Greenpeace and Manche Nature had asked for 22,630 euros in damages from Cogema. The nuclear firm also asked for damage payments, saying the environmental groups were abusing the legal system.

In its judgment, the Cherbourg court said the environmental groups were entitled to bring up the question and were not guilty of legal abuse. "At a time when public opinion is obviously worried about preserving respect of the (environment), nuclear waste management is particularly sensitive," the judges wrote. They quoted a statement from the Environment Ministry that interim storage periods for the materials concerned were "very long" and "the legal conditions of these contracts, as well as the statute of the stored materials, are at the least fragile in the eyes of the law."

The court did sentence Greenpeace and Manche Nature to pay Cogema's court costs totaling Euro 5,000, with Greenpeace responsible for four-fifths of the total. @