CHAMPAGNE-ARDENNES

Purpose/type : polygone d’expérimentation militaire

Location: area of about 500 ha, located in the military camp of Moronvilliers à Pontfaverger (Marne)

Operator : Direction des applications militaires

Period of operation : since 1958

Wastes : soils contaminated with uranium

In particular : specializes in detonics; carries out cold firings of major intensity

The site is attached today to the Centre Dam--Ile de France of the CEA's Direction des applications militaires (Dam).  The Ile de France center, which is at Bruyères le Châtel to the south of Paris, was formerly known as the Centre d'Etudes de Bruyères le Châtel or B-III.  The Moronvilliers site was itself formerly part of the Dam's Centre d'Etudes de Vaujours-Moronvilliers.  The CEA closed the Vaujours site at the end of 1997 and the Centre d'Etudes de Vaujours-Moronvilliers ceased to exist.

In the eighties, the equipment at this annex included the Grec (generator of X-rays), Artemis, means of radiographic investigation,” and Cagl, intended for “the study of equations of high pressure states,” in other words, of cold firings [DAM v.88]. The site also had tanks and shafts for test firings.

Airix-dedicated to the radiography of explosions-has replaced Grec. Airix is a key part of the program for simulating nuclear tests, as it validates models of the first stage of the operation of a nuclear weapon: the compression of fissile material by conventional explosives.  In the explosions at Airix, inert materials replace fissile materials. Electrons produced by Airix are projected against a tantalum target, where they create x-rays that take a picture of the explosion of the model of a weapon.  Airix began operation in December 1999 [défis vi-viii 2003].

FIRINGS

The PEM is mainly devoted to experimentation in the area of detonics, and can employ large masses of explosives. Major simulated cold firings are carried out there, using beryllium, lead, and depleted uranium and perhaps also natural uranium [CDRPC 94; Andra 99]. The texts available to us speak of shots with uranium in the open air and in tanks. It is likely that these tests were also carried out in shafts [VauRa 77].

In order to get rid of certain residues, such as shavings, “impossible to grill because of the oil that covers them,” the BIII SPR service perfected “an original technique called burning.” “Burning, like grilling, consists in transforming uranium metal into the oxide U308. The operation takes place in the open air in an experimental area. The oxide powder is then recovered in metal containers and dispatched, either for use of the U235 contained or for final storage. The tonnage thus treated in three years: 15 tons,” M. Ambolet of Bruyères-le-Châtel wrote in 1988. The experimental area was most likely the PEM [see CDRPC 94].

The tests with uranium and the burning of uranium scatter uranium oxide in the air, which after a period of time, as a function of the winds and of the size of the particles, falls back onto the earth and into the water. The DAM conducts monitoring [see CHSV 6.x.75], but the results are not published, to the best of our knowledge. According to Andra, a soils study has delineated contaminated zones. Average contamination of the zones reserved for tests is 0.5 Bq/g. The short and long term impacts of the migration of pollutants were, in 1999, under evaluation. [Andra 99]. In 2000, 110m3 of waste "weakly contaminated by depleted uranium, mainly from the tests "(400 MBq) and 350m3 of "TFA wastes from a cleanup activity" (1.9GBq) were stored on the site; their final disposition was under study [Andra 00].

LIQUID EFFLUENTS

As of 1985, the “effluents from washing the tanks are treated in the hot laboratories. When the results of the monitoring are below environmental norms, the effluents are evacuated as used water. If the results are above the norms, the effluents are sent to CEN/Saclay which evaporates them and coats them in asphalt” [CCSC 10/11.ix.85].

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