M.P.S decry ‘primitive’ N-waste disposal

Press, 17 December 1985, Page 6

M.P.S decry ‘primitive’ N-waste disposal

NZPA-AP London Britain’s nuclear industry is “virtually light years” behind other countries when it comes to the safe disposal of radioactive waste, according to a Parliamentary report leaked to “The Times” newspaper. The report, which follows 11 months of investigation, will be considered by a House of Commons select

Corazon Aquino lifts her arms to the crowd of 20,000 which gathered to hear her officially proclaimed as the Presidential candidate of the newly unified Phillippine’s opposition. “I am not a politician. I do not know how to tell lies. And I am not a dictator. I thank God I am different from Marcos,” said Mrs Aquino, who blames the President for the 1983 assassination of her husband, the former Senator, Benigno Aquino. Mr Marcos’s former VicePresident, Fernando Lopez, raised the hands of Mrs Aquino and Salvador Laurel, a former Senator for the traditional proclamation of candidates in Manila yesterday. The crowd interrupted speeches with its supportive chants of “Cory,” — Mrs Aquino’s nickname. Mr Laurel said that Mr Marcos might cancel the election. Other opposition leaders have said they expect Mr Marcos to influence the Supreme Court to declare it unconstitutional if he believes Mrs Aquino is likely to win.

committee today, the newspaper says. The draft document makes “a devastating report” on the state of the nuclear industry, it says. Waste disposal sites seen by members of Parliament on the all-party Commons Environment Select Committee were “primitive in the extreme,” the confidential report said. Too much reliance was placed on research taking place abroad, the committee member reportedly ageed. “This has left us with a feeling almost of shame of our industry,” they said. The committee’s chairman, Sir Hugh Rossi, a Government member, is said to have aimed at producing a draft which would attract unanimous committee support. It could be published in the New Year. The members took evidence from 70 witnesses and visited six countries during their inquiry. According to “The Times” they were amazed that the British nuclear industry was pressing ahead with pro-

posals for increased reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel in spite of the absence of even the prospect of proper waste disposal facilities.

Britain wps still groping its way towards a coherent policy on dealing with nuclear waste, they found. “For an issue which is of such great public concern, this is woefully inadequate,” the report said. It accused the nuclear industry of “defensive secretiveness” about its work, leading to virtually a “paralysis” in management of radioactive waste. Onus of proof for the safety of waste disposal was on the industry — and it had failed to provide it, the report said. One of 42 recommendations the document makes is that the Thermal Oxide Reprocessing Plant being built at Sellafield (formerly Windscale) should be scrapped, if possible, with no new foreign contracts for reprocessing there. Restrictions on discharges from Sellafield and re-de-positing of low-level waste in Cumbria, should be tightened, the report demands.