U.K. nuclear waste methods denounced

Press, 13 March 1986, Page 10

U.K. nuclear waste methods denounced

NZPA-Reuter London A Parliamentary committee said yesterday that Britain’s management of nuclear waste was amateurish and haphazard and called for strict new controls on radioactive discharges.

The report by the allparty House of Commons Environment Committee said discharges from the Sellafield reprocessing plant, on the north-west English coast, had turned the Irish Sea into the most radioactive stretch of water in the world. Radioactive concentrations caused by discharges from Sellafield had been found in fish as far away as the Swedish coast, it said.

The report was a new set-back for Britain’s nuclear industry, under fire after accidents this year. The committee spent more than two years compiling its report and visited nuclear installa-

tions in five other countries.

Comparing waste disposal in Britain to methods abroad, the report said, “Our waste management arrangements seemed amateurish, haphazard and ad hoc. We recommend that... new numerical liquid discharge limits, radically lower than the current ones, should be set for all nuclear plants in the United Kingdom.”

The Prime Minister, Mrs Margaret Thatcher, a strong supporter of the nuclear industry, recently rejected a call from her Irish counterpart, Dr Garret Fitz Gerald, for Sellafield’s closing, saying reports of recent accidents there were exaggerated.

Five* accidents have been reported at Sellafield so far this year. In one, nearly half a tonne of uranium was accidentally dumped in the sea. In another, a radioactive mist escaped from the

plant, contaminating 15 workers. The committee called for a fundamental reassessment of a £1.4 billion ($5.5 billion) project to build a new nuclear waste reprocessing facility at Sellafield, seen as vital to the plant’s future.

The committee said Britain lagged far behind other countries on research into methods of nuclear waste disposal. There was a haphazard approach at the nearby Drigg nuclear waste disposal site that did not inspire confidence.

The committee criticised the secrecy governing much of the nuclear industry, its lack of public accountability, and its poor public relations. “The disorder of the Sellafield site, the crudeness of Drigg ... have created far more damage than any amount of facts, figures and public relations work will ever repair,” the report said.