Nuclear installations threaten health of Celtic Nations

This article includes:

Converted Ro-Ro vessel transports nuclear cargo
Shellfish focus attention on Sellafield pollution
French action prompts Sellafield concern
BNFL's two-fingered insult
Summer sea-current traps more than prawns
Dounreay's dangerous condition
Sellafield pollution set to increase.

 See also:

Radioactive waste dumped with munitions
USA and UK fly nuclear material over Ireland 

Sellafield's dangerous cargoes

The news that standard Ro-Ro ferries are being used to transport substantial quantities of plutonium through the Irish Sea shows the staggering indifference which the British government shows to coastal communities in the area. Anything, it seems, which facilitates the operation of the Sellafield reprocessing plant is permissible, and the Company's track record of accidents and pollution of the marine environment is ignored.

Ro-Ro ferries have a questionable safety record following several notable failings and great loss of life in recent years. To quote the IMO, Ro-Ro vessels are 'exceptionally vulnerable to human error' and yet apparently this mode of transport, on vessels whose crews are not specifically trained or experienced in the handling and management of radioactive materials, and which are not specially adapted for this extremely hazardous cargo, is deemed safe by the British.

BNFL are not sufficiently competent to operate the land-based plant securely, and this is best evidenced by the news last week that accidental discharges from Sellafield had occurred for the past two weeks and are continuing. Such incompetence in the shore-based operation hardly engenders confidence in their ability to contain a disaster at sea if one of these ferries should founder.

The consequences of such a sinking would undoubtedly be disastrous.

 The Celtic League will be writing to both the Irish and Manx governments urging the most vigorous protest, both directly to the British, and also to International agencies such as the IMO and the International Atomic Energy Agency.

 These dangerous cargoes must be stopped!

Sellafield - Focus on shellfish pollution - 22-09-97

 The Celtic League has consistently alerted communities around the Irish sea to the danger posed by Sellafield and at our AGM in Caernarfon in July (25-27) we once again called for urgent independent assessment of the Plant.

 We followed this up in August (12/8/97)with a call to British Environment Secretary, Micheal Meacher, to improve coordination of monitoring of the Plant, We specifically highlighted the problems caused by the accumulation of Technetium-99 in shellfish, particularly Lobsters. Lest anyone think our concerns are alarmist they should be aware that this month (September) the Irish and Danish governments will highlight these concerns at the OSPAR talks in Brussels.

 Technetium accumulation in shellfish is only a recently determined phenomena. The Lobster is now 92 times as radioactive as it was four years ago and is 30 times over the EU limit for consumption after a nuclear accident. Technetium 99 is a man made substance which is a by product of the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel. It lasts more than 100,000 years in the environment and accumulates in the thyroid, one of the most vulnerable human organs.

 The confusion surrounding the British Environment Department's announcement that it was to end sea disposal of nuclear waste does not place any limit on Sellafields ability to keep pumping out this poison. Indeed, the embarrassment for Meacher of having his Department correct his earlier statement on the issue confirms our view that British monitoring and control of Sellafield is an uncoordinated mess. British Environmental groups such as Greenpeace seem to believe that Meacher's stance at Ospar talks this week marks a major shift in British government attitudes to Sellafield. Action, however, speaks louder than words and until the British act to curtail discharges their stance is meaningless

 J B Moffatt - Geeral Secretary.

French nuclear alert prompts Sellafield concern - 12-07-97

 The nuclear alert in the Channel this week, when the French government banned (10/7/97) fishing and swimming in waters near the C. de la Hague nuclear re-processing plant, must raise similar questions about safe radiation levels around the north Irish Sea Sellafield Plant.

 If dangerous levels of radiation have been found in both sea water and sediment at C. de la Hague what confidence can we have in the assurances we periodically receive about Sellafield.

 The BNFL operation is much more substantial than the French operation and its authorised and accidental discharge record also compares unfavourably with that of the C. de la Hague plant.

 To give the French government its due, it has acted. The British government however, shows so sign of reacting to the repeated concerns of the Irish and Manx government and various local authority and campaign groups around the Irish sea.

 In another parallel with the north Irish Sea situation, leukaemia clusters are now also reported around the Cap de la Hague plant. The British government still steadfastly refuses to accept the very serious fears and concerns of the people its nuclear industry is poisoning around the Irish Sea.

 J.B. Moffatt

Text of Letter to UK Minister of the Environment

 Dear Minister,

 Recent research indicates that plutonium from Sellafield is now being found in the teeth of children (see attached). The contamination levels are higher in children who live close to the plant but are also significant in samples taken up to 225 km from the facility.

 Last month the Manx authorities identified another, new, aspect of pollution caused by the plant when they identified (and I quote from their release).

 "Local seafood contained a low level of radioactivity associated with discharges of effluent from Sellafield. Recent changes in BNFLs reprocessing operations have altered the composition of this effluent, increasing the quantity of moderately toxic isotope Technetium-99, which is known to accumulate in shellfish, particularly lobsters. Future monitoring will be extended to investigate the predicted increase in technetium levels in the Irish sea."

 It is therefore quite clear that the pollution from the plant is:

 1) Continuing 2) Extensive 3) Contaminating both the Land Air and Marine Environment 4) Entering the food chain and contaminating humans and animals.

 The plant does therefore, despite the slick PR which the operator extends, pose a considerable threat to health of large numbers of people around the N. Irish Sea.

 Concerns about Sellafield, and its poor operational record, are well documented and this letter is not aimed at adding to these. Our purpose in writing is to point out a quite disgraceful shortcoming from an Environmental point of view which your Office should address.

 A variety of bodies monitor radiation developments in the area adjacent to the Plant. In the United Kingdom alone government Departments in Scotland, N. Ireland and England compile information.

 In addition both the Isle of Man and Irish governments carry out monitoring exercises and many NGOs maintain a watching brief on the Plant.

 Despite the undoubted dangers it poses, as far as we are aware, there is no overall body established by the British government to monitor this disparate research*.

 Could we ask that the British government, through the Department for the Environment, takes urgent action to rectify this.

 Yours sincerely,

 J. B. Moffatt
12/8/97

 * The NRPB does not fulfil this function.

Sellafield's wider danger - 09-05-97

BNFL pushing for higher discharge levels - new evidence of Northern hemisphere pollution - Irish sea contamination increasing - Contempt for safety standards

 This week's news that pollution from Sellafield is increasing in parts of the Arctic region give an added impetus to our work of opposition to the plant. European Regional concerns about the nuclear menace are sure to be sharpened by this latest revelation. We along with other Sellafield opposition groups should harness these concerns to build a truly global strategy of opposition to the plant.

 In the past ten years the Irish and Manx governments have co-operated in their policy of opposition to Sellafield and it is really via these governments that significant progress will be made. The two "anti-Sellafield partners" should be actively canvassing the Canadian, Soviet, Icelandic and Nordic governments to join in a combined campaign against the British government and BNFL.

 BNFL is laughing at the environmental groups and it is contemptuous of the derisory fines imposed upon it for safety breaches by the British Courts. For the first time in a decade pollution levels are up and the Irish sea, always under threat, now faces its greatest danger as BNFL push to have discharge levels further relaxed.

 The new evidence from Canada indicates that we do not face this new threat alone. If the governments in those countries (Canada, Iceland, Norway, the Russias etc) which ring the Arctic ignore what is happening at Sellafield today they will regret it in years to come.

 Sellafield is like a "creeping Chernobyl". Its pollution now poses a threat to the whole northern hemisphere.

BNFL Cumbria Grant Two-Fingered Insult to Opponents - 06-04-93

See also Mixed blessing of summer currents

 In a cynical attempt to deflect public opinion BNFL announced the injection of 5.4 million pounds into the West Cumbria Development Fund. Press releases from Sellafield were dispatched to media sources around the United Kingdom.

 The move undoubtedly was an attempt to deflect any criticism (in Cumbria at least) which accrued from the decision of a Whitehaven Court to fine the accident prone plant for serious breaches of safety regulations. However, it also undoubtedly sends a two-fingered signal to both the Courts and those that oppose its operation that the total fine imposed for the safety breach, £20,000, is a derisory sum to an organisation that can gift millions on the lame-duck Cumbrian community.

 At the present time, BNFL are seeking further sanction to continue discharges of radioactive waste via pipeline to the Marine environment. The permission, if granted, will further increase already indisputably high levels of nuclear waste pollution in the N. Irish sea.

 The waters from Dublin bay to the N. Channel are, unless this madness is challenged, likely to become a cesspit for BNFL.

 What diplomatic steps are available to the Irish or Manx governments? Some years ago both governments effectively derailed popular movements in both Ireland and Mann by taking a firm position of opposition to the plant and promised "to campaign for its closure". Their protests to Whitehall go unheeded. Those whose environment is being poisoned by the British government inertia and BNFL's Corporate neglect need to be aware of what strategy the Irish and Manx governments now propose to get their message across.

 J.B. Moffatt 

Summer "GYRE" a mixed blessing - 31-12-96

 New evidence about tidal flow in the N. Irish sea that question previous theories about how pollutants are flushed from the that sea will reawaken concerns about the long term implications of radioactive contamination of the marine environment.

 Oceanographers used to believe that the Irish sea was perpetually flushed by a steady northward current however new information indicates a circular current (or gyre) which forms in the Irish sea between May and October. The gyre is caused by Summer heating and effectively circulates sea waters for that period and Scientists say the current apparently loops back on the Irish east coast. This may have some dramatic effects; retaining larvae of the Dublin Bay prawns and the microscopic algae on which thy feed. The impact of the new information is still being studied but it also has implications for better understanding the dispersal of other fish species such as cod and herring which spawn when the gyre is present.

 The ominous down-side to this new information is that the Summer gyre, whilst retaining this marine life which otherwise would be flushed out of the Irish sea also retains oil, chemical and other pollutants including the Sellafield pollution. It may also explain the low levels of radioactive pollution recorded on the Irish coast north of Dublin.

 On the positive side, oceanographers say the circular current should keep radioactive material from travelling much further south - cold comfort for those of us who live in the waters of the north Irish sea.

 J.B. Moffatt
General Secretary

Dounreay - New revelations about pollution from British nuclear plant

 The shocking revelations that the United Kingdom has been operating a fast reactor at the Dounreay facility in Scotland in a semi crippled state since 1962 is certain to raise further questions about the ability of the UK to supervise its nuclear industry.

 Documents recently revealed quote a litany of accidents and leaks from the plant which is a smaller "brother" to the massive BNFL facility in Sellafield in Cumbria.

 Ten serious radiation incidents damage to plant, leakages and an explosion at the experimental nuclear site's waste shaft are catalogued. In the latter incident it is now revealed that contamination was over six times higher than the UKAEA admitted at the time.

 More ominously the damage to Dounreay's reactor in the 1960s could cause problems and even a reactor fire whilst decommissioning is underway.

 The items now catalogued include:

 1) Early 1960s (1962) reactor overheats - damage to breeder blanket and fuel pins - problems still ongoing.

 2) 1977 Waste Shaft explosion - radiation released now admitted to be six times higher than earlier feared.

 3) 1981, 26 workers contaminated in radiation release.

 4) 1982. serious contamination of three plant operatives.

 5) 1984 serious contamination of one plant worker.

 6) 1995 plutonium blow in the reprocessing plant the unit was evacuated as radioactivity reached 20 megabecquerels - 10,000 times the safe working level.

 The new information also makes clear the lengths that the nuclear industry goes to to conceal the truth. about its record.

 Tony Benn, British Energy Minister from 1975 to 1979 says "My experience was that you could not rely on a word the management of the nuclear industry said. Either I was not given information, the information was inaccurate, or I was simply lied to".

 The recent revelations about Dounreay seem certain to lead to further calls for an enquiry into the British nuclear industry. The Labour party in the UK is calling for an enquiry into Dounreay's safety record.

 The fact is however that some of the worst cover-ups over the nuclear industry's record occurred when Labour was in power and in recent years their front bench has included lobbyists and apologists for the industry.

 The Celtic League believe it is past time an International enquiry was held into the British nuclear industry and the contamination it has caused to the Celtic areas of the western British Isles. Until such an enquiry is held and the industry brought under external scrutiny the peoples of this area are at further serious risk.

 J.B. Moffatt

Sellafield discharges to increase - 02-06-96

 Unfortunately, discharges from Sellafield, which have fallen steadily since the 1970s, will increase over the next few years as re-processing of spent fuel gets underway at the plant.

 The Celtic League believes the that indication that the fishery resources of the north Irish Sea are currently safe is an even stronger reason for curtailing the discharges from the British nuclear plant. If allowed to continue its operation, either by way of the projected increased discharges or via accidental discharge of dangerous levels (for which Sellafield is notorious), the plant will pose a threat to the marine environment.

 Meanwhile, the Celtic League has endorsed the call by Manx Nationalists for the Isle of Man government to abandon any plans to install an interconnector (via undersea cable) to the UK grid.

 The Manx Nationalist Party, Mec Vannin has condemned the plans saying:

 "An interconnector between the Isle of Man and the UK will not mean cheap power. It will mean for the first time, our needs, in part, are met by the worst global polluter known to man: The nuclear industry. The UK system is dependant both from its own domestic industry and via the UK/France interconnector, on power generated from nuclear sources."

 The Nationalists have also indicated that the construction of any interconnector facilities on the Island would be provocative and would become a focus for direct action by militant environmentalists.

 In addition to concerns about the ongoing seepage of waste from Sellafield, recent plans by the nuclear industry to trim down on staff prior to privatisation raise another alarming prospect. Ominously, the scheduled redundancies will include key management safety posts, putting a question-mark over future safety standards at the various nuclear installations and power plants that litter the Irish sea area.

 J.B. Moffatt, General Secretary, Celtic League.