Sellafield spin goes on. BNFL paint rosy picture

national | environment | opinion/analysis Friday March 26, 2004 17:44 by safer world

'dirty thirty' is disintegrating... BNFL says all OK.

You might have seen last night's Prime Time Programme or today's Irish Examiner articles about Sellafield.
the main news is about a huge pond holding high level nuclear waste. The pond, which holds thousands of gallons of various nuclear crap is decaying and according to Dr. John Large, a nuclear expert and former Sellafield Worker, it contains up to 5 tonnes of Plutonium.

Ah, yes Sellafield. That wonder of British Engineering and safety.

There are several plants and parts on this huge ugly site (located in the beautiful lake district in West Cumbria -about as far away from London one can get in England)

Here's a sample...

Windscale - shut down after a huge fire in 1957. Still being worked on for decommissioning. a few problems though.
The reactor has between 15-18 tonnes of reactor fuel still in it, and as a result of the fire has uranium hydride (which combusts at room temperature), hydrogen gas and various other nasties that make it 'tricky' to dismantle.

Calder Hall, shut down in the past 2 years due to fears over the primary safety mechanism, which were exposed in its identical sister plant Chapel Cross in Scotland.

MOX - cover ups false safety documents, and disappearing orders from overseas.

In today's Examiner, John Clarke, head of Environmental Health Safety and Quality at Sellafield says "When it comes to Sellafield, there's too much fear and not enough understanding"

Nothing to do with the secrecy, lies and cover ups?

Over a year ago, BNFL appeared on a PRIME TIME SPECIAL, and had an 'Independent' Irish scientist defend them, like a loyal guard dog.
That was Prof Mitchell from UCD Physics Dept.
Following a Freedom of Information request to his dept it emerged that the UCD physics dept is partly funded by the UK Nuclear Industry. no wonder he was so aggressive... even when telling a nurse that the fact that children have been born with Plutonium in their TEETH is nothing to worry about. (even though Plutonium does not occur naturally - it comes from nuclear reactors)

Windscale Pile number one is so dangerous that, after 47 years they still haven't figured out how to dismantle it without releasing more radiation or causing an explosion.

The MOX plant is doomed to economic failure.
It should never have opened, besides being a mad idea, it simply doesn't have enough customers.

It cost over £400 sterling to build, and nobody wants it. On the other hand, it would have costs less than this for BNFL to build a plant to remove the Technetium 99 radioactive isotope from the waste water Sellafield pours into the Irish Sea every day.

The THORP building caused radiation burns to a contract scaffold worker who touched a wall of the plant.

The following are a sample of recent incidents reported by the Health and Safety Executive Quarterly reports.


Fatality at Pile 1 chimney
A man fell to his death in the infamous Pile number one reactor Windscale (shut down following 1957 fire)
To date many witness/evidence statements have been taken, and simulations of the incident circumstances have been witnessed. No decision has been yet made on what regulatory action to take.

Contamination of Maintenance Worker in B299
We investigated an incident where a mechanic became contaminated with plutonium whilst undertaking cable repairs within a glovebox. We will be reviewing BNFL's glovebox standards in the forthcoming year.

Fuel Flask Incident in B205

a fuel magazine became detached from flask lifting equipment during rod feed operations to the B205 dissolver.

Swarf Flask Venting Operating Rule Breach
During routine operations in FHP, a crane control system fault resulted in a flask remaining suspended from the crane for a period whilst recovery operations were organised. During this period BNFL were not able to vent the flask in the period required by the operating rule. BNFL has investigated the event and we will consider the content of the report.

Q2 report 2003

2.2.3 Site Transport
incident which occurred in February 2003. Whilst BNFL operatives were loading a trailer (unhitched from its tractor unit) with scaffold material in the SDP scaffolding compound, the trailer rolled 27m down a slight incline and crashed into B861.2. No personnel were injured and the building was evacuated and made safe.

2.2.4 Contamination of Operators in B299
Since the last report, there have been a further two instances skin contamination in B299.

Q3 report.
2.2 INCIDENTS
2.2.1 Fatality at Pile 1 chimney
The Police are still examining a number of issues, the Coroner’s Inquiry cannot be held until they have completed their work.

2.2.2 Contamination of Operators in B299
In the last report, two instances of skin contamination following glove failures in B299 were reported.
There has been one minor event since then, where a fitter had been attributed with a small internal radiation exposure.

2.2.3 Magnox Reprocessing Plant – Evacuation
There was an evacuation of the Magnox reprocessing plant in August following coincident problems with the system that keeps the fuel dissolver vessel below atmospheric pressure and with the mechanism that allows the loading of fuel rods. As a result, there was a release of radioactive material into the working area.

2.2.4 Magnox Reprocessing Plant – Personal Contamination
BNFL notified NII in September that a maintenance fitter had received an internal radiation exposure following work in a process cell in May 2003. BNFL has said that the contamination event that led to the exposure was not reported to the individual’s supervisor or line management at the time and therefore, no investigation had been undertaken.

2.2.5 B570 Ventilation System
In July BNFL investigated a reduction in the airflow through the ventilation system serving some of the controlled areas on the B570 plant. The cause was traced to the failure of a High Efficiency Particulate (HEPA) filter casing resulting in a quantity of filter medium traveling through the system, until it was caught on a flow grid, partially obscuring the flow.


Despite all this, BNFL act as if they have everything under control.
The plant is huge, complicated and they have no idea what to do in the long term with all the radiactive crap they produce.
They're now taking stuff from the Dounreay reactor in Scotland as the Scottish dump is full.

What's the answer to storing this stuff?
Well, according to the good old EU, lets flog it to the people!
Instead of paying a fortune to store 30 million tonnes of crap, the European nuke industry scrapped it at 50 cents a tonne and made a profit of $15,000,000 !!!
From crap to scrap!
That's right, check out the 1996 Euratom treaty, and look for a small but important piece on "Below Regulatory Concern"
this allows the Nuclear Industry to 'recycle' what it calls 'low level' nuclear waste into CONSUMER GOODS , y'know knives, forks, cars, TV sets, wheelchairs and toaster... just not surgical equipment or equipment for testing for radiation, like geiger counters.

Yes, this was passed, and YES in Ireland as well. And NO they DID NOT MENTION IT to the public at large.

BNFL keeps arguing about jobs, 11,000 people are employed at Sellafield. Well, they don't need to be employed at production do they? It will take a lot of people a long, long, time to decommission this garbage site so the sooner they start, the better, and of course, if they stop producing more garbage it would make more sense (to everyone except the fanatics who run the nuclear industry)