nuclear-news

50 years of shocking neglect- the danger of UK’s Sellafield nuclear site

The plant is the UK’s largest and most hazardous nuclear site, storing enough high and intermediate level radioactive waste to fill 27 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

Sellafield nuclear waste storage poses ‘intolerable risk’ http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cumbria-20228176  7 November 2012 Sellafield is the UK’s largest and most hazardous nuclear site An “intolerable risk” is being posed by hazardous waste stored in run-down buildings at Sellafield nuclear plant, a watchdog has found.

The National Audit Office (NAO) also said that for 50 years, the operators of the Cumbria installation failed to develop a long-term plan for waste. Costs of plant-decommissioning has also spiralled out of control, it said. Operator Sellafield Ltd, said it welcomed the report’s findings and was “making improvements”.

The plant is the UK’s largest and most hazardous nuclear site, storing enough high and intermediate level radioactive waste to fill 27 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

The NAO report states however, that owners of the station do not know
how long it will take to build storage and treatment centres for the
hazardous material or how much the final bill for decommissioning the
plant is likely to be.

‘Ripe for dithering’
It also concluded that over the five decades it was open, operators
failed to plan how to dispose of the radioactive waste and some of the
older facilities have “deteriorated so much that their contents pose
significant risks to people and the environment”.

A long-term plan to clean up the Nuclear Decommissioning
Authority-owned site, was agreed last year after an earlier one
stalled because it was “unrealistic”.

Margaret Hodge, who chairs the public accounts committee, said:
“Projects of this length and ambition are ripe for dithering and
delay.

“I am dismayed to discover the clean-up of Sellafield is no different.
The authority’s revised plan sees critical milestones shunted back by
up to seven years.

“Hazardous radioactive waste is housed in buildings which pose
‘intolerable risks to people and the environment’. “My concern is that
unless the authority holds Sellafield Limited to a clear and
rigorously benchmarked plan, timetables will continue to slip and
costs spiral. It is totally unacceptable to allow today’s poor
management to shift the burden and expense of Sellafield to future
generations of taxpayers and their families.”

‘Historic neglect’
The NAO report concludes that progress in 12 of the 14 major buildings
and equipment projects considered “critical” for reducing risk, which
range in cost from £21m to £1.3bn, also failed to achieve what they
were supposed to and had not provided good value for money, the NAO
also concluded.

There “is still considerable uncertainty in the schedules and costs”
of the projects, the NAO said.

Around 240 of Sellafield’s 1,400 buildings are nuclear facilities and
so far 55 buildings on the site have been decommissioned.

Amyas Morse, head of the National Audit Office, said: “Owing to
historic neglect, the authority faces a considerable challenge in
taking forward decommissioning at Sellafield.

“It is good that the authority now has a more robust lifetime plan in
place but it cannot say with certainty how long it will take to deal
with hazardous radioactive waste or how much it will cost.”

November 7, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | UK, wastes