nuclear-news

Speaking to the Westfälischer Anzeiger, 83-year-old retired engineer Hermann Schollmeyer apparently decided it was time to come clean, three decades after the incident he describes.

The official story had always been that radioactive waste was unintentionally leaked into the air at the THTR reactor in Hamm in May 1986, the western German newspaper reports.

But Schollmeyer now claims that the plant used the cover of the Chernobyl – which had released a cloud of radioactive waste over western Europe – to pump their own waste into the atmosphere, believing no one would notice.

“It was done intentionally,” Schollmeyer said. “We had problems at the plant and I was present at a few of the meetings.”

The problems related to balls of radioactive fuel getting stuck in the plant’s pipework…….

When asked why it took him so long to come forward about the incident, the engineer said “no one asked me before.”

Hubertus Zdebel, a member of parliament for the Left Party, told Neues Deutschland that “if Dr. Schollmeyer’s account is accurate we are talking about a scandalous and criminal action.” http://www.thelocal.de/20160520/german-nuclear-plant-pumped-radioactive-waste-into-air