nuclear-news

Together Against Sizewell environmental group angry at the coming destruction of marine life, as acoustic fish deterrent will not be installed at Hinkley Point C nuclear

 A notification from the Environment Agency distributed on the first of
August, starts with an encouraging statement reminding us that it is
responsible for regulating environmental protection at nuclear sites,
ensuring that people and the environment are properly protected.

But behind the corporate speak of ‘permit variation’, the addition of ‘new
limits and conditions’ and ‘discharge activity’ within the Water
Activity Discharge permit for Sizewell C’s so-called sister plant at
Hinkley Point C in Somerset, lies the cold, stark fact that the Environment
Agency, which claims to ‘protect and improve the environment’, has
removed the requirement to install an acoustic fish deterrent (AFD) at the
head of its seawater intake in the Bristol Channel.

In doing so the EA has condemned millions of fish and other marine creatures to their fate of
impingement, injury and death adding to the many millions of fish fry, fish
eggs, small fish and other marine biota that will be killed when entrained
in the cooling system of the plant.

Moreover, this situation is due to be repeated at Sizewell, meaning that Sizewell Bay fish stocks and marine creatures will likewise face decimation should the plant ever be built. A
spokesperson for Together Against Sizewell C (TASC), said today, ‘Our
spineless environmental regulator has simply rolled over to do the nuclear
industry’s dirty work, directly contradicting its promise to protect and
improve the environment and making itself complicit with the ceaseless
attack on this country’s biodiversity.

It is shocking that our young
people have to witness such shameless sacrifice of millions of creatures on
the altar of wildly misplaced government policy which is recognised by its
own Science and Technology Committee as fantasy. When will we have a
regulatory system in the UK which is capable of demonstrating enough spine
to put the environment above corporate greed and the arm lock of government
policy? The Environment Agency should be ashamed of itself.’

 Together Against Sizewell C 2nd Aug 2023

https://tasizewellc.org.uk/#

August 4, 2023 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | opposition to nuclear, UK