nuclear-news

Fears of a major leak at Sellafield nuclear plant should be taken seriously

There are reports of more than 100 safety problems at the Sellafield nuclear power plant and a leak first reported four years ago has been allowed to worsen. It’s a nightmarish prospect and I hope someone is taking urgent remedial action, writes Cumbria native Chris Blackhurst

Every so often, when we were children, Father would borrow a portable
Geiger counter and take us to the beach. While we – my sister and I –
played on the sand, he would wander around with the machine. Whenever it
neared a clump of seaweed the gadget would click furiously and loudly.

He taught in a secondary school and the device was in their laboratory. We
lived at Barrow-in-Furness in Cumbria, just down the coast from Sellafield,
Europe’s largest nuclear reprocessing plant.

Back then, we would see
ships from Japan regularly dock and unload their radioactive cargo onto
special freight trains for transporting to Sellafield. Meanwhile, in the
nearby shipyard, they were building submarines powered by nuclear reactors.

By and large, we Cumbrians were grateful for the atomic business.
Employment in that part of the world does not come easily. There is the
adjacent Lake District, with its tourist trade, but otherwise, that’s
about it as far as mass numbers are concerned. Sellafield and the shipyard
are by far the biggest single employers.

Not everyone was so delighted. The
campaign group Cumbrians Opposed to a Radioactive Environment made plenty
of noise, but because of the jobs and cash that was flowing into the local
economy from things nuclear, struggled to have any impact.

We knew that the
risk of a spillage, of a major accident, was an ever-present. It was a
given, it went with the Faustian pact of relative prosperity in return for
accepting the danger. We put it from our minds, reassuring ourselves that
the powers-that-be would ensure our wellbeing and that the standards would
be maintained.

Reading of a worsening leak from a crumbling silo of
radioactive waste and fears concerning cracks in a reservoir of toxic
sludge at Sellafield sparks alarm and other memories. The authorities had
not always been so vigilant.

The dreadful thought is that none of this
comes as a major surprise. As we’ve discovered recently, successive
governments have let the nation’s infrastructure creak and wear away. If
schools are forced to close because they have asbestos in them; if other
public buildings are shut for the same reason or because they are in a
state of neglect and no longer fit for purpose; if our motorways and
railways are in a constant state of disrepair, what prospect is there of
Sellafield being any different? Equally, poor working culture has been
shown to be rife in many areas of British life.

 Independent 9th Dec 2023

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/comment/sellafield-nuclear-plant-leak-fears-b2460880.html

December 12, 2023 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | PERSONAL STORIES, UK