nuclear-news

Sellafield Construction of new “Box Encapsulation Plant” Requires Dumping Nearly 1 Million Litres of Contaminated Water into the River Calder Every Day For An Unknown Length of Time

And they already use the River Calder as a sewer for radioactive crapola, there is sacrifice and then there is sacrifice.

Marianne Birkby, Apr 21, 2025, Radiation Free Lakeland

If anyone can make sense of this document received from the Environment Agency then please do get in touch – the deadline for comments to the EA is 23rd April.

From what I can see the plan is to dig a tunnel and drive multiple piles into the alluvium sandstone below Sellafield for a “Box Encapsulation Plant Product Store 2 (BEPPS2)”. This new build would be just 700 metres from the coast and would facilitate transfer of the Magnox wastes including from the silos that have been leaking at a rate of knots for decades into the groundwater.

This is the information below, no-one begrudges the nuclear industry repackaging the wastes – we are relying on them to repackage the wastes again and again into eternity but we should absolutely begrudge them the label of “clean energy.” An industry that produces wastes that should be isolated from the biosphere and has polluted an existing major aquifer (and more) as they admit in this document is not “clean.” The tone of this Sellafield application to the Environment Agency is one of: “we have you over a barrel so you need to allow us to do this no matter the cost to the River Calder or the major aquifer that we have already polluted.” Any help on our response to the Environment Agency about this application would be really welcome. People can contact me here: wastwater@protonmail.com

The application by Sellafield to the Environment Agency is for a full licence to abstract water from the Alluvium Sandstone Deposit at Sellafield, Cumbria, within the area marked by National Grid References NY 03193 03004, NY 03240 02991, NY 03175 02939 and NY 03223 02927. [Map here on original]

The application is to abstract water as follows:

· 40 cubic metres an hour

· 960 cubic metres a day

· 350,400 cubic metres a year

· between 1 April and 31 March inclusive in each year.

“The water will be used for the purpose of dewatering to aid construction.

The Box Encapsulation Plant Product Store 2 (BEPPS2) facility is one in a series of Intermediate Level Waste (ILW) stores required to provide future storage and enable operational continuity for High Hazard Risk Reduction work at Sellafield. BEPPS2 construction excavations will generate construction waters – rainfall, infiltration through soil, and groundwater due to digging and piling required for construction. This will initially require an Abstraction Licence to dewater excavations and transfer the collected water for discharge.” Environment Agency

Documents and tables …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. https://radiationfreelakeland.substack.com/p/sellafield-construction-of-new-box?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=2706406&post_id=161731523&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=ln98x&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

April 22, 2025 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | UK, water