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February 1998 RADIOACTIVE DISCHARGES FROM SELLAFIELD: The 1998 Public Consultation Introduction An eight-week public consultation, due to end on 16 March 1998, is being held into discharges of radioactive waste from the notorious Sellafield nuclear plant. Sellafield is the home of two nuclear reprocessing plants, the Thermal Oxide Reprocesssing Plant (THORP) and the ageing Magnox reprocessing plant. These plants separate plutonium and uranium from nuclear waste fuel. In the process they discharge nuclea r wastes directly into the sea and air. Sellafield and the two other commercial nuclear reprocessing sites in Europe – Dounreay in Scotland and La Hague in France – cause over 90% of the radioactive discharges into the North Atlantic region 1. They also add to the World’s stockpile of weapons-useable plutonium2 and to the piles of solid radioactive waste building up in the UK3 and France4. BNFL, which owns Sellafield, has proposed new plans for Sellafield’s radioactive discharges. This briefing reviews the changes that the Environment Agency, which regulates radioactive discharges in England and Wales, is planning to allow5-6. All discharges of nuclear waste pose a threat to the environment and human health. There is no safe dose of radioactivity7. The new plans include:
These new nuclear discharge plans cannot be justified. Greenpeace believes new plans should be made which stop nuclear discharges to air and sea. The discharges can be cut significantly by storing existing nuclear wastes in dry above-ground stores 8, where the wastes can be properly managed and monitored. No new nuclear wastes should be created. Failure to prevent liquid discharges Last year, Environment Minister Michael Meacher promised sharp cuts in discharges of nuclear waste from Sellafield into the sea9. He also said10, "…in the Irish Sea off Sellafield there have been real problems recently discovered in lobsters, where there have been levels found in them of a radionuclide called technetium-99 which has risen sharply and worryingly in recent years and is now we ll above the EU limits for consumption after a nuclear accident. It is precisely that sort of problem that today’s policy is directed at. We want to put a stop to that." The governments of the OSPAR Commission, which deals with marine pollution in the North-East Atlantic region, all welcomed Mr Meacher’s statement11. The Environment Agency’s new plans mean that wastes containing technetium-99 (Tc-99) would be released more slowly into the sea12. But these plans are not a genuine attempt to implement the Government’s new policy. In f act, the sea would still be used as a dustbin for all the nuclear waste at Sellafield containing Tc-9913, and fish and shellfish would still be at risk. Not only would the current backlog of Tc-99 wastes all be dumped into the sea, more of this waste would continue to be produced in Sellafield’s ageing Magnox reprocessing plant. Tc-99 is radioactive for many thousands of years (its ‘half-life’ is 213,000 years), so discharging it more slowly does not noticeably reduce the amount of radioactivity that ends up in the sea14. The Nuclear Instal lations Inspectorate (NII) has said15 that the new plans "will in no way reduce the total dose [of radioactivity] that will be received by members of the public but will increase the dose to the workforce".
The Magnox plant takes nuclear waste fuel from Britain’s ageing Magnox nuclear reactors, all of which are operating way beyond their 25-year design-lifetimes. The whole Magnox programme should have been shut down long ago. Greenpeace believes that no m ore of these wastes should be created and existing wastes should be stored dry on-site, not poured into the sea16. Increases in discharges of radioactive gases The Environment Agency also plans to allow BNFL to increase its discharges of radioactive gases from Sellafield. The increases are in discharges of iodine-129, carbon-14 and ruthenium-10617. Iodine-129 and carbon-14 a re both very long-lived radionuclides (they have ‘half-lives’ of 5700 years and 16 million years respectively) so they remain dangerous for extremely long times. All these planned increases in discharges come from the reprocessing plants or from reprocessing wastes. The biggest increase is due to discharges of iodine-129 from Sellafield’s new Solvent Treatment Plant (STP), which will take wastes from THORP and the Magnox reprocessing plant. The increase in the doses of radioactivity to people living near the plant from this radioactive iodine alone is officially estimated to be 17 microSieverts per year18. This compares with an estimated dose of 33 microSieverts per year from the whole controversial THORP plant, when it was given Government approval in 199319. The Environment Agency claims that it is maintaining "downward pressure" on discharges by adding a new overall site licence for iodine-129, carbon-14 and ruthenium-106. It has cut the discharge limits for some chimneys in order to allow incre ased discharge limits for others. But there is a difference between actual discharges and their upper limits, to allow a margin in the actual operation of the plant. BNFL’s supposed discharge cuts are only in operational margins, not in actual discharges20, but the increases are in actual discharges. In reality, discharges of radioactive gases are being allowed to increase yet again. These increases in discharges are unjustifiable. They are likely to increase the risks to the health of people living near the plant, including the risk of cancer. Radioactive carbon and iodine can also be expected to spread world-wide over many years into the far future. Relaxing controls on THORP THORP began operation in1994, when Government approval was granted on the basis that radioactive discharges from THORP into the environment, and the expected detrimental effects on human health, were justified by the economic benefit THORP would bring to the UK21. The basis of the economic assessment was kept secret. The Environment Agency’s new plans include proposals to relax controls on THORP’s radioactive discharges. The proposal is to scrap the ‘throughput-related’ discharge limits for THORP22. These limits link the amounts of nuclear waste discharged to the sea and air to the amount of nuclear waste fuel that is reprocessed. Scrapping them would mean that at low operating rates, THORP’s discharges would be allowed to increase significantly. Greenpeace believes these plans add to growing evidence that the balance between the benefits and detriments claimed for THORP in 1994 was wrong. Radioactive discharges from THORP cannot be justified. No more nuclear waste fuel should be reprocessed an d imports of nuclear waste fuel to THORP from overseas must stop. Conclusions The Environment Agency’s new plans for nuclear discharges from Sellafield cannot be justified. New plans should be made which stop these discharges by storing existing nuclear wastes and nuclear waste fuel in above-ground dry stores where they can be properly managed, monitored and retrieved if necessary. The consultation Objections to the Environment Agency’s plans should be sent by 16 March to: Environment Agency PO Box 33 (Gaseous/Liquid Variations) Mitre House Church Street Lancaster LA1 1FP UK
For further information contact: Dr Helen Wallace Greenpeace, Canonbury Villas, London N1 2PN, UK
References 1 - Nyffeler, F., et al (1996), The Atlantic Ocean, Radionuclides in the Oceans, Les Editions de Physique, 1-28.2 - Royal Society (1998), Management of Separated Plutonium, February 1998. 3 - Nirex (1997), The 1994 UK Radioactive Waste Inventory, Fig 6.2, 6.4, 6.6. 4 - WISE (1997), Cogema-La Hague; The Waste Production Techniques, May 1997, Paris. 5 - Environment Agency (1998), Explanatory Memorandum to Accompany the Draft Variation to the Certificate of Authorisation for the Disposal of Waste Gases, Mists and Dusts from the Premises of British Nuclear Fuels PLC at Sellaf ield. 6 - Environment Agency (1998), Explanatory Memorandum to Accompany the Draft Variation to the Certificate of Authorisation for the Disposal of Low Level Liquid Waste from the Premises of British Nuclear Fuels PLC at Sellafield. 7 - NRPB (1995), Risk of Radiation Induced Cancer at Low Doses and Low Dose Rates for Radiation Protection Purposes, documents of the NRPB, Vol. 6, No.1. 8 - See, for example, Scottish Nuclear Ltd (1992), Environmental Assessment of Proposed Dry Store at Torness Nuclear Power Station. 9 - Rt Hon Michael Meacher MP, Environment Minister, Environment Debate, Labour Party Conference 1997. 10 - Rt Hon Michael Meacher MP, Environment Minister, BBC Radio 4 Today Programme, 2 September 1997. 11 - OSPAR 97, Summary Record, Brussels, 2-5 September 1997. 12 - Ref6, Paras A3.20, A3.22. 13 - Ibid. 14 - Sumner, D. (1997), Technetium-99 at British Nuclear Fuels Sellafield Facilities, Greenpeace International. 15 - Letter from r Haworth, HM Principal Inspector (Nuclear Installations) to Miss A Hajnrych, - Environment Agency, 8 January 1997. 16 - Greenpeace (1998), The Reduction and Elimination of Tc-99 Discharges from Sellafield, Submitted by Greenpeace International to the Working group on Radioactive Substances (RAD98) of the OSPAR Commission, Stockholm, 19-23 Ja nuary 1998. 17 - Ref 5, p.2. 18 - Ibid. 19 - Decision by the Secretary of State for the Environment and the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food in Respect of an Application from British Nuclear Fuels for Authorisations to Discharge Radioactive Wastes from the Sellafield Site, para 52. 20 - Compare Ref5, p2, with BNFL(1996), Annual report on Radioactive Discharges and Monitoring of the Environment 1995, Vol 1, Table 4, and MAFF(1997), Radioactivity in Food and the Environment, 1996, Table2. 21 - Mr Justice Potts, R v Secretary of State, ex p Greenpeace, [1994] 4 All ER 321-416, 2 November 1994. 22 - Ref 5, para 4.2; Ref 6, para 4.12. |