SELLAFIELD AS HEAVILY CONTAMINATED WITH RADIOACTIVITY AS CHERNOBYL

9 October 1998

Amsterdam -- The area around the Sellafield reprocessing plant (UK) is as heavily contaminated with radioactivity as the zone around the stricken Chernobyl reactor in Ukraine. This is the conclusion emerging from the analyses of soil samples from both are as commissioned by Greenpeace to the University of Bremen (1).

Over the past few weeks the University of Bremen analysed the samples taken by Greenpeace in the area around Chernobyl. A comparison with radioactive pollution in the area around the UK reprocessing plant at Sellafield leads to the alarming conclusion that some of the figures for radioactivity at Sellafield are even higher than those for the Chernobyl area.

'Sellafield is a slow-motion Chernobyl, an accident played out over the last four decades', said Mike Townsley of Greenpeace International. "While an area of 30km radius around Chernobyl is prohibited access for people and any agricultural activity, th ere are no such restrictions around Sellafield".

Greenpeace will present these results today in Hamburg, to urge the new SPD/Green coalition Government to act now on their long-held policies of opposing continued reprocessing at Sellafield and La Hague in France. The SPD and Greens will meet on Sunda y 11th October to discuss their nuclear policy, and it seems possible that they will cancel their second set of contracts for reprocessing. They will also examine ways to cancel the base-load contracts already signed for an initial period of ten years.

'The region around the plutonium factory at Sellafield is as similarly contaminated with heavy radioactivity as the area around the calamitous Chernobyl reactor in Ukraine" said Heinz Laing of Greenpeace Germany. "An end must be put to this now. The nu clear industry and the German Government share the blame for this insidious disaster. Not one gram more nuclear waste should be allowed to be delivered to Sellafield or La Hague. Deciding to stop this is the least a 'Red-Green' coalition must do immediate ly."

People living by the reprocessing plant in Sellafield are today filing a suit against the Federal Export Office in Eschborn, which authorises nuclear exports abroad in the name of the Federal Government. The accusation made by the complainants says rep rocessing German nuclear waste at Sellafield impairs their right to life and freedom from bodily injury.

On the 20th October, the English and Welsh Environment Agency will meet to consider new authorisations for radioactive discharges from Sellafield. Greenpeace believes that this latest revelation, combined with the commitments made by the UK Government at the OSPAR meeting last July to substantially reduce discharges from reprocessing at Sellafield, should serve as a warning to the Environment Agency that levels of contamination around the Sellafield plant are already so severe that any further contamin ation presents an unacceptable risk to both current and future generations.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT:
- Mike Townsley, Greenpeace International, mobile +44 411 607 597
- Shaun Burnie, Greenpeace International, tel. +31 20 52 36 257.
Beta material and photos of the samples being taken are available from Greenpeace Communications at +31 20 52 49 - 543 (video) or 580 (photos).
A background briefing with details of the analysis is available on request at +31 20 52 49 546.
Visit Greenpeace International's Reprocessing Campaign website at:
http://www.greenpeace.org/~nuclear/reprocess.html

(1) Pollution with the americium-241 radioactive isotope in a soil sample eight hundred meters from the reactor in the Chernobyl disaster, for example, is around 1,300 becquerels per kilogram. In soil sampled seven miles away from the Sellafield plant, pollution from this isotope is as much as 30,000 becquerels per kilogram. The analyses carried out for Greenpeace by the University of Bremen also found cobalt-60 values of up to 40 becquerels per kilogram, and pollution from caesium -137 in concentrations of up to 9,400 becquerels per kilogram, seven miles from the UK reprocessing plant. Seven miles from the Chernobyl reactor, on the other hand, fewer than ten becquerels of cobalt-60, and approximately 7,400 becquerels of caesium-137 , were measured per kilogram.