Today's response by BNFL to February's three damning inspectors' reports on Sellafield is woefully inadequate, Greenpeace said. The environmental group highlighted the continuing threat to human health and the environment from BNFL's nuclear reprocessing plant and BNFL's failure to address fundamental production and quality control problems.
Greenpeace was responding to BNFL's Chief Executive, Norman Askew, who today announced a major management restructuring and a two-year action plan called "Going Forward Safely".
Greenpeace nuclear campaigner Dr Helen Wallace said, "The fundamental problems with BNFL's business are not addressed in this report. Askew is treating the symptoms, not the cause. As long as Sellafield clings to its dying plutonium business the threat to human health and the environment continues."
The three damning Nuclear Installations Inspectorate (NII) reports, published in February, revealed safety levels at Sellafield described as "only just tolerable" (1). They also confirmed a build -up of highly dangerous liquid nuclear waste on the site, and the deliberate falsification of safety records on plutonium fuel (MOX) shipped to Japan. Since the revelations, BNFL's other regulator, the Environment Agency has added to the NII's criticisms by saying they "seriously question the competence of BNFL's management of radioactive waste and its commitment to environmental protection."(2)
Last week, Greenpeace and the Japanese campaign group, Green Action, wrote jointly to the NII, revealing new evidence published in the UK, Germany and Japan since the NII reports (3). This evidence shows that the NII's investigation into the falsification of safety data on MOX fuel was far too limited to discover the true extent or causes of the problem.
Dr Wallace said, "The NII were wrong to assure the Japanese people that BNFL's fuel is safe. Their investigation failed to recognise the fundamental production difficulties that BNFL has in making nuclear fuel from itsgrowing stockpile of plutonium. BNFL's plutonium trade, always indefensible, is also economically un-viable."
Nuclear reprocessing at Sellafield separates nuclear weapons-useable plutonium from nuclear waste fuel and discharges large quantities of nuclear waste directly into the sea and air, threatening the environment and human health. BNFL's customers for MOX fuel in Japan, Germany and Switzerland have all suspended business with the company. There is no other peaceful use for plutonium.
Since the NII reports were released, Denmark and Ireland have proposed an immediate end to the ongoing discharges of nuclear waste into the sea from nuclear reprocessing at Sellafield and La Hague in France. The proposal will be considered by the OSPAR Commission, which is charged with the prevention of marine pollution in the North-East Atlantic region, in Copenhagen 26-30 June.
Dr Wallace said. "We call on Tony Blair to back the Danish proposal now. Management reshuffles will not stop this dirty, dangerous, polluting industry. It is time for the Government to act and close down nuclear reprocessing at Sellafield."
