Greenpeace described today's announcement by the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate (NII) as "A shocking indictment of Sellafield's continuing safety crisis."
In particular the NII reported today that BNFL has so far failed to fully implement 25 of the 28 Sellafield site safety recommendations the NII made last year, and that it expects full completion to take until the end of 2002.
"When it comes to safety and the environment, Sellafield is a disaster zone," said Greenpeace spokesperson, Dr Helen Wallace, "Dangerous near-misses and dodgy practices continue unabated."
One year ago, three damning reports from the NII revealed a range of major safety concerns including:
- "Operation of a plant with multiple alarms showing in the control room".
- Confirmation that safety data had been falsified by workers on MOX fuel delivered to Japan and Germany (data for Swiss fuel also contained irregularities).
- Confirmation that the tanks of high-level liquid nuclear waste at Sellafield pose a growing safety hazard.
"Official assurances are bland and meaningless, in the light of the appalling safety record on the site", said Dr Wallace.
In the last few weeks alone:
- Ministers received an emergency brief, when explosive gases built up in the building housing high-level liquid nuclear waste tanks at Sellafield. The alarm was ignored for several hours.
- The Environment Agency announced a second prosecution, due to be heard today, but now delayed until April, for BNFL's failure to keep track of its radioactive sources.
- The MOX programme in Japan, BNFL's big hope for future business, has been further delayed due to local opposition at reactor sites.
Other incidents last year included: worker sabotage of MOX fuel and a robot arm that handles high-level nuclear waste; forging of entry passes by workers; workers testing an air rifle they had smuggled into a "controlled area" on the Sellafield site; a ban on the use of some of BNFL's rail wagons after a nuclear waste transport jumped the tracks; a chance discovery by France's nuclear safety agency that some of BNFL's nuclear transport flasks could rupture within only 175 seconds in a severe fire.
Greenpeace believes that BNFL's continued pollution and appalling safety record will remain out of control unless all nuclear reprocessing and plutonium fuel (MOX) production is stopped.
"BNFL's future business should be in the responsible management and clean-up of our existing legacy of nuclear waste. It should not be clinging to the dirty, dangerous practices of nuclear reprocessing and the plutonium trade", said Dr Wallace.
Further information:
Please contact:
Greenpeace Press Office on 020 7865 8255
