and health issues
The site has been the subject of much controversy because of discharges of radioactive material, mainly accidental but some alleged to have been deliberate. Since the early 1970s and the rise of the
environmental movement in the US and Europe, there has also been general scepticism of the nuclear industry. In part this has not been helped by the industry's early connections to the nuclear weapons programme.
[edit] Radiological releases
Between 1950 and 2000 there have been 21 serious incidents or accidents involving some off-site radiological releases that merited a rating on the
International Nuclear Event Scale, one at level 5, five at level 4 and fifteen at level 3. Additionally during the 1950s and 1960s there were protracted periods of known, deliberate, discharges to the atmosphere of plutonium and irradiated
uranium oxide particulates.
[45] These frequent incidents, together with the large
2005 Thorp plant leak which was not detected for nine months, have led some to doubt the effectiveness of the managerial processes and safety culture on the site over the years.
In the effort to build an
independent British nuclear weapon in the 1940s and 1950s, the Sellafield plant was constructed; diluted radioactive waste discharged by pipeline into the
Irish Sea.
[46] Some claim that the Irish Sea remains one of the most heavily contaminated seas in the world because of these discharges.
[47] The Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the North-East Atlantic (OSPAR Convention) reports an estimated 200 kilograms (441 lb) of plutonium has been deposited in the marine sediments of the Irish Sea.
[48] Cattle and fish in the area are contaminated with plutonium-239 and
caesium-137 from these sediments and from other sources such as the radioactive rain that fell on the area after the
Chernobyl disaster. Most of the area's long-lived radioactive
technetium comes from the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel at the Sellafield facility.
[49] Technetium-99 is a radioactive element which is produced by nuclear fuel reprocessing, and also as a by-product of medical facilities (for example
Ireland is responsible for the discharge of approximately 11 grams or 6.78
gigabecquerels of technetium-99 each year despite not having a nuclear industry).
[50] Because it is almost uniquely produced by nuclear fuel reprocessing, technetium-99 is an important element as part of the OSPAR Convention since it provides a good tracer for discharges into the sea.
In itself, the technetium discharges do not represent a significant radiological hazard,
[51] and recent studies have noted "...that in the most recently reported dose estimates for the most exposed Sellafield group of seafood consumers (
FSA/
SEPA 2000), the contributions from technetium-99 and
actinide nuclides from Sellafield (<100
µSv) was less than that from
210Po attributable to discharges from the
Whitehaven phosphate processing plant and probably less than the dose from naturally occurring background levels of 210Po."
[52] Because of the need to comply with the OSPAR Convention,
British Nuclear Group (the licensing company for Sellafield) have recently commissioned a new process in which technetium-99 is removed from the waste stream and vitrified in glass blocks.
[53]
Discharges into the sea of radioactive effluents - mainly
caesium-137 - from the
Magnox reprocessing plant's storage pond amounted to 9,000
TBq during the peak year, 1975.
[54]
There has been concern that the Sellafield area will become a major dumping ground for unwanted nuclear material, since there are currently no long-term facilities for storing
High-Level Waste (HLW), although the UK has current contracts to reprocess spent fuel from all over the world. However, contracts signed since 1976 between
BNFL and overseas customers require that all HLW be returned to the country of origin. The UK retains low- and intermediate-level waste resulting from its reprocessing activity, and instead ships out a radiologically equivalent amount of its own HLW. This substitution policy is intended to be environmentally neutral and to speed return of overseas material by reducing the number of shipments required, since HLW is far less bulky.
[55]
1983 was the year of the "Beach Discharge Incident" in which high radioactive discharges containing
ruthenium and
rhodium 106, both
beta-emitting
isotopes, resulted in the closure of beaches along a 10-mile stretch of coast between St. Bees and Eskmeals, along with warnings against swimming in the sea.
[56][57] BNFL received a fine of £10,000 for this discharge.
[58] 1983 was also the year in which
Yorkshire Television produced a documentary "Windscale: The Nuclear Laundry", which claimed that the low levels of radioactivity that are associated with waste streams from nuclear plants such as Sellafield did pose a non-negligible risk.
[59]
[edit] B30
Building B30, colloquially known as dirty thirty, is a pond which was used to store spent fuel from MAGNOX power stations. The pond is 20m wide, 150m long and 6m deep. Birds
can land on its surface and take small amounts of radioactive substances with them. The pond was used from 1960 until 1986. A confinement wall is scheduled to be built in the future to help it withstand earthquakes. The pool is to be emptied and dismantled in years to come.
It is impossible to determine exactly how much radioactive waste is stored in B30; algae is forming in the pool, making visual examinations difficult. British authorities have not been able to provide the Euratom inspectors with precise data. The European Commission has thus sued Great Britain in the European Court of Justice.
[60][61] There are expected to be about 1.3 tons of plutonium, 400 kg of which are in mud sediments.
[62] It is thought the pool also contains waste from the Tokai Mura plant (Japan).
[63]
Radiation around the pool can get so high that a person is not allowed to stay more than 2 minutes, seriously affecting decommissioning.
[64] The pool is not watertight, time and weather have created cracks in the concrete, letting contaminated water leak.
[edit] Organ removal inquiry
In 2007 an inquiry was launched into the removal of tissue from a total of 65 deceased nuclear workers, some of whom worked at Sellafield.
[65] It has been alleged that the tissue was removed without seeking permission from the relatives of the late workers. Michael Redfern QC has been appointed to lead the investigation.
[66] At the same time
The Observer revealed that official documents showed that during the 1960s volunteer workers at Sellafield had participated in secret
Cold War experiments to assess the biological effect of exposure to radioactive substances, such as from ingesting
caesium-134.
[67]
The inquiry final report was published in November 2010,
[68] reporting that "...body parts had been removed between 1961 and 1992. The deaths of 76 workers – 64 from Sellafield and 12 from other UK nuclear plants – were examined, although the scope of the inquiry was later significantly widened."
[69] The person behind this scheme was Dr Geoffrey Schofield, who became BNFL’s Company Chief Medical Officer, and who died in 1985. Sellafield staff did not breach any legal obligation, did not consider their actions untoward, and published the scientific information obtained in peer-reviewed scientific journals. It was the hospital pathologists, who were profoundly ignorant of the law, who breached the
Human Tissue Act 1961 by giving Sellafield human organs, without any consents, under an informal arrangement.
[68]
[edit] Cancer risks
According to
Stephanie Cooke, the British Government has been "at pains over the years to play down attempts to correlate
cancers with Sellafield radioactivity, particularly when it involves individuals living near the plant but not working at it".
[70]
In 1983, the Medical Officer of West Cumbria announced that cancer fatality rates were actually lower around the nuclear plant than elsewhere in Great Britain.
[71] In the early 1990s, concern was raised in the UK about apparent clusters of
leukaemia near nuclear facilities.
A 1997 Ministry of Health report stated that children living close to Sellafield had twice as much plutonium in their teeth as children living more than 100 miles (160 km) away. Health Minister
Melanie Johnson said the quantities were minute and "presented no risk to public health". The
University of Dundee's Professor Eric Wright, a leading expert on blood disorders, challenged this claim, saying that even microscopic amounts of the man-made element might cause cancer.
[70]
Detailed studies carried out by the Committee on Medical Aspects of Radiation in the Environment (
COMARE) in 2003 reported no evidence of raised childhood cancer in general around nuclear power plants, but did report an excess of
leukaemia (cancer of the blood or bone) and
non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL) (blood cancer) near nuclear plants including Sellafield,
AWE Burghfield and
UKAEA Dounreay. COMARE's opinion is that "the excesses around Sellafield and Dounreay are unlikely to be due to chance, although there is not at present a convincing explanation for them".
[72] In earlier reports COMARE had suggested that "..no single factor could account for the excess of leukaemia and NHL but that a mechanism involving infection may be a significant factor affecting the risk of leukaemia and NHL in young people in Seascale."
[73]
[edit] Irish objections
Sellafield has been a matter of some consternation in
Ireland, with the
Irish Government and some members of the population concerned at the risk that such a facility may pose to the country. The Irish government has made formal complaints about the facility, and recently came to a friendly agreement with the
British Government about the matter, as part of which the
Radiological Protection Institute of Ireland and
An Garda Síochána (Irish Police Force) are now allowed access to the site. However, Irish government policy remains that of seeking the closure of the facility.
[citation needed]
[edit] Manx objections
The Government of the Isle of Man has also registered protests due to the risk posed by radioactive contamination, due to the proximity of the
Isle of Man. The Manx government has called for the site to be shut down.
[74] The Irish and Manx governments have collaborated on this issue, and brought it to the attention of the
British-Irish Council.
[75]
[edit] Norwegian objections
Similar objections to those held by the Irish government have been voiced by the
Norwegian government since 1997. Monitoring undertaken by the Norwegian Radiation Protection Authority has shown that the prevailing sea currents transport radioactive materials leaked into the sea at Sellafield along the entire coast of Norway and water samples have shown up to ten-fold increases in such materials as Technetium-99.
[76] Fears for the reputation of Norwegian fish as a safe food product have been a concern of the country's fishing industry, though the radiation levels have not been conclusively proved as dangerous for the fish.
[citation needed] The Norwegian government is also seeking closure of the facility
