Engineering news
Sellafield and the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority have moved to quell concerns about the risk of a nuclear incident after a BBC Panorama investigation broadcast this week highlighted a number of safety concerns at the waste reprocessing and storage site.
The documentary is based primarily on an account from an anonymous whistleblower who was a senior manager at the site, and former Sellafield managers from Nuclear Management Partners (NMP), the US firm which lost the contract to run Sellafield earlier this year.
David Pethick, a director at NMP, said some of the infrastructure was “poor” and that there were “facilities or equipment on the verge of breaking down”.
The whistleblower pointed to staffing levels that were below the minimum required levels for safety and that alarms were routinely ignored. He also said that liquid containing uranium and plutonium had been stored on site for years in around 2000 plastic bottles, and that the bottles should only have been used for short term storage and the plastic was degrading.
The documentary also revealed leaked reports that stated Sellafield had suffered “years of neglect” that had led to “intolerable conditions”.
Sellafield and the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority said: “Sellafield is safe, there is no question about that. Maintaining safety is the priority at Sellafield. Employees work around the clock every day to ensure that the site is safe today, tomorrow and in the future.
“Current safety performance is excellent and improving and the workers are making great progress in cleaning up Europe’s most complex nuclear site on behalf of the UK taxpayer.”
Trade union Prospect, which represents 5,000 staff working at Sellafield, said that the programme presented “a partial and sensationalised view of safety” at the site.
Garry Graham, Prospect deputy general secretary, said: “Our members not only work on the site but also live with their families and friends in the local community. The notion that they would deliberately jeopardise safety simply does not ring true.
“It is surprising that representatives of NMP have chosen to raise their concerns in the way that they have. They had been running the site for six years when they lost the contract - and were involved in the transition over the following 15 months. If they had such pressing safety concerns at the time one wonders why they weren’t raised then?”