22 February 2009
The safety schemes meant to protect the communities around the Clyde from a nuclear accident fail to take account of the risks from submarines damaged by accidents at sea.
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) and the government’s Health and Safety Executive have admitted that their hazard evaluations for submarine berths do not cover the dangers posed by boats returning after crashes.
Last week it emerged that HMS Vanguard, a submarine armed with Trident nuclear missiles, returned to the Clyde naval base after a collision earlier this month with a nuclear-armed French submarine, Le Triomphant, in the Atlantic.
In the early hours of Friday morning the damaged Vanguard was moved from the explosives handling jetty at Coulport on Loch Long to the shiplift at Faslane on Gare Loch, so it can be inspected. The operation was filmed by anti-nuclear activists.
The MoD has said very little about the damage suffered by Vanguard, other than to stress that there had been “no compromise to nuclear safety”. The Sunday Herald understands, however, that its outer hull has been dented.
This will need to be repaired, otherwise the submarine’s movement in the water will be noisier and more detectable. There are rumours around Faslane that its torpedo tubes might also have been damaged, though this has not been confirmed.
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) oversees a formal “hazard identification and risk evaluation” for all nuclear submarine berths. This is meant to set out plans for protecting or evacuating people in the event of an emergency.
But this evaluation doesn’t include risks from submarines damaged at sea, like Vanguard. “This is outside the scope of activities allowed at a submarine operational berth,” the HSE said in response to a recent request under freedom of information law.
HSE also stated last week that it had no assessments or estimates of the probability of nuclear submarines colliding at sea. “We do not hold the information,” it said.
The Scottish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament pointed out that Trident submarines contained a volatile mixture of torpedos, missiles, nuclear warheads and a nuclear reactor. “A missile explosion could scatter radiation across hundreds of miles,” warned the group’s co-ordinator, John Ainslie.
“The MoD should come clean and admit what happened in the collision. The HSE should carry out their own independent assessment of the risk of an accident at sea and they shouldn't accept at face value the MoD's assurance that everything is OK.”
After Vanguard’s collision, the HSE was assured by the MoD that there were no nuclear risks. “In such circumstances the existing hazard identification and risk evaluation of nuclear submarine berths remains appropriate and adequate,” said an HSE spokesman.
A spokeswoman for the MoD said: “As part of our safety measures, approval is sought for any submarine wishing to enter port with a known defect that is assessed to be outside of the scope of the safety case at that port.”
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