from Sunday Herald, 20 September 2009
Thousands of litres of radioactive waste have accidentally leaked into the Firth of Clyde from the Hunterston nuclear power station in breach of pollution law, the Sunday Herald can reveal.
The station has been accused by the government watchdog, the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa), of breaking six legal promises it made to prevent people and the environment from being contaminated by radioactivity. Sepa says it is “deeply concerned” about the leak.
Environmental groups, politicians and local residents reacted with outrage to the revelation yesterday. They pointed out that any additional radiation in the environment increased the risk of cancers and other illnesses.
They also demanded to know why the accident, which occurred on 15 May, had been kept secret for four months. And they called on the UK government to abandon its plans to build a new programme of nuclear reactors.
“Once again the nuclear industry has shown itself to be totally inept when it comes to public and environmental safety,” said Lang Banks, a spokesman for the environmental group, WWF Scotland.
“It is about time the authorities began taking steps to prosecute. Nuclear power is a dirty, dangerous and expensive energy source and the sooner Scotland is nuclear-free the better.”
The Hunterston B advanced gas-cooled reactor plant in North Ayrshire has one of the worst records for safety incidents of any UK nuclear power station. According to government figures, it has now recorded 24 fires and leaks since 2001.
News of the latest, and perhaps the most serious, leak was disclosed in a report posted online last week by the government’s Nuclear Installations Inspectorate (NII). It said that there had been “an unauthorised unsampled discharge of radioactive liquid waste” after a routine test had gone badly wrong.
On 15 May engineers at Hunterston B were pressure testing discharge pipes from the plant’s low-level waste facility. But because valves in the pipes were incorrectly set up, about 2,600 litres of radioactive effluent spilled out into the Firth of Clyde when it should not have done.
Hunterston B’s operator, British Energy, which is now owned by the French company EDF, blocked any further discharges, and launched an internal inquiry. Sepa and the NII were also alerted and they both began their own investigations.
The investigations uncovered an alarming series of “shortcomings” in the safety checks and procedures at the plant. On 8 July Sepa’s radioactive substances specialist, Keith Hammond, wrote a stern "final warning letter" (116KB pdf) to Hunterston’s director, Ian Stewart.
“Sepa is deeply concerned over this matter,” said Hammond. “As a result of the event, the station appears to have contravened a number of conditions attached to its authorisation made under section 13 of the Radioactive Substances Act 1993.”
Hammond listed six conditions which he said Hunterston had breached. One was the requirement to “dispose of radioactive waste at times, in a form, and in a manner so as to minimise the radiological effects on the environment and members of the public”.
Other breaches included failures of management and supervision, the failure to use “best practicable means” to abide by the rules and the failure to monitor the discharge.
Because there was no firm evidence that the leak had harmed human health, Sepa decided not to refer the matter to the Procurator Fiscal for prosecution. But it did issue Hunterston with a strong reprimand.
“Any further contravention of the legislation is likely to result in enforcement action being taken against you by Sepa,” wrote Hammond. “Such enforcement action could include the submission of a report to the Procurator Fiscal recommending prosecution.”
Pete Roche, a former government adviser on radiation safety and an Edinburgh-based nuclear consultant said: “There is no such thing as a safe level of radiation, so any increase in discharges means an increased risk of cancers and health effects.”
He asked why it had taken so long for the accident to be made public, and suggested that nuclear inspectors were struggling to cope. “Yet another mistake by the industry is yet another reason not to go-ahead with Gordon Brown's nuclear nightmare,” he said.
Kenneth Gibson, the Scottish Nationalist MSP for Cunninghame North, which includes Hunterston, demanded to know why he had not be told about the leak. “Efforts must be redoubled to ensure it doesn't happen again,” he told the Sunday Herald.
“It is is very disappointing that this has happened and - regardless of one’s position on nuclear power - everyone demands confidence in the safety and disposal methods used by nuclear power stations.”
British Energy admitted an “inadvertent discharge” on 15 May, which it blamed on a “valve misalignment”. The waste was “predominantly” water from radiation workers’ showers, said a company spokesman.
“The discharge had no discernible impact on the environment as the volumes and levels of activity involved are very small compared to the normal fully sampled and authorised discharges,” he added.
“The station immediately embargoed operations of the affected plant and contacted Sepa to report the event. Normal discharges were only recommenced following rigorous review of arrangements and procedures.”
Hunterston’s nuclear accidents
The new leak of radioactive waste from Hunterston nuclear power station is just the latest in a long line of problems to have beset the 33-year-old North Ayrshire plant.
The report from the government’s Nuclear Installations Inspectors (NII) posted online last week also revealed that there had been a “roof fire” at the plant on 20 March. This had resulted in “a number of learning points” and improved arrangements for “hot work activities”, it said.
According to UK government figures, this was the twelfth fire at Hunterston B since 2001. Blazes have broken out in light fittings, electric motors, bearings and lagging (see panel below).
The plant has also suffered 12 leaks, mostly of coolant from pumps, pipes and other plant. Another report from the NII released in 2005 revealed that there had been 59 “abnormal events” over the previous five years.
These included “groundwater contamination” in March 2001, “shutdown following contamination” in October 2004, “fuel manufacturing anomalies” in January 2005 and “fuel cell criticality control” in February 2005.
Hunterston B, which started generating electricity in 1976, is also showing its age in other ways. Each of its two reactors have been forced to close down for prolonged periods in recent years to repair cracks in boiler tubes.
Even now, the plant is having to operate at 30% below its full capacity, with no clear prospect of returning to full power. In 2007 the French-owned power company, British Energy, announced that it was planning to keep running the plant until 2016.
“My worry is that as Hunterston B ages and deteriorates even more, its already bad record for leaks and fires will probably get worse,” said Rita Holmes, who represents Fairlie Community Council on Hunterston’s site stakeholder group.
“I don’t see how the plant can possibly seek an extension to its lifetime. There has to come a point - if it hasn’t already been reached - when repairing it isn’t financially viable and can only be accomplished by exposing more men to high doses of radiation.”
British Energy has said that it will consider by 2013 whether to extend the plant’s life beyond 2016. This poses an awkward dilemma for the governing Scottish Nationalist Party.
Backing plans to prolong the life of Hunterston B will sit uncomfortably with the party’s anti-nuclear stance. But keeping the plant going for a few more years could make the transition to a low-carbon economy easier, as well as preserving local jobs.
Next to Hunterston B on the Clyde coast is the old Hunterston A nuclear station, which was shut down in 1989 and is now being decommissioned. It has had two fires, one in February 2001 and another in March 2004.
Hunterston A has also left a daunting legacy of radioactive contamination. The Sunday Herald revealed in 2006 that thousands of cubic metres of contaminated waste had been dumped in five shoreline pits - and official records of what the pits contain had been destroyed.
In 2004 it emerged that 81,000 cubic metres of soil - enough to fill 900 double-decker buses - had been contaminated with radioactivity spilling from pipes and blowing off ponds at Hunterston A. It is posing a major clean-up problem.
Hunterston B’s long history of leaks and fires
date / incident
18 January 2001 / fire in gas circulator workshop
14 June 2001 / fire in lagging below pump
27 September 2001 / fan motor fire in electrical switch room
3 December 2001 / light fitting fire in planning building
26 June 2002 / leak of carbon dioxide from gas plant
26 November 2002 / condenser leak on turbogenerator
27 November 2002 / fire in light fitting
10 January 2003 / bearing fire in air conditioning
16 March 2003 / steam leak in pipe to boiler feed pump
3 April 2003 / carbon dioxide leak from reactor
8 June 2003 / fire in electrical supply board
22 January 2004 / fire in reactor building
31 March 2004 / leak from cooling water pipe
7 April 2004 / carbon dioxide release from the gas plant
5 May 2004 / cooling water leak from generator enclosure
27 May 2004 / electric motor fire in low level waste building
14 July 2004 / carbon dioxide leak from storage tank
4 October 2004 / boiler feed pump lagging fire
24 March 2006 / carbon dioxide leak in pipe
1 June 2007 / leak from pump
2 June 2007 / bearing fire on turbogenerator
28 September 2007 / steam leaks in high pressure pipe work
20 March 2009 / roof fire
15 May 2009 / leak of radioactive waste into the Firth of Clyde
Sources: Hansard and Health and Safety Executive
Accidents at other nuclear plants
By far the worst environmental contamination from a nuclear plant in Scotland has come from the Dounreay complex in Caithness. Hundreds of thousands of fragments of radioactive fuel have polluted local beaches, the foreshore and the seabed.
Every year more of the particles, some of which are potentially lethal, are found, and yet the exact source of the contamination remains uncertain. Fishing within a two-kilometre radius of Dounreay's waste pipe has been banned since 1997.
In 2007, more than forty years after the contamination first started, Dounreay admitted guilt, and was fined £140,000 in Wick Sheriff Court. The release of the particles was “deeply regretted” by the site’s operator, the UK Atomic Energy Authority.
Dounreay was the UK centre for developing an advanced type of nuclear reactor which never proved economically viable. It closed down in the late 1990s, and has suffered a long litany of accidents over the years.
The most dramatic was in 1977 when a shaft full of radioactive waste exploded, and blew off its heavy concrete cap. It took twenty years for the full truth about the explosion to emerge.
In 2005 the Sunday Herald revealed that Dounreay had suffered 250 safety “failures” over the previous six years. They included the radioactive contamination of whelks, winkles, rabbits, concrete, soil, water, air and beaches.
Earlier this year, the UK government disclosed that there had been seven fires at Dounreay since 2001. The most recent were a blaze in an office suite on 7 January 2008 and the ignition of some hydrogen when reactor waste was being cut on 24 March 2006
In June the Scottish Environment Protection Agency reported that it had issued Dounreay with a “warning letter” because emissions of radioactive tritium from a sodium destruction plant were in breach of legal authorisations. The plant has been shut down as a result.
In another report for April-June this year the government’s Nuclear Installations Inspectorate (NII) accused Dounreay of four “failures to follow administrative procedures”.
SInce 2001 there have also been eight fire and leaks at the Torness nuclear power station in East Lothian, run like Hunterston by British Energy. They included two leaks of carbon dioxide coolant in 2008 and two fires in 2005.
Scotland’s oldest nuclear plant, at Chapelcross near Annan in Dumfries and Galloway, has run into problems being decommissioned. A report from the NII in April this year revealed that the defuelling of a defunct reactor had to be halted after a fuel rod got stuck.
More than a hundred radioactive particles from a 50-year-old waste pipe from Chapelcross have also contaminated part of the Solway Firth. The plant was closed down in 2004.
When Chapelcross was operating it suffered one of Scotland’s most serious nuclear accidents. In July 2001, 24 fiercely radioactive fuel rods were sent crashing to the floor, narrowly avoiding the death of workers and the release of radiation.
"Because there was no firm evidence that the leak had harmed human health, Sepa decided not to refer the matter to the Procurator Fiscal for prosecution."
But, how would they ever prove a causal link between harm and a leak such as this???
Posted by: 1 | 20 September 2009 at 03:37 PM