Plan for new radioactive waste plant at Faslane

from Sunday Herald, 23 November 2014

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has applied for planning permission for a major new radioactive waste treatment plant at the nuclear submarine base at Faslane on the Clyde.

It has told Argyll and Bute Council that the new facility is to treat and dispose of solid and liquid radioactive waste from the reactors that drive submarines. Some of the waste will be discharged into the Gareloch, northwest of Helensburgh.

The new plant will be housed in a two-storey building 45 metres long and 31 metres wide, and is designed to last for 50 years. If planning permission is given, construction is expected to begin in January 2016 and finish in April 2018.

“The existing effluent treatment and disposal process is effective but nearing the end of its life and it requires to be replaced with a facility which will utilise modern technology and will reduce the levels of radioactivity in the effluent discharges into the Gareloch,” the planning application says.

The Sunday Herald reported in March that the amount of radioactive waste treated and emitted from Faslane was due to rise because the number of nuclear-powered submarines based there was planned to increase from five to 14 by 2019. But the MoD argued that the discharges would be well below agreed safety limits, which were being reduced.

The Scottish Environment Protection Agency urged the MoD to upgrade its ageing waste facilities after nuclear submarines leaked radioactivity into the Gareloch in 2004, 2007 and 2008. Radioactive waste has been treated at Faslane since 1967.

John Ainslie, the coordinator of the Scottish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, accused the MoD of having a poor record of handling radioactive waste at Faslane. “While the new plant is an attempt to raise standards, it also signals a planned increase in the amounts of nuclear waste that are due to be handled on the Clyde,” he said.

“We should be trying to phase out these submarines, not preparing to keep them and to handle their radioactive legacy for decades to come.”

The MoD defended its past record and insisted that the proposed plant would reduce Faslane’s “nuclear footprint”. It declined to say how much it was going to cost “due to commercial sensitivities in ensuring competitive responses to the tender process”.

According to an MoD spokeswoman, the government was committed to maintaining a continuous-at-sea submarine-based nuclear deterrent. “Her Majesty’s Naval Base Clyde has been chosen as the Royal Navy’s submarine centre of excellence,” she said. “All the UK’s submarines will be based there by the end of the decade.”

In a separate move, the MoD has revealed under freedom of information law that submarines in the Gareloch have recorded 261 nuclear safety events in the last ten years. This is in addition to 730 incidents at Faslane and the nearby nuclear bomb base at Coulport.

“The majority of the recorded events have no significant safety implications,” said an MoD spokesman. They included incorrect labelling of an empty pallet, or not filling out the correct form before painting inside a submarine.

He added: “Because the MoD has comprehensive reporting systems it ensures that all events, no matter how minor, are reported and investigated, and remedial action taken where necessary.”