Sellafield 'left to leak for eight months'

13 April 2012

The operator of Sellafield nuclear reprocessing plant was fined £500,000 today following a radioactive leak.

Around 83,000 litres of acid containing 20 tonnes of uranium and 160kg of plutonium escaped from a broken pipe into a sealed concrete holding site at the site.

See also...

Cracks force nuclear reactors to shit down

No one was injured in the leak and no radiation escaped from the plant in west Cumbria.

The company was handed the fine at Carlisle Crown Court after pleading guilty at an earlier hearing to three counts of breaching conditions attached to the Sellafield site licence, granted under the Nuclear Installations Act 1965.

The court heard that the leak should have been detected within days rather than the eight months it took.

Passing sentence, Mr Justice Openshaw said British Nuclear Group Sellafield "did not have a good safety record".

The penalty must serve as a reminder that health and safety is a serious matter and achieving public safety is of paramount importance, he said.

The court was told that a change in the handling process had caused the leak.

It was not spotted because a 'floating' bobbin in the machinery had become stuck which produced "wild and unaccountable" gauge readings of radioactive levels over a five year period.

Richard Matthews, prosecuting, said the first indication of a leak at the Thermal Oxide Reprocessing Plant (Thorp) was on August 24, 2004 when 50 grams of uranium was detected following a sample test.

The company failed to react effectively to the sample result, he said.

The faulty gauge gave several zero readings after August 24 and no further sample tests were triggered, although they were supposed to be taken every three months, he added.

It was not until November 2004 that the company found a discrepancy in the levels of uranium at the site.

The full extent of the leak was finally uncovered on April 14 and Thorp was shut down four days later and remains closed.

Mr Matthews said that following a visit by nuclear safety inspectors, 55 recommendations were made to the company.

He said: "They found leaked detection procedures were flawed, there was an inadequate safety management system and a culture of tolerating alarms directly contributed to the breaches.

He said that there was no evidence of any leak from the containment cell but he added the company had "lost its ability to detect leaks as it relied on its last line of defence."

He said: "It was a significant departure from recognised safety procedures over a long period of time."

The court was told that in 1998 a similar but less serious incident happened when pipe work eroded. This produced 28 recommendations to regularly log radiation level tests and review them on a regular basis."

The company admitted it had no record of whether it had acted on those recommendations.

The court heard that the company had seven previous convictions on safety related matters and had received fines totalling more than £115,000 but none of these involved a leak.

Mr Mark Monaghan, defending, said there was no dispute that there had been no contamination, no environmental impact and no damage to any persons.

He said: "There was difficulty with the gauge readings because there was an erroneous belief that they were correct.

"It appears a repair had been made to the machinery which was supposed to have been successful. Quite clearly it was not. This led to the belief being maintained.

In a statement the Health and Safety Executive, which brought the case, said: "Our extensive investigation into the events at Thorp has shown that British Nuclear Group Sellafield Ltd fell well below required standards for a considerable period of time, something we are not prepared to tolerate.

"Thorp was Sellafield's flagship and built to high standards. It must also be operated, maintained and managed to high standards.

"In particular, the conditions attached to Sellafield's nuclear site licence to secure the protection of workers and the public must be fully complied with.

"For the wider nuclear industry, our message is clear - high standards are demanded of the nuclear industry.

"This means continued vigilance and close attention to maintaining all the multiple barriers, physical, administrative and procedural, put in place to protect people and society from highly radioactive material.

"It is not acceptable to allow any one of these barriers to degrade and weaken, relying on the existence of other barriers to secure continued protection."

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in