Anti-nuclear campaigners have this week attacked proposals to release treated nuclear waste into the Severn Estuary from Hinkley Point power station, near Burnham-On-Sea.
The campaign group Stop Hinkley has strongly critcised the plans from the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA).
Stop Hinkley spokeswoman Nikki Clark told Burnham-On-Sea.com: “The NDA are proposing to reduce the volume of nuclear waste they have by dissolving it and releasing some of the radioactive effluent into the Severn Estuary.”
“They also want to import Fuel Element Debris produced at Oldbury to be dissolved at Hinkley where 15% of its radioactivity would be released.”
The claims come after the NDA released a document on their preferred options for dealing with nuclear waste, available here.
Nikki added: “Under the plans, the radioactive waste would be released for between five and seven years. We question a proposal that could potentially cause unacceptable levels of radioactive contamination in the Severn Estuary.”
“NDA consultation documents admit that Fuel Element Debris (FED) waste – so-called Intermediate Level Waste (ILF) – would be contaminated with ‘fuel fragments’. We want to know just how much radioactivity they will add to the overall levels of radioactivity being proposed for discharge.”
“Stop Hinkley are also concerned that the impacts of historic Hinkley A and B operations are as yet unknown – no attempt has been made to adequately investigate them. Existing monitoring arrangements have been heavily criticised by independent experts recently as inadequate and lacking in scientific rigour. We caution against polluting the Severn estuary further – an environment that will hang on to pollutants.”
However, Bill Hamilton, the head of stakeholder relations at the NDA, said: “Clearly, safety and security are the biggest priority that we have in terms of all of our planning work.”
“We have made it very, very clear that we wouldn’t carry out any of these proposals if we thought there was going to be a significant increase in risk.”
The dissolution process proposed involves dissolving the Magnox metal within an acid solution with the bulk of the radioactivity retained within the residue and secondary wastes. The residue, secondary wastes and non-magnox components would be packaged in containers suitable for interim storage and eventual disposal.
The plans also include building a new store at Hinkley A for the storage of its intermediate level waste and a new dissolution plant to process Fuel Element Debris, which consists mainly of Magnox metal and graphite. The plans also include moving some waste from Oldbury power station to Hinkley Point.
Pictured: Top – Hinkley Point seen from the River Brue in Burnham; Centre – Campaigners from Stop Hinkley; and above – the power station up close
