[ RadSafe ] 'Reckless' nuclear plant dumps waste on beaches

[Marcel Schouwenburg]

News from the UK received through another list.

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March 06, 2005,  Kenny Farquharson and Mark Macaskill of The Sunday
report

'Reckless' nuclear plant dumps waste on beaches

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1512884,00.html


SAFETY breaches at one of Britain's biggest nuclear research
stations resulted in hundreds of thousands of radioactive particles
escaping into the environment, a former safety officer has revealed.
Highly radioactive waste was pumped into the sea and evidence of the
pollution was covered up by managers who had a "reckless" disregard
for public health, according to Herbie Lyall, a health physics
surveyor at the Dounreay plant in Caithness for 30 years.
They come as the plant's owner, the UK Atomic Energy Authority, is
facing a possible criminal prosecution over a series of radioactive
leaks. More than 50 radioactive particles have been recovered from a
public beach two miles west of the plant.
The latest find was on Friday when a stone contaminated with caesium-
137 was recovered from another beach 20 miles from Dounreay. The
authority has admitted that "at least several hundreds of thousands"
of plutonium and uranium particles, each the size of a grain of
sand, have been released from Dounreay.
A report by the Committee on Medical Aspects of Radiation in the
Environment, to be published next month, is expected to reveal
leukaemia "clusters" around Dounreay.
The committee studied leukaemia cases within a 15-mile radius of
nuclear power plants and military bases since the mid-1980s.
Lyall, who worked at Dounreay from 1960 to 1989, has spoken publicly
for the first time about his years there despite facing possible
prosecution under the Official Secrets Act.
In a dossier passed to The Sunday Times, Lyall claims: oHigh-level
radioactive waste was washed down drains intended for low-level
waste. This liquid went into effluent pits which were then flushed
into the open sea, sometimes on an incoming tide. oRadioactive
materials were handled without appropriate protection. Two workers
who were contaminated later died of cancer in their forties.
oEffluent samples were collected for analysis using a wellington
boot on a piece of string because sampling machinery was "a heap of
rust".

One of the first discoveries of radioactive material on the public
beach next to the plant was "covered up".
Radioactive containers left in dumps were not marked properly,
leading to confusion over what they contained.
A dumping pit used for years for "high-level" waste disposal was
redesignated to be used as a temporary store for less hazardous
material.
Lyall had intended that his account should come to light only after
his death. However, continuing concerns about the health risks from
contamination around the nuclear plant have persuaded him to speak
out.
"There have been so many lies told to con the public about Dounreay
that I feel I must put the record straight," said Lyall.
"This contamination is a legacy being left for my children's
children. It is an absolute disaster. They are talking about
prosecuting these people. They deserve execution, not prosecution.
This was people's lives they were playing with. They were acting
like nuclear cowboys."
Iain Duncan Smith, the former Conservative leader, is demanding a
ministerial inquiry. "These allegations raise grave and far-reaching
questions about the management of the Dounreay plant over the past
30 years," he said.
"They deserve the fullest possible investigation by ministers and an
end to the culture of complacency and cover-up that seems to
surround the plant.
"If this has been going on at Dounreay, what has been happening at
other nuclear establishments in the UK?" Lyall said he was a member
of a survey team that found a highly radioactive particle on
Sandside beach in 1984, a find that should have led to immediate
public warnings about the safety of the beach. The atomic energy
authority has denied any knowledge of the find.
Lyall accuses it of a cover-up and of risking the health of families
and tourists who visited the beach for 13 more years until new
concerns were raised.
He claims that he regularly complained to management and through
trade union officials about safety breaches, but action was rarely
taken. On one occasion, when he refused to carry out a dangerous
procedure that went against rules laid down by the government, he
was charged with refusing to obey an order, he said.
The two men who died of cancer had removed a faulty probe from a
reprocessor without adequate protection, Lyall said. "These two
gentlemen were not only my colleagues but personal friends," he said.
"I can't say if the dose they got from this probe contributed to
their deaths, but I have my own thoughts. This example is only the
tip of the iceberg."
Some management decisions left Lyall astonished. A pit used for
years as a dump for radioactive waste was turned into a temporary
storage area for non- hazardous materials, which carried an
inevitable risk of becoming contaminated, he said.
He witnessed the routine disposal of radioactive liquid waste down
drains intended for low-level waste. Managers would simply send it
for disposal minus its paperwork. One instance in 1988 involved the
disposal of 40 litres of highly radioactive glycol oil.
A spokesman for the authority yesterday conceded that safety
standards at Dounreay were less stringent in the past than now.
Sandy McWhirter, Dounreay project manager, admitted that some past
practices "could be considered reckless if not culpable today".
McWhirter described Lyall's criticisms as "one man's perception of
what was adequate" in the way of safety. "He may not have been in a
position to fully understand it."
Lyall, he said, was "a very enthusiastic fellow who had seen various
things and, in many cases, had misinterpreted them. In other cases I
have no way of checking what he says".

BBC report

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/4323265.stm
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Marcel Schouwenburg
RadSafe moderator & listowner