UK - Uproar at nuclear waste dump plan

["Sandy Perle" <sandyfl@earthlink.net>]

Thursday, October 8, 1998, 18:57 GMT 19:57 UK (BBC)

Plans to store nuclear waste at a former military base in
one of the most beautiful parts of Wales have caused
uproar. 

An Anglo-Irish company, Omega Pacific, bought the
base at Trecwn in the unemployment blackspot of
Pembrokeshire earlier this year. 

They promised up to 500 jobs refurbishing jet engines
and a narrow gauge railway. 

But on Thursday it announced plans to use the site to
store nuclear waste. 

The company says it will be perfectly safe to store
nuclear material - fuel rod cladding and isotopes used in
medicine - in 60 tunnels up to three miles deep. 

Dug during war The tunnels at Trecwn, secluded in a wooded valley,
once formed the biggest underground munitions depot in Europe. 

Built during World War II they once held four million
\kilograms of high explosive. The depot closed in 1995 -
with the loss of 500 jobs - and the tunnels are now
empty. 


Local MP Jackie Lawrence said the area's tourist and
agricultural industries depend on its clean natural
environment. 

She said: "Storage of such waste at Trecwn would be a
disaster on both economic and environmental grounds. It
 would be an environmental threat and an economic blight." 

An Omega Pacific spokesman said the proposal to store
low and intermediate nuclear waste at Trecwn would not
affect the engine refurbishment facility, which would open
within two years. 

He said: "The experts tell us that the unique facility at
Trecwn offers the opportunity for safe interim storage of
this material where it can be easily monitored. 

'Rigorously examined'

"Obviously there is no question of anything happening
until a rigorous and public examination of the suitability
of this site has been carried out and the relevant
regulatory and safety authorities approve it." 

Greenpeace said if it was approved the Trecwn site
would be likely to store nuclear waste from the Sellafield
reprocessing plant in Cumbria. 

Dr Helen Wallace, of Greenpeace, said shipments might
be transported there by train. 

She said: "It is the height of irresponsibility to propose a
new dump site when Britain's nuclear waste policy is in
crisis."

------------------
Sandy Perle
Technical Director
ICN Dosimetry Division
ICN Plaza
3300 Hyland Avenue
Costa Mesa, CA 92626
Office: (800) 548-5100 x2306 
Fax:    (714) 668-3149
  
sandyfl@earthlink.net
sperle@icnpharm.com

ICN Dosimetry Website:
http://www.dosimetry.com

Personal Website:
http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/1205

"The object of opening the mind, as of opening 
the mouth, is to close it again on something solid"
              - G. K. Chesterton -

The opinions expressed are solely, absolutely, positively, definitely those of the author, and NOT my employer
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