Sellafield waste rise reports worry Irish watchdog

BRITISH Nuclear Fuels Ltd in Sellafield has described as "premature" a report that it may be seeking to increase radioactive emissions from its new THORP reprocessing plant into the Irish Sea.

But the Radiological Protection Institute of Ireland said the report is "disturbing, if true".

Ireland would have to oppose any such application strenuously" if it involved increased emissions, the RPII's chief executive, Dr Tom O'Flaherty, said yesterday.

The levels approved when THORP came on stream in March 1994 are already regarded as "generous", Dr O'Flaherty said.

A BNFL spokesman confirmed the company intended to seek authorisation shortly, but for the "entire Sellafield site". The application is being made at the request of the British Environment Agency, which stipulates that limits must be reviewed periodically, a spokesman said.

It was "far too early" to give details of the application, as technical data were still being reviewed, but discharges into the Irish Sea from Sellafield are now less than 1 per cent of what they were in the mid 1970s, he added.

The RPII acknowledges the trend has been downwards, but the new, unquantified factor is the commissioning of THORP.

The RPII has monitored emissions closely and expects to publish findings reflecting THORP's effect on the marine environment before Christmas.

The £2.8 billion reprocessing plant is under financial pressure since operations were halted temporarily last May, because of a faulty plutonium production line.

Its approval by the British government in 1993, 15 years after it was first mooted, hinged on a profit forecast of £500 million in a decade.

Yesterday a BNFL spokesman dismissed a recent report in the Guardian that THORP was not operating to target, and that this would influence its decision to boost output, with a consequent rise in emissions.

BNFL remained "fully confident" that THORP would reprocess 7,000 tonnes of spent fuel in the first 10 years of operation, and the plant would be a "success, not only for BNFL, but for Britain".

The company said: "It has 14 years worth of orders, two thirds of those from overseas, and will make at least £500 million profit in its first 10 years after accounting for all decommissioning and capital costs."

This Government is perceived to have adopted a more robust approach to Irish opposition to Sell afield, and legal action as well has not been ruled out.

Both the Minister for the Environment, Mr Howlin, and the Minister of State for Energy, Mr Emmet Stagg, issued strong condemnations of BNLF after yet another radioactive leak earlier this year.

Mr Stagg also attended the public inquiry over the Nirex UK waste disposal facility the first time this State objected to a further planned development at Sellafield.