Karl Herchenroeder
RW Monitor
12/18/2015
Environmentalists are condemning the recent transportation of unused nuclear fuel from Scotland to England, following major flooding that impacted the rail network used for the 400-mile trip.
The fuel, originally intended for the Prototype Fast Reactor at Scotland’s shuttered Dounreay nuclear facility, arrived at the Sellafield site in Cumbria, England, on Dec. 7, according to the organization Cumbrians Opposed to a Radioactive Environment (CORE). That same week Storm Desmond hit Cumbria, causing severe flooding and prompting evacuations of thousands of homes and businesses.
In a statement issued Saturday, CORE questioned what considerations were given to emergency response when many local and national resources were committed to storm-related incidents.
"It beggars belief that the decision to risk the plutonium fuel transport was taken despite the widely trailed storm evidence and rail warnings,” CORE spokesman Martin Forwood said in the statement. “We condemn the perverse decision as being dangerously irresponsible and as a blatant breach of the stringent safety and security rules required for such transports. Those responsible have shown a level of incompetence that verges on criminal and should be weeded out so that public and rail safety is not similarly endangered again. If any public confidence at all in such transports is to be salvaged, answers on the decision making must be given and lessons learned.”
The Dounreay Fast Reactor shut down in 1977, followed by the Prototype Fast Reactor in 1994. The defueling program started in 2001, and decommissioning of Dounreay is presently scheduled for 2030. A total of about 13 metric tons of nuclear fuel is due at Sellafield over the next few years.
International Nuclear Services Ltd. (INS), a subsidiary of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA), the agency charged with managing cleanup of the U.K.’s nuclear waste, said in a statement Monday that safety and security is its No. 1 priority. The NDA, which oversees the Sellafield and Dounreay sites, declined to describe specifics regarding the operation because it could compromise future trips.
“Movements are approved according to stringent transport regulations using proven transport methods and operational controls,” the statement reads. “These include robust and vigorous contingency arrangements to deal with events such as those experienced over the period of the move. They can only take place if they comply with all applicable legislation.”
The operation was completed in cooperation with emergency services and transport agencies, including Network Rail, the owner and manager of the railway system, the NDA added.
“The operation would not have gone ahead if it was deemed to be unsafe at any stage, or if any of the agencies involved were unable to fully support it,” according to the statement.
