Cullen in talks on Sellafield safety fears

FRESH questions about the safety of Sellafield will dominate a meeting between Environment Minister Martin Cullen and Britain’s Energy Secretary Brian Wilson this morning following reports that massive investment is needed to prevent radioactive leaks from an ageing storage facility.

A letter leaked to a British newspaper yesterday disclosed that the 50-year-old facility would have to be emptied and shut down, as it would cost £100 million to repair its corroded roof and £300 million to replace it completely.

Rather than spend the money, the strategy revealed by the letter was to accelerate the dumping of all of the waste material stored there, a radioactive by-product called technetium-99, into the Irish Sea. British Nuclear Fuels Ltd (BNFL) moved quickly yesterday to insist there was no immediate risk of a leak from the storage facility, and that plans to empty it were in line with a long-term strategy to comply with new regulations coming into effect in 2006, which would greatly restrict the controlled discharge of Technetium-99.