New plea to halt Sellafield

The Government today issued an eleventh-hour plea to Britain to halt this week’s scheduled commissioning of the mixed-oxide plant at the Sellafield nuclear waste reprocessing complex.

Joe Jacob, the minister with responsibility for nuclear safety, made the appeal after demanding full clarification from the British authorities about the shutdown of a number of reactors at Sellafield in recent days.

Also today Ireland received support from Norway in their efforts to force the total closure of Sellafield.

In talks with Mr Jacob, Norwegian Environment Minister Borge Brenda said his government believed the discharges from the Cumbrian plant were responsible for an increase in radioactivity off the coast of Norway.

He said: ‘‘We are giving Ireland full support on this.’’

After his discussions with Mr Jacob, Mr Brenda was leaving on a visit to Britain with an itinerary that included a trip to Sellafield.

Mr Jacob said: ‘‘I am again calling on Britain not to proceed and commission MOX, pending legal actions that are under way.’’

About weekend reports of precautionary reactor closedowns at the controversial complex, the minister claimed: ‘‘We were not advised of that in line with stated agreements.

‘‘We are protesting about than, and this clearly justifies our government’s determination to have Sellafield closed.

‘‘It also serves to underpin the importance of the legal actions and avenues being currently pursued by us.’’

The Government's bid to stop the MOX commissioning was rejected earlier this month by the Hamburg-based International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea.

But the body requested Britain to detail plans on how it intended to monitor the risks and effects of the MOX operation on the environment.

Part of the Government's case against Sellafield at the tribunal was based on the possibility of terrorist strikes on the plant in the wake of the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington.