Radioactive Flytippers get off scot free.

Plastic bag of nuke waste

Swapping cancer stories with police= population mixing theory is a farce

Stop Nuclear Landfill

Sellafield – Crown Court Carlisle 1

We won’t be dumped on

On Friday at Carlisle Crown Court Sellafield was fined £700,000 for dumping several bags of intermediate and low level waste in ordinary landfill. The bags were plastic and lay broken in the same landfill used for composting and recycling. The fine is meaningless. The public will be picking up the tab. The only meaningful fine would be a ban on Sellafield dumping ANY radioactive waste in ANY landfill. The media and especially the BBC have consistently played this down and no media commentators have made the points that
A. the public will be picking up the tab for the fine
B. the deregulatory “exempt” law allows radioactive waste into landfill in the first place
C. there is no guarantee that this was an isolated incident.

This means that the industry can continue to fly tip its tonnes of radioactive waste including asbestos laced with tritium and plutonium willy nilly into landfill under the “exempt” deregulation. If a member of the public had dumped a dirty bomb, several plastic bags of intermediate/low level nuclear waste into a landfill/recycling site they would quite rightly be facing a long custodial sentence under the terrorism laws, they certainly would not be allowed to set foot in a landfill/recycling centre again, and the public would not be paying their fine.

In summing up, the judge hearing the case recognised that the mistakes that were made indicated basic management failures and in this type of industry, it shouldn’t be the case that lessons were learnt after the event.

3 Weeks to Save the Lakes who were at court noted that:
1. The industry is pushing the myth that it is apparently ‘good’ for the environment that Sellafield are classifying more waste as “exempt” and less as radioactive.
Even the Sellafield defence solicitor seemed unclear on this mad state of affairs, and having read the “it is a good thing” statement had to request that he check it with his client…who all nodded approvingly. He was unable to elaborate further.
and that
2. Sellafield staff are carrying this stuff around unprotected on site in plastic bags. The argument made was that this stuff is no worse than a foot xray or a flight to Paris and was equivalent to minimal background radiation (no mention was made of the need to wear a lead vest to have a foot xray to protect unborn foetuses). The judge DID point out that it wasn’t just exempt waste and that once classified ‘low level’ or ‘intermediate’ level waste it was handled completely differently- LLW being encased in metal and then filled with concrete.

The “exempt” law needs to change to prevent radioactive waste going into landfill – petition here:
http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/46223

Border TV report
http://www.itv.com/news/border/update/2013-06-14/full-report-700-000-fine-for-sellafield-after-radioactive-waste-mistake/
Many thanks to Dan who came up to Cumbria to see Sellafield’s day in court, from Kings Cliffe. Kings Cliffe is a village in Northamptonshire where Secretary of State Eric Pickles overturned the public’s wishes that radioactive waste should be kept out of their landfill. Sellafield waste is now winging its way to Northamptonshire and into Kings Cliffe landfill – this is WRONG http://www.kingscliffewastewatchers.co.uk/

Charges
1. SELLAFIELD LIMITED on or about the 12th day of April 2010, operated a regulated facility involving the disposal of non exempt radioactive waste at Waste Group Recycling Limited’s landfill site at Lillyhall Cumbria outside the extent authorised by an environmental permit, contrary to Regulations 12(1)(a) and 38(1)(a) of the Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2010.
2. SELLAFIELD LIMITED between 1st day of November 2009 and the 5th day of April 2010, being a person to whom an authorisation, namely BX9838 was granted under section 13 of the Radioactive Substances Act 1993 did not comply with a limitation or condition of that authorisation, namely Schedule 1 condition 4(b) of the said authorisation, in that it failed to check at an appropriate frequency, the effectiveness of systems, equipment and procedures provided for the disposal of radioactive waste, contrary to Section 32(1)(c) of the Radioactive Substances Act 1993.
3. SELLAFIELD LIMITED between 6th day of April 2010 and the 19th day of April 2010, failed to comply with or contravened an environmental permit condition, namely Schedule 1 condition 4(b) of environmental permit BX9838, in that it failed to check at an appropriate frequency, the effectiveness of systems, equipment and procedures provided for the disposal of radioactive waste, contrary to Regulation 38(2) of the Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2010
4.SELLAFIELD LIMITED between 15th day of November 2008 and the 5th day of April 2010, being a person to whom an authorisation, namely BX9838 was granted under section 13 of the Radioactive Substances Act 1993 did not comply with a limitation or condition of that authorisation, namely Schedule 1 condition 6(a) of the said authorisation, in that it failed to have a management system, organisational structure and resources in place which were sufficient to achieve compliance with the limitations and conditions of the said authorisation, contrary to Section 32(1)(c) of the Radioactive Substances Act 1993
5.SELLAFIELD LIMITED between 6th day of April 2010 and the 19th day of April 2010,
failed to comply with or contravened an environmental permit condition, namely Schedule 1 condition 6(a) of environmental permit BX9838, in that it failed to have a management system, organisational structure and resources in place which were sufficient to achieve compliance with the limitations and conditions of the said permit, contrary to Regulation 38(2) of the Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2010.
6.SELLAFIELD LIMITED between 5th day of March 2009 and the 5th day of April 2010, being a person to whom an authorisation, namely BX9838 was granted under section 13 of the Radioactive Substances Act 1993 did not comply with a limitation or condition of that authorisation, namely Schedule 1 condition 12(a) of the said authorisation, in that it failed to have and comply with appropriate criteria for the acceptance into service of systems, equipment and procedures for carrying out any monitoring and measurements necessary to determine compliance with the limitations and conditions of this authorisation, contrary to Section 32(1)(c) of the Radioactive Substances Act 1993.
7. SELLAFIELD LIMITED on and before the 12 April 2010 breached Regulation 5 of the Carriage of Dangerous Goods and Use of Transportable Pressure Equipment Regulations 2009 in that it caused or permitted dangerous goods, namely non exempt radioactive waste, to be carried where that carriage did not comply with applicable requirements of ADR (The European agreement governing the international carriage of dangerous goods by road), whereby it committed an offence contrary to section 33(1)(c) of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 (‘the Act’) and is liable to a penalty pursuant to section 33(2) and Schedule 3A to the Act (as amended by section 1 of the Health and Safety (Offences) Act 2008).
http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/news/148282.aspx