EVEN when dealing with some of the most toxic substances known to man, boredom can set in. Day after day, workers in the B33 building at BNFL's Sellafield plant would measure hundreds of tiny pellets of Mox fuel, a mixture of plutonium and uranium oxide.
The pellets came from batches destined to be put into fuel rods for use in Japanese reactors and the testing was to ensure that they were the correct size. Work involved placing each pellet on a stand inside a glove box with tweezers. It was then measured to within a few thousandths of a millimetre by a laser micrometer. The operator would call out a reading to his colleague, who entered it into a computer.
Tedious, repetitive and not really necessary - because the work had already been done by a computer. The only problem was that BNFL's Japanese customer, the nuclear generator Kansai, insisted that it be carried out to ensure quality control. But, at some stage during the last three years, some of the 15 workers engaged in the work alighted on a novel solution to their boredom.
They would fake the results by using data from previous tests and manipulate it to look like fresh data. Unfortunately for them, their labour-saving scheme was not to last. Mox production is a crucial growth area for BNFL. The uranium-plutonium mix was designed to consume plutonium created in reactors and is an alternative to conventional reactor fuel made from uranium oxides.
Falsification of the data took place in the Mox Demonstration Facility at Sellafield. It is effectively a proving ground for Mox production. A purpose-built facility is in the process of being commissioned at a cost of £300 million. In September, a worker admitted what had been going on to BNFL. The company warned the Health and Safety Executive's Nuclear Installations Inspectorate and an investigation began. Five men have been sacked.
The resulting report, published yesterday, represents the most serious blow to the credibility of British Nuclear Fuels this decade. But the loss of confidence may end in the Government dropping its proposed partial privatisation of BNFL before the next election which had been expected to produce £1.5 billion. Nobody within the BNFL hierarchy escapes unscathed.
The report, by Laurence Williams, Chief Inspector of Nuclear Installations, blames a systematic failure in management for a decline in the company's safety culture. If proper structures had been in place, it says, falsification of data could never have taken place.
It says: "There is no doubt that data falsification took place and Mox fuel assemblies have been produced and, in some cases, delivered to the customer with quality assurance documentation which included falsified data."
The Inspectorate said the faking of the data did not have safety implications for the public. Pellets of incorrect size could lead to the failure of cladding containing them within a fuel rod, resulting in contamination of a reactor's cooling system. But such failures were not unusual and could be dealt with. It was what the incident said about management at Sellafield that concerned the Inspectorate.
It was already concerned about examples of lax management at the Cumbrian plant and was carrying out an inspection of operations when the Mox matter came to light. The report continued: "The events which have been revealed in the course of this investigation could not have occurred had there been a proper safety culture within this plant.
"There can be no excuse for process workers not following procedures and deliberately falsifying records to avoid doing a tedious task. These people need to be identified and disciplined. However the management on the plant allowed this to happen and, since it had been going on for over three years, must share responsibility."
A parallel report into the control and supervision of operations at Sellafield released yesterday found the site lacked sufficient resources to implement the existing safety management system. There was also a lack of effective independent inspection within the company.
Managers suffered from "an excessive workload which affected their ability to monitor safety adequately". Middle managers were unable to dedicate sufficient time to being on the plant to manage safe operations. It went on: "There was evidence of managers condoning poor practice such as operation of a plant with multiple alarms showing in the control room."
The question for senior management at BNFL now is who will be the sacrificial lamb. Hugh Collum, chairman of BNFL, and Brian Watson, head of the Sellafield site, are both newcomers to their positions, relatively untainted by the bad news. Most likely casualties within the company hierarchy would appear to be John Taylor, the chief executive, and Chris Loughlin, director responsible for Mox production.
Last night, Mr Taylor was in Japan trying to rescue his company's contract with Kansai. Mox fuel sent to Japan has not been used and is expected to be returned to Britain. Until the Inspectorate is satisfied that the Mox Demonstration Facility is being properly managed, it will remain closed.
Meanwhile, the debate over Sellafield has been re-ignited. Environmentalists, backed by the Irish government, have called for the plant's closure.
British Nuclear Fuels plc and BNFL Engineering Ltd are being prosecuted by the Health and Safety Executive over alleged breaches of safety regulations. Allegations concern an incident on March 11 when two Sellafield employees were injured by a sudden release of concentrated nitric acid.
