1. Dublin wants Sellafield closed temptorarily
2. Report puts blame on managers for failures
3. Trust in nuclear industry difficult to restore
4. Recycling fuel main activity
5. History of leaks fires and explosions
6. Findings are serious indictment of management
7. Fears of nuclear accident 'clearly well-founded'
8. Sellafield Deceit

Saturday, February 19, 2000
IRISH TIMES
Dublin wants Sellafield closed temptorarily

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By Kevin Rafter, Political Reporter

The Government is to increase pressure on Britain to consider a temporary closure of the Sellafield plant operated by British Nuclear Fuels following publication of a report which found that key safety data on fuel rods had been falsified.

The Minister of State at the Department of Public Enterprise, Mr Joe Jacob, said that he was very disturbed at the revelations and wanted an early meeting with his British counterpart, Ms Helen Liddell. He said that the picture was of a company with "deep safety culture deficiencies".

Dr Tom O'Flaherty, chief executive of the Radiological Protection Institute of Ireland, said that fears among many Irish people of a possible accident at Sellafield were "clearly well-founded". RPII officials are expected to meet their counterparts in the British inspectorate early next week.

British government safety experts are understood to have threatened to shut down the plant.

A Downing Street spokesman said: "This is serious, it is unacceptable and something needs to be done about it. Something will be done about it."

The report, which was prepared by the chief inspector of nuclear installations in the United Kingdom, documents how quality control data was falsified at the uranium and plutonium mixed-oxide fuel (MOX) plant, a section which opened in 1994.

BNFL's chief executive, Mr John Taylor, was in Osaka yesterday to attempt to explain to his main Japanese customer, Kansai Electric Power, how BNFL sent a shipload of nuclear fuel with falsified data to Kansai last October. The Japanese government demanded last week that BNFL should take the consignment of MOX fuel back to Britain.

One of BNFL's largest contracts is with Japan, which hopes to run up to 18 reactors on the fuel rods by 2010. Japan may now switch to French suppliers.

An inspection of the Sellafield plant last August revealed irregularities in the sampling of fuel rods. Data relating to the size of the pellets which produce the rods had been falsified.

Britain's Nuclear Installations Inspectorate blamed systematic management failure for allowing individual workers to falsify safety records for years. Five staff at the plant have been dismissed.

Saturday, February 19, 2000

Report puts blame on managers for failures

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Management at British Nuclear Fuels Ltd yesterday came in for strong criticism in an official report on falsification of fuel data at Sellafield.

The Nuclear Installations Inspectorate (NII) said that "systematic management failure" allowed individual workers to falsify quality assurance records.

Poor design of the Cumbria plant, the tedium of the job and the ease with which the computer dating logging system was manipulated were all blamed for the problem, which dates back to 1996.

But the report said that although data were falsified it would have no effect on the safety of fuel in a nuclear reactor.

The NII, part of the British Health and Safety Executive, published three reports into Sellafield, the largest nuclear facility in Britain.

It was already carrying out a mini-audit at the site but started a separate investigation when the falsification was discovered.

Mr Laurence Williams, chief inspector of nuclear installations, said: "The deficiencies found in the quality-checking process will have to be rectified, the management of the plant improved and operators either replaced or retrained to bring the safety culture in the plant up to the standard HSE requires for a nuclear installation."

The plant which manufactures uranium and plutonium mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel rods is now shut down, and Mr Williams said it would not be allowed to restart until the report's recommendations had been implemented.

Five process workers have been sacked over the falsification, and BNFL yesterday accepted its responsibilities following the report, although it is not expected to sack any executives.

An official from the NII visited Sellafield last year after managers reported that irregularities had been noticed by their qualitycontrol team.

It was discovered that sampling of rods had not been carried out, and the records which showed it had been were copied from previous checks.

At the time of the discovery last year two shipments were already on their way to Japan.

Last week the Japanese government demanded that a shipment of MOX fuel be returned to Britain.

The report said that several process workers had not been following quality-control procedures.

"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," it said.

The report makes 15 recommendations including the improvement of work stations and computer security.

BNFL is urged to identify the workers who deliberately falsified records and take "appropriate disciplinary action".

Employees who knew about the practice of falsifying records should be retrained and other staff made aware of the importance of following procedures.

The report also recommends that the roles of previous plant managers be reviewed as well as the suitability of the current management.

Another recommendation reads: "BNFL should ensure that any future management team members are aware of their responsibility to ensure the plant is operated to standards required of a nuclear establishment and that they are given sufficient time to spend on the shop floor talking to their staff."

The report adds that BNFL should "urgently consider" the implications of the incident for the Sellafield site and to report to the NII on how it intends to prevent a recurrence.

The 40-page report concludes: "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."

In a separate report the HSE said Sellafield lacked a high-quality safety management system.

Union officials described the reports as "devastating" and called for changes in the safety culture at Sellafield.

Mr Jack Dromey, national officer of the Transport and General Workers' Union, warned that a failure to act on the reports threatened the future of the state-owned company, which employs 20,000 workers.

The environmental campaign group Greenpeace said it was time for the British government to end nuclear reprocessing at Sellafield.

"The whole plutonium business is rotten to the core," said a spokesman, Mr Peter Roche.

BNFL said it fully accepted the reports and their recommendations and actions were already under way to improve the safety culture.

Mr Brian Watson, head of the Sellafield site, said: "Our response is that safety is and remains the company's top priority and of course we take these reports extremely seriously."

BNFL's newly-appointed chairman, Mr Hugh Collum, was conducting a "fundamental review" of management and would report back to the government within a couple of months, said Mr Watson.

He added: "There was no complacency within the management about what needs to be done. We will take on board all of the recommendations. We have been investigating procedures very thoroughly already and we have acted on a number of issues."

Mr Watson said he could not comment on whether any executives would have to resign or be sacked over the problem but added he did not anticipate any further dismissals of process workers.

He said that the episode had been "damaging" for BNFL.

The Energy Minister, Ms Helen Liddle, said she was "incensed" at how things had gone so badly wrong at Sellafield and she was expecting a thorough management review to be carried out.

Saturday, February 19, 2000

Trust in nuclear industry difficult to restore

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A nuclear watchdog body identified `systematic management failure' underlying the fiasco of the falsification of tests by BNFL employees. Dick Ahlstrom, Science Editor, assesses Sellafield's credibility now

British Nuclear Fuels has for decades assured us of the safety of its nuclear fuel-reprocessing activities at Sellafield, less than 100 miles from our eastern seaboard. It is, therefore, particularly disquieting to know that employees within the company could systematically lie about output from the plant without the company knowing.

For three years staff who carried out checks on a manufactured fuel product falsified information and allowed material to go untested because the validation process was slow and boring.

It doesn't really matter that the checks were for the size of the fuel product, not its safety. The issue is that a company which for years has asked us to have faith in its ability to safely handle highly dangerous nuclear materials didn't have the management structures to prevent this fraud.

The Nuclear Installations Inspectorate, the British nuclear watchdog called in after the falsification was detected by BNFL staff, described the fiasco in its new report as "a systematic management failure". The 40page NII report concludes: "The events which have been revealed in the course of the investigation could not have occurred had there been a proper safety culture within this plant."

Even union officials at Sellafield, who tend to be pro-nuclear given the 20,000 jobs at the plant, acknowledged that the NII findings were "devastating". It is particularly ominous to hear Mr Jack Dromey, national officer of the Transport and General Workers' Union, say: "Old habits at Sellafield die hard."

What habits are these, and do they relate to the more fundamental issue of plant safety? One doubts whether this startling and important report will bring about any genuine change in attitudes at BNFL.

The company sacked five workers directly involved in the falsification, but as yet none of the managers responsible for them has been given the same treatment.

The company was quick to beg forgiveness, grovel and promise changes for the future. Yet BNFL seems more anxious to placate its Japanese customers than to reassure the general public, those who would suffer most if something went horribly wrong at Sellafield.

"We deeply regret these events and the problems that they have caused for our customers," said the company's chief executive, Mr John Taylor, and his fellow board member, Mr Chris Loughlin, who were in Japan to meet Kansai, a customer which had sent back a shipment of MOX fuel. "We now need to get on with implementing the action plan and restoring our credibility," they said. What about their credibility with the British public or us in Ireland who gain nothing from this nuclear waste facility on our doorstep?

The BNFL response detailed 22 "actions" to improve the situation at the plant. Included among them are "establishing a manufacturing ethos and attitude". This suggests that such a quality ethos has been lacking until now, so assurances by the company have been bankrupt.

BNFL also retreats to its old "safety" mantra, again apparently missing the point that the real issue is trust, not what it continually claims about safety and quality procedures.

"We have to remember that nobody is saying that Sellafield is unsafe," said Mr Brian Watson, head of the Sellafield site. We were also told that the MOX fuel product was being checked thoroughly and the company had "records" to prove that it was true. But it wasn't.

"It was also of some reassurance that despite the obvious defects in one stage, the report's authors were satisfied that our overall approach to quality control and quality assurance is appropriate," BNFL said in its formal response to the NII report.

It is of no reassurance to the public on this side of the Irish Sea, however. Mr Jim Fitzsimons, the Fianna F‡il Leinster MEP and member of the Environment Committee of the European Parliament, said he would ask the Environment Commissioner, Ms Margot Wallstrom, to open a Commission investigation into BNFL.

This could be done under powers vested in the Euratom Treaty of 1957. Unfortunately all previous efforts by the Government to tackle BNFL via EU or wider European and international treaties have come to nothing.

Britain seems wedded to its nuclear infrastructure and will not move against BNFL in any substantial sense, so the company will likely continue to ply its trade and try to convince us that its systems are safe. Until the next time.

Saturday, February 19, 2000

Recycling fuel main activity

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British Nuclear Fuels Limited (BNFL) owns and operates eight Magnox nuclear power stations in England, Wales and Scotland, including Calder Hall, at Sellafield, west Cumbria.

Calder Hall was the world's first commercial-scale nuclear power station and was officially opened by Queen Elizabeth on October 17th, 1956.

Calder Hall now generates enough electricity to supply a city the size of Leeds. The Magnox power stations provide about 8 per cent of the UK's electricity.

The main activity at the Sellafield site, also home to the THORP reprocessing plant, is recycling used fuel from nuclear power stations worldwide.

It is one of two main recycling plants in the world. The other is at La Hague, near Cherbourg in France.

More than 10,000 people are employed on the Sellafield site, 6,200 of them as fulltime employees and 4,000 as contract staff, according to British Nuclear Fuels.

The production of mixed oxide fuel (MOX), a mixture of uranium and plutonium oxides recovered from reprocessing, has formed a major new business for the Sellafield site.

A demonstration MOX manufacturing facility has been operating commercially since 1993.

So far, Japan has been the largest customer for MOX fuel. BNFL has also made MOX fuel for Switzerland and Germany.

However, BNFL is still waiting to receive government permission to open a new £400 million sterling full-scale MOX plant, with a capacity of 120 tonnes a year.

Saturday, February 19, 2000

History of leaks fires and explosions

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By Kitty Holland

Changing the name of the Windscale nuclear reprocessing plant to Sellafield in May 1981 did nothing to end its being continually dogged by controversy.

The first plutonium piles began to operate at Windscale in October 1950 and in March 1952 the first piece of plutonium was made in Britain.

In 1956 radioactive discharges into the Irish Sea were deliberately raised for two years, as part of experimental work.

October 1957 was the occasion of the Windscale fire, when a core temperature rise caused a fuel cartridge to split. At the height of the fire three tonnes of uranium were alight and it took three days to get it under control. Two days later the government ordered that two million litres of contaminated milk be poured away.

There were changes to operations throughout the 1960s, with the opening of the Windscale Advanced Gas-Cooled Reactor in February 1963, which first supplied electricity to the national grid.

In September 1973 - two years after the formation of British Nuclear Fuels Ltd - a steam explosion in the head-end plant sent a burst of radioactive gas into the air. About 35 workers were contaminated.

On an October morning in 1975 the Daily Mirror declared on its front page: "Windscale - The World's Nuclear Dustbin".

The Friends of the Earth held a demonstration outside the gates of Windscale. In September of that year the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution published its report on radioactive waste.

It said: "It would be morally wrong to commit future generations to the consequences of fission power on a massive scale unless it has been demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt that at least one method exists for the safe isolation of those wastes for the indefinite future."

On June 14th, 1977 the 100-day Windscale Inquiry started. During its course 194 significant events at Windscale were revealed up to 1977, compared with the 27 incidents which had previously been made public.

A Yorkshire Television documentary broadcast in October 1983 - Windscale, the Nuclear Laundry - alleged that the incidence of leukemia among children in the nearby village of Seascale was 10 times the national average and that plutonium dust had been found in houses in Cumbria.

In November of that year the public was warned against using a 200m stretch of beach near the plant. In December the closed area was extended to 40km after the Department of the Environment found radioactive levels in the area were between 100 and 1,000 times higher than previously thought.

In June 1985 BNFL was fined £10,000 plus costs for failing to keep discharges as low as possible.

In February 1986, Sellafield went on Amber Alert when a mist of plutonium nitrate leaked into the air. Seventy one workers had to be evacuated from the plant and 11 of them were found to be contaminated. In December the D‡il called for the closure of Sellafield.

In February 1990 the Gardner Report found that radiation received by fathers working at Sellafield was associated with the development of leukemia in their children.

In April 1996 BNFL was found guilty of breaching safety regulations and fined £25,000 plus costs. In September 1996 it was fined £32,500 for a chemical leak which killed 15,000 fish in the River Calder.

1997 saw the contamination of 10 workers and of external concreted areas.

In October 1999 three workers were sacked from the plant, accused of falsifying safety checks on nuclear fuel in the MOX plant.

Saturday, February 19, 2000

Findings are serious indictment of management

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By Kitty Holland

Findings in the report by the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate were a "serious indictment of management culture" at the Sellafield plant, the Fine Gael spokesman on energy, Mr Austin Currie, said yesterday.

"The recommendations for improvement represent only a tinkering with a problem where more fundamental decisions are required," he said.

Referring to calls for the closure of the plant, he said it would be "naive to think that the British government would take a decision which would result in the loss of 20,000 jobs in an area totally dependent on the plant."

Green Party MEP for Dublin Ms Patricia McKenna, meanwhile, has called for the closure of the plant.

Urging the Government to put pressure on British Nuclear Fuels Ltd, through the British government, to clear the backlog of radioactive liquid waste, she said they should also move to "shut this time bomb down as soon as possible".

"A serious accident affecting the ageing tanks holding this waste could disperse between 10 and 100 times the amount of radioactivity released at Chernobyl." She also said the management at the plant "must be held accountable for their completely irresponsible and lax policies which constantly hold the lives of thousands of people at ransom".

Referring to the contract Sellafield has to supply MOX fuel to Japan, she added: "I do hope that Japan is not going to resume trade with BNFL, and that the Irish Government is going to stand firm on the issue."

Her party colleague, Ms Nuala Ahern, MEP for Leinster, said she would be making a complaint to the Euratom Commission, "because of the damning nature of the UK Nuclear Safety Inspectorate report".

"Ireland is in the firing line should any such accident as occurred at Three Mile Island take place and this report makes it clear that this is a distinct possibility."

The Fianna F‡il MEP for Leinster, Mr Jim Fitzsimons, said he believed the report would have far-reaching implications for the future of the nuclear industry in Britain.

"Let us remember, at this juncture, that BNFL is seeking a licence from the British government to manufacture MOX fuel into the future. It does not have a licence at this time . . . and it has to prove to the British government that there is an economic justification for the granting of a licence to BNFL to manufacture this nuclear byproduct into the future." He said: "I think it is now clear that the love affair between the British government and the British nuclear industry is now truly dead in the water."

Saturday, February 19, 2000

Fears of nuclear accident 'clearly well-founded'

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By Kitty Holland

The fears held by many Irish people over the years that an accident might happen at Sellafield were "clearly well-founded", the chief executive of the Radiological Protection Institute of Ireland has said.

Dr Tom O'Flaherty, reacting to yesterday's report from the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate, said the findings were serious.

"The most serious aspect of the report is that the practice of falsifying safety records has apparently been going on for so long and has only now come to light. It will obviously reinforce the concerns that Irish people have had of an accident there over the years."

While the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate report did not raise immediate safety concerns for Ireland, it did highlight the failure to have safety procedures carried out properly, said Mr Mark Johnston, energy campaigner with Friends of the Earth. "What it does mean is that people are quite right to be concerned that the same management attitude that gave rise to these incidents is present throughout the rest of the organisation - something which could easily give rise to an accident."

A spokesman for Voice Of Irish Concern for the Environment (VOICE), the group which has taken over from Greepeace in Ireland, said the report did not "bode well for the planned partial privatisation of Sellafield".

Mr Gavin Harte said the report displayed "poor management" at the plant, which was "slovenly in its approach".

"VOICE never had any doubts about the lack of safety at Sellafield," said Mr Harte, "and has always been of the opinion that the nuclear fuel industry was of dubious purpose. It runs at a loss. It is a spin-off from the arms industry."

Saturday, February 19, 2000

Sellafield Deceit

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The report on Sellafield by the British Nuclear Installations Inspectorate contains a catalogue of deceit, incompetence and irresponsibility. But no calls have been made for the dismissal of senior management members. Five low-level employees have been sacked and there are signs that the all-too-familiar public relations offensive is being launched.

Since its foundation shortly after the second World War the safety record of the nuclear installation in Cumbria has been questionable. The reactions over the years by British Nuclear Fuel Limited (BNFL) to a series of incidents have been geared more to image than substance. The most devious move was to change the plant's name from Windscale to Sellafield, hoping to fool the general public. Now Sellafield's name is worse than Windscale's ever was.

BNFL has been forced to make a series of truly frightening admissions. There has been deliberate falsification of quality controls and supervisors failed to detect these discrepancies. Procedures for control and supervision have been inadequate. Training of some staff has been minimal or non-existent.

While the report does not relate to discharges into the Irish Sea the picture it paints of how Sellafield is run is deeply disturbing. The Nuclear Installations Inspectorate judged that "systematic management failure" allowed records for reprocessed plutonium destined for Japan to be falsified. It identified poor design of the plant, tedium on the part of workers and ease of manipulation of computer systems, as the main weaknesses.

Despite this the report says the fuel subjected to false reporting since 1996 is safe. The Japanese are quite correctly having none of this. Last September Japan, despite the extreme care it takes in its installations, suffered the worst nuclear accident in its history at the Tokaimura plant just 70 miles north of Tokyo. The main concern now for the Japanese nuclear industry is how to get rid of the reprocessed material it has been receiving from Sellafield.

The Tokaimura incident has shown that serious events can occur even at plants noted for their efficiency and discipline. Yesterday's damning report shows that Sellafield falls far short of that category. The statement in the Dáil yesterday by Mr Joe Jacob, Minister of State at the Department of Public Enterprise, was surprisingly low-key in the light of the report's seriousness. Sellafield is a case on its own. It is one of such importance for future generations in this country that it should remain unconnected to other problems in the relationships between these two islands. The matter should be raised at the highest level and in the strongest terms. The familiar response of spin-doctoring is less acceptable than ever.

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