91av

NUCLEAR weapons factories in Britain may be much more contaminated with
radioactive and toxic waste than previously thought, according to a confidential
report by British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL) obtained by 91av. The
report also reveals that the amount of waste stored at the nuclear weapons
plants at Aldermaston and Burghfield in Berkshire and Cardiff in Wales may have
been seriously underestimated by the Ministry of Defence.

State-owned BNFL, recently heavily criticised over lax safety procedures at
its Sellafield reprocessing plant, took over running the three Atomic Weapons
Establishment (AWE) sites for the MoD on 1 April in a consortium with the US
defence company Lockheed Martin and management consultants Serco. While
preparing for the transfer from the previous contractor, Hunting Brae, BNFL
asked its scientists to investigate waste contamination and storage so that they
could plan for its treatment and disposal. The report of their investigation
suggests BNFL may have a difficult job on its hands.

“Areas contaminated with asbestos, plutonium, depleted uranium, beryllium and
tritium have been identified. Until comprehensive surveys have been completed,
the potential extent of the problem will be unclear,” the report says. “There
may be accumulations of wastes, both radioactive and toxic, in buildings on the
sites that are not included in any identified inventory.”

The report questions the AWE’s assessment that large amounts of soil and
rubble from the decommissioning of nuclear plants are not contaminated with
radioactivity. It may not be possible to dispose of these materials as ordinary
waste, it cautions, partly because of “possible adverse PR issues”.

BNFL also disputes the waste inventory for the AWE sites provided by the MoD
last year. Its report says that inventories provided by the AWE didn’t record
estimates of chemically toxic wastes prior to 2000. The forecast that there will
be only 24 000 cubic metres of low and medium-level radioactive waste by 2010
might be “unduly optimistic”, it says.

Scientists at BNFL also expressed concern that some estimates of the amount
of radioactive waste stored at the sites appeared to go down between 1998 and
1999. The figure for low-level waste from decommissioning nuclear
plants—9464 cubic metres—dropped by half, while the amount of solid
waste in storage seems to have gone down by 200 cubic metres. An accurate
assessment of the waste inventory is complicated by the “significant number of
inconsistencies and errors” found by the BNFL team in the 1998 data.

The AWE confirms that the entire Cardiff site, which is in the final stages
of being decommissioned, has been surveyed for contamination, but most of
Aldermaston and Burghfield have yet to be investigated. Some radioactive waste
is “not properly accounted for”, says an AWE spokesperson, so managers are now
preparing new inventories. The volume of wastes from dismantling nuclear
facilities is “greater than was originally estimated”, he adds. “It does not
present us with a problem, since we have ample storage facilities.”