THE UK is to be the first EU state to face prosecution for nuclear safety failings after the European Commission announced it will launch proceedings over a radioactive waste dump at Sellafield.
The site, known as B30, has been used to dump nuclear fuel rods and other radioactive waste for almost half a century and contains unknown quantities of uranium and plutonium.
Green Party Euro-MP Jean Lambert welcomed the decision to prosecute, warning that, as well as posing a health risk in their own right, unaccounted-for nuclear materials could be diverted for weapons use.
London MEP Mrs Lambert, said: "Although inspection visits have been conducted on an annual basis for 15 years, the problem remains the same, inspectors appear to be in the dark over exactly what is in the B30 pond. As a result, nobody can know whether plutonium or uranium has been diverted for weapons use. This is particularly worrying given that it only takes a few kilograms of plutonium to make a nuclear bomb."
Mrs Lambert added that the prosecution was overdue. "Greens in the European Parliament have ben raising the inadequacy of nuclear inspection at Sellafield for years," she said.
"Although today's decision is welcome the B30 problem has been known for decades and the pond was closed down in 1992 because of corrosion and has continuously leaked its radioactive products into the environment."
"The Commission's decision is decades overdue but it must not be a one-off event. This must be the start of a process to close down Europe's reprocessing plants. The two major reprocessing factories in France (La Hague) and the UK (Sellafield) are responsible for most of Europe's routine radioactive waste discharges and therefore must be shut down."
ENDS
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