Dredgers to dump 300,000 tonnes of radioactively contaminated Hinkley sediments to Cardiff Bay unless we can pesuade the Welsh Assembly to refuse the licence .
Campaign to Postpone the Radioactive Dump near Cardiff Bay says:
A Plenary Debate in the Welsh Assembly, scheduled for 16 May, will discuss the dumping of 300,000 tonnes of radioactively contaminated sediment at the Cardiff Grounds marine “dispersal” site, located about 2 km off the Cardiff sea front.
EDF, the developer of the Hinkley C site is anxious to win this debate so that the Welsh Government can renew their licence to dump the Hinkley waste at the Cardiff Grounds this summer. EDF has brought all the lobbying power of the nuclear industry to Wales this winter, in order to win over Local Authorities, Health Boards, Welsh Government and the Welsh media. The Campaign is now appealing to members of the Public to contact their Assembly Members and urge them NOT to succumb to slick PR from the only people who will benefit from the dump.
“We are concerned that, before issuing the licence, the Welsh Government failed to demand that the nuclear industry carry out formal site specific Environmental and Public Health Impact Assessments”, said Tim Deere-Jones, marine radiation consultant. “There is insufficient evidence about the potential health and environmental impacts to South Wales sea users and coastal populations to conclude that this proposal would be harmless. We need a postponement to ensure that all this basic evidence is collected”.
EDF are pressing ahead with their proposal to dredge 300,000 tonnes of radioactively contaminated sediments from the Hinkley C site, on the Somerset coast in order to dump it at Cardiff Grounds, just 2 kms away from the Capital city’s sea front and the south Wales coast. They have asked the Welsh Government to re-licence the proposal so that they can complete that work this summer.
The Campaign, supported by a 7,000+ strong Petition to the Senedd (+ over 150,000 signatures to petitions by Sum-of-Us and Greenpeace), has posed 4 basic questions about the project:
1: What concentrations and types of man-made and natural radioactivity are present in the sediment? 2: Where would radioactively contaminated material end up after being dumped at the “dispersal” site? 3: What are the potential impacts on human and environmental health along the South Wales coast and the coastal zone 4: What benefit will accrue to Welsh people and the environment as a result of the proposed dump?
After several months of investigation of witnesses for and against the proposal, by a Welsh Assembly Senedd Committee, these simple questions remain unanswered by the Welsh Government, Natural Resources Wales and the French nuclear developer of the Hinkley site.
The Campaign has also uncovered a significant scientific flaws and inadequacies in the official submissions to the Committee. Taken together these flaws mean that official statements about the fate of the radioactivity after it is dumped and the level of doses likely to be received by south Wales coastal populations and sea users are meaningless because the data is inadequate.
These flaws include: analysing for only one (gamma) of the 3 types of radioactivity (alpha, beta and gamma) expected to be present in the sediments, carrying out no investigation of the end fate or final destination of material dumped at Cardiff Grounds, carrying out no research on the current (pre-dump) levels of radioactivity along the Gwent and Glamorgan coast and none on the current (pre-dump) doses of man-made radioactivity received by south Wales populations. No information has been provided to show that the dump proposal will offer any benefits to the people and environment of Wales, although we do now know that EDF have not been asked to pay for their licence to dump.
Having received enormous support from the Welsh public, at the outset of the Petition Campaign, the Campaign now seeks similar support from the public, and their elected Assembly Members, for the call to the Welsh Assembly to postpone the dump until all of the relevant questions have been satisfactorily answered by carrying out a full and detailed Environmental and Public Health Impact Assessment.
Please lobby your constituency and regional AMs, before May 16th, asking them to support the Campaign’s very reasonable request that no dumping of radioactivity will take place until a FULLY DETAILED ASSESSMENT has been carried out, with wide public participation in the scoping of any such Assessment. Just let them know that you are voter and that this matters to you and attach this sheet if you wish.
Details of your local AMs can be found on the Assembly’s web site at
senedd.assembly.wales/mgMemberIndex.aspx
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The waste to be dumped there is an awful lot like the plutonium, uranium, other radionuclides at Hanford in america, created to make the first bombs! Sellafield is the most grotesque nuclear mess imaginable, in europe. To this day.
ReplyDeleteSellafield could catch fire at anytime because of its archaic and decaying containment. A fire, there would dwarf chernobyl fallout, and contaminate most of Europe.
Just because hinkley waste mud and sellafield, are british does not mean the british are any better or more honest about managing their radioactive filth and lethal waste, than any other nucleoape state.
In fact, they are worse because they have a massive spook machine like MI6 and a specific, veteran government-endorsed nuclear-police-state nuclear-security apparatus and organ. Their nuclear-security organ has some, of the best spooks and PR apparatus in the world! Look at how they employed Lady Judge to Lie,decieve, murder at Fukushima! The UK has the worst-contained, and most barbaric, dangerously-deteriorating nuclear waste dumps in the world. They are located at sellafield and hinkley. Now they want to build more reactors!