Nuclear dump report "in public domain for 15 months"

AN official report suggesting that the proposed underground nuclear waste dump near Sellafield would leak into the Irish Sea has been in the public domain for the past 15 months, the UK Environment Agency has confirmed.

The highly technical report using advanced computer modelling to develop a risk assessment for the proposed dump, was prepared by scientists working for Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Pollution (HMIP), which has since been subsumed into the Environment Agency.

"This report and all the others in the same series were made available to the planning inquiry on the RCF (Rock Characterisation Facility) and copies were sent to Cumbria County Council and Friends of the Earth in October 1995," a spokesman for the agency told The Irish Times.

He said the report had not been made public before then because Nirex, Britain's radioactive waste executive, would not agree to its release, on the grounds that it contained commercially confidential information. It was eventually made public after a legal challenge by Friends of the Earth.

Nirex has sought planning permission to build the proposed rock laboratory to carry out intensive tests to determine whether the geology of the Sellafield site would be suitable for storing nuclear waste deep underground for several millennia.

Britain's Environment Secretary, Mr John Gummer, was due to make a decision on the Nirex planning application this month. But he may now request further information following the recent leak of a letter from the chief scientist at Nirex raising questions about aspects of the plan.

Last Friday, the UK Environment Agency issued for consultation a draft agreement which it is "minded" to enter into with Nirex requiring the company to provide information on investigations pertinent to the proposed "deep waste repository" near Sellafield or elsewhere.

Dr David Slater, the Environment Agency's pollution control director, said the agreement would enable it and the public to be properly informed of the technical work carried out by Nirex in advance of any application for a licence to develop the proposed underground storage facility.

The HMIP report highlighted the need for detailed three dimensional modelling of the site. Friends of the Earth criticised Nirex, saying that its two dimensional models seemed to be based on the notion that the earth is flat, and it called on Mr Gummer to refuse planning permission.

A spokeswoman for Nirex said "some of the world's best modellers are working on this programme". Friends of the Earth was "wrong to claim that we only work on two dimensional models. We work both on two and three D models, though we have never claimed that all the modelling issues have been resolved".

The Minister of State for Energy, Mr Emmet Stagg, who appeared before the Nirex planning inquiry just over a year ago, believes that recent revelations - particularly the reservations expressed by Nirex's own chief scientist - further strengthens the Government's case against the scheme.

The Minister for the Environment, Mr Howlin, said issues relating to the geology and hydrogeology of the area were the focus of the Irish presentation at the Nirex inquiry "and it is clear from what has unfolded since then that our position has been vindicated".

Mr Eoin Ryan, Fianna Fail's ecology spokesman, said the Government was "at sixes and sevens" over Nirex, with Mr Stagg pledging to "hassle and harry them at every opportunity" while Mr Howlin cautioned against "direct interference with due process in the UK".

Calling on the Government to take action now on Nirex, Mr Ryan said that what was required was "concrete information, not speculation, suspicion and idle promises".