THE decision by British Nuclear Fuels to attempt to increase its aerial discharge limits has been described as "objectionable" by Mr Emmet Stagg, the Minister of State at the Department of Energy.
British Nuclear Fuels yesterday applied for an increase in its aerial discharge limits from the Thorp Reprocessing Plant at Sellafield.
BNFL is seeking an increase in the overall discharge limit of 0.04 per cent from the Sellafield site. It is also seeking a change in its authorisation, which would reduce liquid discharges of technetium into the Irish Sea by 25 per cent, and tritium by a small amount.
The company says that a higher than anticipated proportion of tritium, the radioactive isotope of hydrogen, is entering the aerial discharge stream rather than remaining in the liquid discharges into the sea, and an increase in the aerial discharge limits is necessary to accommodate this.
Any contamination of the environment is objectionable even if, so far, the influence of aerial discharges from England has not been detected in Ireland, Mr Stagg said. The Government would be objecting to the granting of the authorisation next week, and was planning to establish a formal process for any future objections, he said.
Mr John Cunningham, assistant chief executive of the Radiological Protection Institute of Ireland said that the increase in discharge levels would be very small in the context of Ireland. "Obviously, when they go into the air they are dispersed in the air, and by the time they have reached the Irish coastline they have dispersed substantially, assuming the wind is blowing in our direction," he said.
He noted that the environmental impact on the most exposed person living close to Sellafield would increase from 148 micros reverts to 181 micros reverts, an increase of around 22 per cent. Mr Cunningham also said the "slight reduction" in liquid discharges of technitium by 25 per cent was a small step in the right direction" Dr Peter Mitchell, head of the Radiation Physics Research Group in the Department of Experimental Physics. University College, Dublin, said that tritrium was a low energy beta particle emitter of low radiotoxicity and 0.04 per cent represented a "very small increase".
The Green Party MEP, Ms Patricia McKenna, said that she didn't believe people could have "an awful lot of confidence" in the scientific validity of what British Nuclear Fuels was putting forward. "They are basically claiming their plans are safe without making full details available," she said.
Mr Stagg said he had been concerned "for some time about the nature and quality of the information" being made available by BNFL, and that he had requested a "formalised system of transferring information" between the British authorities and the Irish Government.
BNFL had not told the Radio logical Protection Institute of Ireland that the processed "used solvent", which will form half of the additional aerial limits, includes strontium 90, iodine, cesium and rufinium 106, or that the remainder of the increase, from the Highly Active Liquor Evaporation and Storage facility, would consist of carbon 14.
The details of the emissions were confirmed by BNFL to The Irish Times upon enquiry. BNFL does not have to make full details available for almost two weeks.
"By that time, BNFL will have already got its intended message across that it doesn't think the public should be concerned about new discharge levels, about which it has so far only given outline details," said Ms McKenna. She said that there had been very little research done on the effects of tritium.
The environmental Greenpeace said that no in radioactive emissions was fiable. The executive Greenpeace Ireland, O'Grady Walshe, called a public inquiry into the Thorp plant as "yet another increase in radioactive pollution is demanded".