LONDON – A nuclear reprocessing plant has been temporarily shut down for a lack of high-quality safety management and for falsifying data since 1996, according to three news reports.
Two of the reports issued by the government’s Nuclear Installations Inspectorate identified management failures at the Sellafield, Cumbria plant as a key cause of the falsification of data on mixed plutonium uranium oxide (MOX) fuel discovered last August.
"The [manufacturing] plant is shut down and will not be allowed to restart until we are satisfied that the recommendations in our report have been implemented," said NII chief inspector Laurence Williams.
The Sellafield plant, managed by British Nuclear Fuels Ltd., manufactures nuclear fuel rods, reprocesses spent nuclear fuel from nine countries and treats and stores radioactive wastes.
The plant has a history of controversy. It was attacked by the Irish government over radioactive emissions to the Irish Sea, by Scandinavian governments over discharges of the radioactive element technetium 99 and by environmental groups which oppose both its manufacture of MOX fuel and its fuel reprocessing operations.
The false data at issue in the reports released Friday specified the size of MOX fuel pellets for delivery to Japan's Kansai Electric Power Co. Japan's Ministry of International Trade and Industry and KEPCO have demanded that Britain take back the MOX pellets sent with quality data falsified by BNFL staff.
"However, the management of the plant allowed this to happen, and since it had been going on for over three years, must share responsibility," said the NII report.
BNFL's official position is that it has taken the NII's recommendations, and is already implementing an action plan to address them.
"We deeply regret these events and the problems that they have caused for our customers," said BNFL chief executive John Taylor. "We now need to get on with implementing the action plan and restoring our credibility."
Copyright Environment News Service (ENS) 1999
