As Gordon Brown and Nicolas Sarkozy meet to consider a new generation of nuclear plants the threats posed by the industry were graphically illustrated with BNFL announcing yet another accident at their Cumbrian reprocessing plant today.

The owners of Sellafield have admitted that radioactive liquid waste leaked at the nuclear plant today. The accidental discharge of effluent, which they claim was mainly water with a 'very low level of radioactivity', is said to have leaked from containment tanks into a concrete room designed to contain overflows.

However they then contradict attempts to claim the material was secured within an overflow bund by admitting that a small amount escaped into an adjacent concrete corridor. They claim that all material was recovered.

The latest event at the plant indicates that lax safety procedures are still a concern.

The British Nuclear Installations Inspectorate and the Environment Agency were informed. However both bodies (and their predecessors) in the past have shown themselves to be singularly inept at promoting positive adherence to safe operating practice at Windscale/Sellafield over the past fifty years.

J B Moffatt Director of Information Celtic League

26/03/08