Hinkley mud opponents’ plea to judge
OPPONENTS of the dumping of more than 300,000 tonnes of mud from the Hinkley Point nuclear power station off Cardiff will today try to persuade a judge to stop the operation.
Cian Ciaran, the Super Furry Animals’ keyboards player, is named in an application for an injunction against a subsidiary of EDF, the French energy giant that has been commissioned to build a new power station at Hinkley Point, Somerset.
Mr Ciaran and his colleagues believe the dumping could have a negative health impact on local people. They argue that permission should not have been granted for the dumping by Natural Resources Wales (NRW), the country’s biggest quango, because an environmental impact assessment was not produced.
More than 100,000 people have signed petitions against the dumping, which began last week despite the application for an injunction.
In advance of today’s court hearing, Professor Keith Barnham, Emeritus Professor of Physics and Distinguished Research Fellow at Imperial College London, said: “Hinkley Point A was used to produce raw materials for nuclear bombs in the late 1960s.
“Magnox Ltd has admitted also to Marinet [the campaign group Marine Conservation for the UK] that many ‘de-splitting’ accidents in the Magnox cooling ponds resulted in spent fuel in the sludge.
“EDF should have tested for alpha emitters prior to the dumping. Leaks from fuel pins at Hinkley Point were certainly not rare.”
Cian Ciaran said: “I have one simple argument – absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence, therefore, the precautionary principle should dictate a re-think.”
Independent AM Neil McEvoy said: “This situation is extraordinary. I cannot believe we have reached this stage. I pray the injunction is successful and encourage the public to lobby every politician they can. Welsh political decision-makers have let us all down. They should hang their heads in shame. We are all going to fight this until the bitter end. We are not giving up.”
Marine Biologist Tim Deere Jones, who organised a petition to the National Assembly on the issue, said: “The dumping must be stopped. That’s our priority.”
EDF, NRW and the Welsh Government all maintain that the dumping poses no health risk and that the licence has been properly issued.
In a letter to Mr McEvoy, NRW chief executive Clare Pillman has responded to a series of questions posed by the AM. One of the questions asked why only one method of testing the mud for radioactive content was used, when three methods were used to test mud in Kosovo.
Ms Pillman responded: “For dredging applications, an assessment is used (as the starting point) which only requires gamma spectrometry, and produces a very conservative estimate of dose (ie the dose is likely to be lower, if a more detailed assessment was carried out).
“The other two methods would only be used if the dose limit was exceeded after undertaking the initial assessment. Further samples would also be taken under this scenario and the assessment would be repeated to give a more accurate dose. At Hinkley the dose limit was not exceeded in the initial assessment.”
Asked why testing had not been carried out for potentially dangerous “hot particles”, Ms Pillman stated: “The radionuclides produced as a by-product of nuclear energy production are well documented and those of relevance are detailed in the sample reports. ‘Hot particles’ are not associated with normal effluent discharges from nuclear power station operations.
“The sampling undertaken has been for radionuclides expected and known from power station operations and have been independently verified by national experts.”
Mr McEvoy said the opponents of dumping hoped to speak to the crew of the Belgium-registered dredger involved in moving the mud.