Councillors set to hear Sellafield site update report

Members of Cumberland Council’s nuclear issues board are due to meet at Allerdale House in Workington on Monday (March 23) to hear a nuclear issues update.

In relation to operational matters and developments at Sellafield the report states that it was one of its best ever performing years in delivering progress on programmes and maintaining the site‘s infrastructure for the future.

According to the report the highlights include:

• High-Level Waste treatment – the Vitrification Plant has had a standout year, delivering more than double the expected target of vitrified product/containers. It adds: “This follows a range of planning and analysis improvements introduced over the past three years.”;
• AGR fuel receipts are on track to deliver against customer (EDF) requirements despite effects of waste management capacity issues in the first half of the financial year;
• Key engineering improvements have been introduced enabling safe transfer of waste from legacy ponds and silos retrievals programmes into existing stores, increasing confidence in progressing high hazard reduction work;
• Major construction projects continue to be progressed, despite disruption caused by a period of industrial action;
• Demolition activities on the site are progressing, with the aim of freeing up land on site for future development such as the demolition of Calder Hall Turbine Hall and the Fellside Boiler Park Units two and three gas turbines; and
• For the first time, a can of plutonium residue was processed into a stable encapsulated waste form – the encapsulation of waste plutonium residues is a separate process to the planned immobilisation of UK stocks of separated civil plutonium).

In relation to the Sellafield site Control of Major Accident Hazards (COMAH) status the report states: “With the end of reprocessing operations, the amount of nitric acid needed for operations on the Sellafield site has greatly reduced.

“This reduction in one of the site’s major accident risks, coupled with removal of large quantities of other toxic substances, has enabled the site to be returned to Lower Tier status under the COMAH Regulations 2015, the regulations governing prevention of major accidents involving dangerous substances or limiting their impact.

“This change in status means Sellafield no longer needs to produce an off-site chemical emergency plan.”