Wednesday 11 January 2012

Managing Radioactive Waste in the English Lake District
It's important to put those two phrases together – 'radioactive waste' 'Lake District'. The Managing Radioactive Waste Safely (MRWS) Partnership talks of 'West Cumbria' as if this was some form of off shore zone away from the teashops of Keswick and Buttermere. But the expression of interest in MRWS came from the borough councils of Copeland and Allerdale, and from the county council for Cumbria as a whole, though expressed only for the districts of Copeland and Allerdale. Significant parts of both boroughs are in the Lake District National Park.

Any facility for the geological disposal of radioactive waste, if it is built in Cumbria, will probably be built in a narrow strip between the LDNP boundary and a geological boundary protecting aquifers and coal reserves and the like drawn by the British Geological Survey. If you're standing in the westernmost reaches of the National Park, perhaps on the summit of Ponsonby Fell, or by the Viking-age cross in Gosforth, the distinction as to what lies within the park, and what lies without will feel pretty moot.

Now consider that the same authorities were also very supportive of the Lake District bid for World Heritage status in recent years (www.lakeswhs.co.uk/partners.html).

A dilemma emerges on the one hand for the Cumbrian authorities to shout out to the world that the landscape they occupy is of international significance – on a par with the pyramids of Giza and Machu Picchu, Stonehenge and Venice, whilst on the other hand suggesting it is an excellent spot for Britain to dispose of the detritus of 60 years of nuclear experimentation and power production.

It's a dilemma Cumbrians have been grappling with ever since Calder Hall demonstrated that power generation didn't necessarily mean the death of their young men. Remember the Windscale site development began at almost the same time in 1947 that over 100 miners were killed in William Pit, Whitehaven. The scale of death at William Pit  – the 1947 disaster came on the back of a 1910 explosion at nearby Wellington Pit which killed 137 men and several smaller but no less fatal incidents in the region's collieries – demonstrates why West Cumbria could love nuclear power. Add death by pneumosilicosis (340 cases in 2010 alone according to HSE (www.hse.gov.uk/statistics/causdis/pneumoconiosis/pneumoconiosis-and-silicosis.pdfand you can see that even with an estimated 240 extra thyroid cancers caused by the major catastrophe at Windscale in 1956, nuclear looks pretty good from the streets of Moss Bay or South Whitehaven.


The dilemma for the rest of Britain remains how to keep the lights on. In the circumstances, the Lake District may well become collateral damage.


You can comment on the work of the Managing Radioactive Waste Safely partnership by completing their consultation document. You'l find it at http://www.westcumbriamrws.org.uk/. You'll also see there is a chance to attend a public meeting to learn more. And if you don't believe the government spin, you can always seek out Professor David Smythe (www.davidsmythe.org). The former Rezillos bassist and latterday nuclear-know-it-all makes his impassioned case for the 'No' camp at Cockermouth School's Eco Centre on 2 Feb (7.30). 
(Rezillos?, oh for goodness sake www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2krmvOCBJI&feature=related)

1 comment:

  1. Great post - LOVE the politics - but rather underplays the health impacts. Every week in Cumbrian papers there are stories of brave children battling cancers - the government puts that down to 'population mixing' in the vicinity of nuclear plants. A new french study shows large increase in childhood leukemias near French nuclear power plants buts stops short (surprise surprise) of laying the blame on emissions http://www.ianfairlie.org/uncategorized/new-french-study-on-childhood-leukemias-near-nuclear-power-plants/

    On the mining analogy..
    According to reports by the International Commission for Radiological Protection (ICRP), work-related deaths in uranium mines are estimated at between 5, 500 deaths (for radiation workers @ 3 mSv) to 37, 500 deaths (for radiation workers @ 20 mSv) per million workers a year.
    This compared with deaths in the manufacturing industry (estimated at 110 deaths per year per million workers) and the construction industry (estimated at 164 deaths per million workers per year).

    Nope - nuclear doesn't look that seductive from Morecambe Bay - downwind of Sellafield and upwind of Heysham...

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