Sections of a Sellafield pipeline being removed from the seabed have broken clear of their retaining cages. More than 20 sections of the plastic pipeline, cut into 2.5 metre lengths, have been washed up on local beaches.
An embarrassed BNFL has said that a total of around 350 lengths of what is described as the Temporary Sealine had been held underwater in steel cages following their removal from the seabed. Until the present rough weather conditions had improved sufficiently to allow divers to check the cages, the company could not say how many sections in total had broken free during the storms.
Operations to remove three redundant pipelines began earlier this year [see CORE Briefing 07/03]. Known as the Sealine Recovery Project, two 10-inch steel pipelines originally laid in 1949 and an 8-inch temporary plastic pipeline laid around 1990 would be recovered from the seabed over a twelve month period and disposed of in BNFL’s licensed low level waste dump at Drigg. It is sections of the latter, the Temporary Sealine, that have broken free from their retaining cages.
The temporary pipeline is described as being ‘lightly radioactively contaminated’ as it was used only for discharging surface water from the Sellafield site, including rainwater from roadways and roof gutterings – and not for reprocessing discharges. As such, the Company is claiming that the plastic sections currently being washed ashore pose no risk to public health. The temporary pipeline is understood to have been laid as a precaution following actions on other pipelines in the mid-late 1980’s by Greenpeace.
For its part, the Environment Agency has today said that it will call a halt to any further work on the Project until the incident had been investigated and BNFL had provided a satisfactory explanation. The Agency’s powers were agreed prior to the start of the Project as was the provision of additional ‘reassurance’ monitoring of the coast line during the Project.
The Project itself involves the underwater cutting of the pipelines by divers, with the cut sections loaded into custom built cages on the seabed. Once lifted out of the water, the cages will be placed in licensed transport containers on a barge. Once the barge is full, it will be taken to the port of Workington where the containers will be transferred to railway wagons and transported to Drigg. Fortuitously, BNFL was working first on the Temporary Sealine in order to ‘prove the system’ before attempting to remove the more heavily contaminated steel pipelines historically used for the highly radioactive reprocessing discharges.
Sellafield’s current discharges are accommodated via three 18 inch pipelines which extend approximately 2km into the Irish Sea, with liquid wastes being discharged daily at or around high tide.