Lengths of Sellafield’s plastic discharge pipe which escaped their sea-bed containment cage in late November are still being washed up around the northern Irish Sea. As part of BNFL’s £13M Sealine Recovery Project, the cutting up of the 8-inch plastic pipeline commenced in late summer, but all work has now been halted by the Environment Agency whilst an investigation is carried out as to how a number of cut sections broke free during stormy weather. The cage originally held 364 lengths which were destined for disposal at BNFL’s Low Level Waste dump at Drigg.
With divers unable to check the containment cage because of continuing bad weather, it was thought initially that around 20 lengths of the pipe had broken free. These were subsequently recovered from beaches north and south of Sellafield. An internal BNFL memo dated 1st December revealed that whilst around 10 lengths were still missing, a total of 168 had been recovered, including 4 from the Isle of Man and a further number from Ulster’s beaches. BNFL denies that the Irish finds originated from Sellafield. By the 19th December, BNFL had confirmed that 172 sections of pipe had been recovered in total.
The plastic pipeline, laid over ten years ago and used principally for discharging drainage water from the Sellafield site is described by the Environment Agency as ‘lightly radioactively contaminated’. BNFL has confirmed that one section, recovered from the Isle of Man, showed slightly higher than background levels of radioactivity.
In March a BNFL diver checking out the Sellafield pipelines narrowly escaped death when his breathing tube was severed after being sucked into the power intake of BNFL’s new dive boat mv Eagle. On 10th December, at Whitehaven Magistrates court, BNFL pleaded guilty to Health & Safety Executive (HSE) charges of failing to protect the diver’s safety and failing to have a proper risk assessment for the work. The court was told that the risk assessment used was obsolete and had related to a previous BNFL dive vessel.
Magistrates, able to impose a fine of no more than £20,000, viewed the accident as so serious that they felt that the proper sentencing of BNFL could only be carried out by the Crown Court. The HSE prosecution has already claimed £17,000 in costs. No date for the Crown Court has yet been set.
When the mv Eagle’s power intake sucked in his umbilical breathing tube, the driver was dragged upwards from the sea bed and became trapped directly underneath the boat, crashing his head against the intake grill and severing his breathing tube. The diver, who managed to switch to his emergency reserve air supply, was trapped in this position for 25 minutes before being rescued by other members of the dive team.