Sellafield Limited has this morning advised that elevated levels of radioactivity are being detected at one of the site’s perimeter fence radiation monitors. Despite telling non-essential workers not to come to work, the company is assuring the wider world that there is no risk to either to the public off-site or to operational workers on site.
Yet the official version of the ongoing incident, via the mixed messages being issued by local media, is doing little to instil public confidence. Confirming that the elevated levels of radioactivity ‘above background levels’ are being detected at the the perimeter fence – and that the raised levels pose no risk to the general public are not sufficient to trigger any extra action by the company, Sellafield Ltd’s Stakeholder Relations spokesman’ statements strongly suggest that if measured at the fence itself, elevated levels of radioactivity will indeed have escaped and be present ‘off-site’ and that the warning to non-essential staff to stay home is an action by the company well above and beyond normal action.
CORE’s spokesman Martin Forwood has said this morning:
We understand that it may take some time for the Company to track down the exact source of the raised activity but the sooner they level with the public by providing a more coherent explanation of what’s going on the better. The world and his dog will remember well that some the world’s worst nuclear accidents were initially portrayed as being of no consequence and no risk to the public”