Three years after leaving Barrow under a storm of protest, and one year after the events of September 11th, BNFL’s embarrassing and controversial cargo of weapons-useable plutonium fuel is due to arrive back in the town’s docks tomorrow morning under renewed protest and after a ten-week voyage that has attracted worldwide condemnation.
An intense security clampdown has already been initiated in and around Barrow Docks today in advance of the BNFL ships’ return, with a first sighting in the approaches to the town expected at first light when they will be met by a number of yachts from the Irish Sea Flotilla at Roa Island.
CORE said today “ The overbearing security required for this despised cargo is testimony to the unsavoury and dangerous nature of BNFL’s plutonium trade. Barrow and its docks deserves better than this degrading spectacle and BNFL would be reckless to contemplate any further shipments “.
The 8 plutonium fuel assemblies (MOX), containing 255 kilograms of nuclear weapons-useable plutonium, had been rejected by Sellafield’s Japanese customer Kansai Electric in 1999 when BNFL admitted that vital quality assurance data had been deliberately falsified by bored workers at Sellafield’s MOX Demonstration Facility.
Carried on board BNFL’s armed Pacific Pintail, with the Pacific Teal as escort, the internationally condemned shipment has been forced to return to Barrow ‘the long way’ round the world as numerous en-route states banned the cargo from their waters. The ships also had to run the gauntlet of a nuclear-free seas Flotilla in the Tasman Sea, the Irish Sea and in the approaches to Barrow. The shipment has cost the UK taxpayer £113M in transport costs and compensation to BNFL’s disillusioned Japanese customer.
Under heavily armed escort, the rejected plutonium fuel is expected to complete the one-hour journey by rail to Sellafield tomorrow afternoon where it is likely to be stored indefinitely as nuclear waste.
CORE added “ This unwelcome cargo is returning to a very different world to the one it left in 1999. BNFL is now bankrupt; hopes of gaining Japanese orders for the loss-making Sellafield MOX Plant (SMP) have recently evaporated and the threat of terrorist action against nuclear shipments has significantly increased. Given the global effort to put nuclear materials beyond the reach of terrorists and rogue states, it is highly irresponsible of BNFL to be spreading these materials around the world “.