Local anti-nuclear group CORE (Cumbrians Opposed to a Radioactive Environment), in condemning the overall findings of the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee on The Management of Nuclear Waste, has described the Lords’ recommendations as retrograde and poorly informed. In backing the policy of the deep disposal of wastes, most of which are generated at Sellafield from reprocessing and include wastes from foreign countries, the Lords Committee appears to have learned nothing from the abject failure of the NIREX deep dumping plans, or of the role that reprocessing plants have played in producing the historic waste stockpiles which the committee itself describes as being an unprecedented problem. A CORE spokesperson said today “ Despite all the good evidence to the contrary, the Lords have swallowed the industry’s bait – hook, line and sinker. We might have guessed as much when some of the committee came to Sellafield last summer on a ‘fact-finding’ mission and chose only to speak to BNFL and the Sellafield Unions – and not to local environment groups. CORE notes that in supporting continued reprocessing as a waste mangement process, the Lords make a distinction for THORP in stating that the plant has no waste management value whatsoever unless the plutonium it separates can be re-used. However, BNFL’s inability to raise business for such plutonium re-use in the Sellafield MOX plant appears to have been ignored by the committee who concede that, apart from ‘a minimum strategic stock’, the remainder of the 50 plus tonnes of plutonium stockpiled at Sellafield should be declared as waste. CORE’s spokesperson added “ The Lords are expecting, with public participation and concensus, one or more deep dumps to be available in 50 years time. We will continue to fight to overturn that policy and put in its place the morally and environmentally superior system of waste storage above ground at the site of origin – with the stopping of reprocessing, its waste production and polluting discharges, as the first step forward “. For further information contact CORE on 01229 833851, Mobile 0789 999 1146, or Home 01229 716523.