In the same week that Greenpeace published a report warning of the dangers of transporting nuclear materials by rail in the UK, a railway wagon carrying an empty nuclear flask, designed to transport vitrified High Level Waste (HLW) from Sellafield, de-railed in the Barrow Docks railway system on Friday morning 31st March.
In what a British Nuclear Group (BNG) spokesperson described as a test run using a residue export flask, the railway wagon had been hauled from Sellafield to the docks by Direct Rail Services (DRS), a wholly owned subsidiary of BNG and now owned by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA). The wagon, which is understood to have remained upright during the incident, was put back on the rails and returned to Sellafield later in the day. Officials from BNG and DRS attended the accident which is not expected to register on the International Nuclear Event Scale (INES). The NDA was informed.
Sellafield’s Residue Export Facility will be used to return HLW to overseas reprocessing customers in Japan and Europe. No HLW has yet been returned by BNG and the first of several years’ shipments from Sellafield, via Barrow Docks are due in 2007/08. The NDA’s Near Term Work Plan (NTWP) for Sellafield shows that commissioning of the new Facility is expected to be completed on 31st March 2008.
The Greenpeace report highlights the risks to nuclear transports in the UK from conventional rail accidents and from terrorist attack. Nuclear transports between Barrow Docks and Sellafield featured on a terrorist hit list in the late 1980’s and detailed plans of several nuclear installations, including Sellafield were found this summer in the possession of associates of the London terrorist bombers.
CORE’s spokesman Martin Forwood said today “ Barrow residents can heave a sigh of relief this time as there was no HLW involved. Sod’s Law says BNG’s luck will run out one day and then we’ll all suffer the consequences of what could be a catastrophic event. Nuclear transports are risky and wholly unnecessary, and at Barrow they threaten to severely jeopardise the success of Docks Regeneration Scheme”.
The Regeneration Plans for Barrow Docks under the Scheme include dockside housing and shopping facilities, a marina and sports complex. With construction due to begin in the next few years, all the proposed features – seen as a lifeline for Barrow’s future – are to be built adjacent to, and in some cases directly alongside the docks railway line used by BNG for nuclear transports.