UK Pressured over Radioactive Discharges
Bremen, Germany, 26 June 2003 - Despite fierce opposition by Britain to head off criticism at the OSPAR meeting
(1), the UK was forced to accept the concerns of Member States over radioactive discharges from the nuclear reprocessing
plant at Sellafield. The dispute at OSPAR resulted from the UK's failure to meet its commitments over the past five
years to reduce radioactive discharges
(2). The discharge of the radioactive waste Technetium-99 was, in particular, the subject of intense negotiation at the
meeting. In the last week, after six months of prevarication, the UK Environment Minister Margaret Beckett was pressured
into writing to the state-owned company British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL) to ask them for a nine month moratorium on
Technetium-99 discharges. It is expected that research and development will take place over these months to see if
technology is feasible to stop the discharges by March 2004.
"This decision may come back to haunt the UK", said Greenpeace's Simon Reddy at OSPAR. "The UK Government will be
dreading March 2004. They either have to ensure the technology is in place or announce a resumption of the radioactive
technetium discharges."
The UK only moved on this issue because a coalition of countries (Norway, Denmark, Iceland, Ireland, The Netherlands and
Sweden)refused to allow Britain to go unchallenged. "The lack of progress in reducing discharges, due to the
intransigence of the UK and, to a lesser extent, France, meant that this OSPAR meeting was notable to celebrate
significant reduction in radioactive discharges to European waters," Reddy concluded.
Greenpeace, however, welcomed the adoption of guidelines on offshore wind farm development, which will facilitate and
encourage the development of clean renewable energy.