Hinkley Mud media-Brief

The Petition last year to stop the dumping of polluted sediments from near Hinkley nuclear station was signed by many thousands.  The Senedd Petitions Committee took it seriously, but met with dismissive obfuscation by the NRW. They felt unable to challenge NRW assurances, but did demand further sampling at depth of sediments accumulated a few decades ago when nuclear discharges were higher and poorly controlled.  The Senedd debate on 22 May was supposed to be on their interim report, but officials conspired to close down their investigation after Lesley Griffiths maintained the NRW were right. We now know their excuses and claims to comply with international law are badly flawed.  This demands the issue is reopened.

NRW and the Welsh Government say it’s “safe”, but it’s not:

·         The few samples of the deeper mud show elevated radionuclides and metals

·         NRW failed to require assessment of impacts on wildlife and humans

·         Welsh Ministers have duty under the London Convention to strictly assess and limit disposal at sea, but failed to require EdF to take sufficient samples

·         Lesley Griffiths for the Welsh Govt. acted as a rubber-stamp for NRW instead of the required independent assessor.

Lesley Griffiths as Cabinet Secretary acts on behalf of the Welsh Government as Marine Management organisation in Wales.  She has an independent role in checking NRW’s marine licensing, paralleling the MMO in England having a role independent of the Environment Agency,

Lesley Griffiths and the NRW claim to have complied with all international obligations and standards. These are the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the London anti-dumping Convention (Int. Maritime Organisation) and the OSPAR (Oslo-Paris) north-east Atlantic Convention [1].  This is the first test of the Welsh Government’s understanding and commitment to these legal obligations.

LLRC says the NRW position on allowing the dump without adequate testing means they are breaking

a Welsh law — the Environment (Wales) Act 2016.

Section 4 of the Act lays down Principles of sustainable management of natural resources; the Act specifically says that these high level principles apply to NRW.

Key principles are:

(a) manage adaptively, by planning, monitoring, reviewing and, where appropriate, changing action;

(e) take account of all relevant evidence and gather evidence in respect of uncertainties;

  

LLRC Secretary Richard Bramhall says “There are huge uncertainties. LLRC has presented NRW

Chair Diane McCrea with reports arising from years of dialogue with Westminster government and

radiation protection authorities in UK and abroad. They show that the risks of internal contamination,

especially with alpha emitting elements Uranium and Plutonium, are far greater than official estimates.”

This is very relevant to the mud dump, especially since the official testing has failed to use a method

of directly detecting alpha emitters.

“We have drawn attention to UN data that shows Hinkley Point nuclear reactors have emitted large quantities of airborne Uranium particles. CEFAS did not look for or find a single one”.

Further LLRC reports submitted to the NRW are summarised in Note [2].

NRW failed even to meet the IAEA requirements because

a) “de minimis”  applies only to the well-mixed sea waters a few km off the coast,

b) CEFAS made no assessment of impacts on ecology as the 2015 IAEA update prescribes, and

c) CEFAS was wrong to assume radiological doses to human beach-users and fish-eaters similar to doses from discharges far out in Morecambe Bay.

There has been no Habitats Directive (HRA) assessment nor any Environmental Impact Assessment.  NRW asserts these were undertaken, but CEFAS explicitly pointed out in 2013 that the Hinkley EdF assessments did not cover the disposal of material to the Cardiff Grounds [3]. 

The WG do not comply with the London anti-dumping Convention: Contracting Parties shall prohibit… any deliberate disposal at sea.. except as otherwise specified….  NRW first claimed compliance but have never shown this. 

Article IV 2. Any permit shall be issued only after careful consideration of all the factors set forth in Annex III, including prior studies of the characteristics of the dumping site, as set forth in sections B and C of that Annex.

… Annex II   “special care …. Wastes containing significant amounts of   [named toxic metals]

… Annex III   B5.5  “Dispersal characteristics..”

                    C2  “Possible effects on marine life…”

Careful consideration  and  special care are not at all evident in the NRW documents; in particular there is no evidence on B5.5 and C2 as above.  CEFAS found some toxic metals are significant, in exceeding Action Level-1, but NRW disregarded the issue.

http://barryvalefriendsoftheearth.blogspot.com/2018/06/contaminated-mud-to-hit-beaches-at.html

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CONTACTS    

Max Wallis   Friends of the Earth Barry&Vale/Penarth   maxkwallis@gmail.com   0778 333 0956

Richard Bramhall:  Low Level Radiation Campaign & WANA Alliance\<info@wana.wales)  01597 822501

http://barryvalefriendsoftheearth.blogspot.com/

Welsh Anti-Nuclear Alliance  www.wana.wales    https://www.facebook.com/WANA-1837140856315591

NOTES

[1]  International obligations in guidance

London  Convention: Convention on the Prevention of Marine Pollution by Dumping of Wastes and Other Matter

IAEA.  Determining the suitability of materials for disposal at sea under the London Convention 1972 and London Protocol 1996: A Radiological Assessment Procedure, 2015 (IAEA-TECDOC-1759)

IMO . Guidelines for the application of the de minimis concept under the London Convention and Protocol (Based on 2015 IAEA-TECDOC 1759

OSPAR.  Guidelines for the Management of Dredged Material at Sea, 2014 (Agreement 2014-06)

[2]  Further LLRC reports submitted to the NRW

One analyses official responses to evidence in the peer-reviewed scientific literature, showing that the authorities use evasion, misinterpretation and false reasoning to deny its significance. NRW has not responded to any of the evidence but relies on an alleged international consensus on radiation risk.

    Ms. McCrea’s last letter claims that NRW is required to follow the sampling protocols of the International Atomic Energy Agency.  LLRC asked for documentary evidence of such a requirement and pointed out that the recent Environment (Wales) Act 2016 is more precautionary, requiring NRW to take account of all relevant evidence and to gather evidence in respect of uncertainties. Ms. McCrea resigned within a week of receiving that letter. We still lack an explanation of why IAEA trumps Welsh law. In fact, they took half the required samples (OSPAR guidance, [4] below).

   The new Acting Chair of NRW, Dr. Madeleine Havard, has not addressed this question in the 2^nd  August letter to the Wales section of Nuclear Free Local Authorities.

   LLRC Secretary Richard Bramhall says NRW lacks radiological expertise and relies on the English

Environment Agency, who have recently stated that they are not competent to discuss radiation risk with Non-Government Organisations. They defer to COMARE and Public Health England who, ironically, are the authors of the evasion, misinterpretation and false reasoning we have warned NRW about”.

  In addition to published evidence of stillbirths and congenital malformations that LLRC has previously

notified to NRW, LLRC has recently (18th July) written to Environment Secretary Lesley Griffiths about

a Ukraine research paper that “shows a clear relationship between fallout levels and neural tube defects and microcephaly in new-borns as recorded by authorities in the Ukraine; there is little sign that the effects are diminishing with time. Given the tidal energy across Cardiff Grounds and the well-known mechanisms whereby micron-sized particles become available for inhalation, these studies suggest that the consequences for south Wales could be apparent as early as nine months after deposition of the sediment and could still be having an impact on health 30 years later. Calls for additional testing during the debate were entirely justified”

[3] CEFAS 2013 assessment (Shelley Vince) MCU12/45  23 April 2013.

25 .  A Habitats Regulations Assessment under The Conservation of Habitats and Species Regulations 2010 has been carried out by the developer for the Hinkley Point C development; however this does not cover the disposal of material to Cardiff Grounds. As the material is to be placed at a licensed disposal site I would not expect the disposal work to require a Habitats Regulations Assessment but I defer to the view of NRW (legacy CCW) on this matter. 

Requirement for EIA

26. An Environmental Statement was produced for the Hinkley Point C Nuclear Power Station IPC application. This ES has been provided with the disposal application however this does not specifically cover the disposal of material to Cardiff Grounds but does provide some useful information to support the application. I am of the opinion that an Environmental Impact Assessment is not required for these disposal works.

[4]  Was the 2009 sampling at depth adequate?  The 5 borehole samples were discarded, not retained, for further examination as procedure requires.  Two samples showed no increase with depth, three showed up to 3x higher [6]. The Petitions Committee asked for further samples, but EdF refused and NRW said ‘no scientific justification’.  The  OSPAR Guidelines for the Management of Dredged Material at Sea (Agreement 2014-06) say otherwise:

5.3       The following table gives an indication of the number of separate sampling stations required to obtain representative results, assuming a reasonably uniform sediment distribution in the area to be dredged:

Amount dredged (m3)	Number of Stations
Up to 25 000	3
25 000 - 100 000	4 – 6
100 000 - 500 000	7 – 15
500 000 - 2 000 000	16 – 30
>2 000 000	extra 10 per million m3

For 300 000m³, these imply a minimum of 7, probably over 10 samples are needed, compared with the 5 taken at depth [7 below] the sediments being far from uniform specifies more than the 7 minimum.  NRW argues there were also many samples of surface sediment <2cm deep. but these sediments vary tide to tide and are unrepresentative of the dredgings.

[5]   IAEA  Reference criteria for humans and flora and fauna

IMO. Guidelines for the application of the de minimis concept under the London Convention and Protocol
(based on 2015 IAEA-TECDOC 1759.  Replaces 2003 IAEA- TECDOC 1375 used by CEFAS)

[6]  Data for U238 and Radium in 2009 samples taken at depth

NRW said "no evidence" of higher radionuclides in the deeper sediments (from higher nuclear discharges 2 or 3 decades ago), but anyone who can read numbers can see that's untrue. 

Table B.15  Uranium-238 and Radium-226 concentrations for Vibro core samples  (also in [1] Appx B)

FUGRO survey of five locations in vicinity of intake, outfall and jetty, on 9/11 and 15/11 2009

Sample           U: surface/deep     Ra: surface/deep        depth           Date

1230/1231     48.73 / 46.13      25.25 / 27.65      4.35-4.42m    9/11

1232/1233     43.98 / 71.23      24.46 / 71.25      3.0-3.08m      9/11

1234/1235     39.46 / 41.25      22.43 / 30.30      4.7-4.8m       15/11

1236.1237     30.83 / 50.9        15.56 / 29.10      1.94-2.16m   15/11

1238/1239     50.65 / 68.56      25.29 / 73.57      3.0-4.12m     15/11

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3 out of the 5 samples are significantly higher at depth (up to 3x for Radium - Ra). If the Ra all came from decay of U-238, its numbers (specific activity) would all be about half those for U; another source is implied in the older deep sediments.  The NRW failure to require deep samples means only the 2009 data are representative of the bulk of the material to be dredged.  As there are so few data, the maximum plus a safety factor has to be adopted.  This raises CEFAS’s 5.8 μSv/yr calculated dose, potentially to above the 10 μSv/yr limit.  Data from CEFAS in the NRW report to the Petitions Cttee (March 2018).

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The Campaign against Hinkley-Mud dumping is seeking

The Welsh Assembly to sponsor Joint Fact-Finding  into the hazards and uncertainties of nuclear materials in the Severn Estuary and wider environment, to include radioactively “hot” particles, bioconcentration and assessment techniques to comply with international standards.

The Welsh Government to suspend the dumping license, pending NRW complying fully with OSPAR, IAEA and the London sea-dumping Convention, and to exercise its overseeing duties in marine management.