Standard content for Members only
To continue reading this article, please login to your Utility Week account, Start 14 day trial or Become a member.
If your organisation already has a corporate membership and you haven’t activated it simply follow the register link below. Check here.
The elevated levels of radiation detected at the Sellafield reprocessing plant is “not attributable to any issue or problem” at the Cumbrian site.
Overnight a monitoring system detected higher than normal levels of radiation, which resulted in the site operating at reduced manning levels today.
The alert was attributed to “extremely sensitive” in-air monitors that detected naturally occurring background radon.
In a statement, Sellafield Ltd, which operates the facility, said: “The number one priority for us is, at all times, safe secure stewardship of the Sellafield site, which is the most complex and challenging nuclear site in Europe.
“As such we act in a safety conscious manner, and take cautious, conservative decisions, such as the one taken overnight to ask non-safety essential staff to stay at home this morning, rather than come to the site.
“All of our plants and storage facilities were quickly confirmed as operating normally, and we were always confident that the issue posed no risk to the workforce or public because the levels being detected, whilst above background radiation levels, were still low.
“This view was reinforced by the fact that none of our other installed monitors were picking up any kind of increased levels – however, we take such issues so seriously that we investigated fully to confirm that everything was okay.”
Standard weekend working practices will continue at the site and day staff are due back in on Monday as normal.
Please login or Register to leave a comment.