The Prakanong Court in Bangkok today dismissed a defamation charge brought against Andy Hall by Natural Fruit Company Ltd, which owns a pineapple export factory, due to an “unlawful interrogation process” under section 120 of the criminal procedure code.

Natural Fruit has launched multiple criminal and civil prosecutions against the researcher since February 2013 following his contribution to a Finnwatch report – ‘Cheap has a high price‘ – published that year. The report revealed serious human rights violations at Natural Fruit’s pineapple juice production facilities

Today’s verdict – just the first of four cases filed against Andy Hall by Natural Fruit – related to an interview Hall gave to the global broadcaster Aljazeera on his criminal prosecutions.

“We are relieved and glad that justice has prevailed in this case”, said Sonja Vartiala, the Executive Director of Finnwatch. But she adds that there remain serious problems in working conditions at Natural Fruit: “The question that now must be asked is why Thailand’s authorities have not taken action against the company.”

Three more legal cases await him

The second case, a US$10m civil defamation case, begins tomorrow at Nakhon Pathom Court.

The third case, computer crimes act and criminal defamation charges, will proceed on 17th November at the Southern Bangkok Criminal Court. Dates for a fourth US$4 million civil case have not yet been confirmed.

If Hall is found guilty of the additional criminal and civil cases, he could face up to seven years in prison and be required to pay as much as $14 million in compensation to Natural Fruit.

Hundreds of other international NGOs regard the court proceedings against Andy Hall as “judicial harassment” and see that his important and successful work is being seriously hindered by these actions.

Finnwatch is now demanding that the company drop all the charges against Andy Hall. “Instead of allowing companies to bring human rights activists to court, Thailand needs to prosecute companies like Natural Fruit, who are violating labour rights”, says Vartiala.

Beware Thai fish, seafood, pineapple products

Writing for The Ecologist last month as his prosecution began, Hall denounced the widespread abuse of workers in Thailand’s export-oriented food sector:

“Abuse experienced by migrants in Thailand, often treated as second class citizens or walking ATMs, extends to many export markets. Consumers across the world should be increasingly aware of this. The abuse extends beyond fishing, seafood and pineapples, those products whose abusive supply chains have already been well publicized.

“Exploitation of migrants by employers, officials and brokers is widespread and systematic in Thailand. Thai migration policy has always been a shambles, devoid of long term planning and the rule of law. Corruption and abuse of power are all encompassing features of the migration system here, every day experiences for the workers themselves.”

But he added that whatever the outcome of the trials for him, they were finally bringing the prospect of respite to the workers themselves:

“My harassment is being used effectively by me, consumer groups, trade unions and rights groups as a means of increasing awareness and interest of consumers and importers of Thai products on the systematic nature of migrant exploitation in Thailand and the link to trade, export and corporate social responsibility.

“With more awareness surely comes more pressure for positive change and then eventually the change itself.”

Demonstrations are being held today in Finland, Netherlands, UK and the United States to support Andy Hall.

The report: ‘Cheap has a high price‘.

The Prakanong Court in Bangkok today dismissed a defamation charge brought against Andy Hall by Natural Fruit Company Ltd, which owns a pineapple export factory, due to an “unlawful interrogation process” under section 120 of the criminal procedure code.

Natural Fruit has launched multiple criminal and civil prosecutions against the researcher since February 2013 following his contribution to a Finnwatch report – ‘Cheap has a high price‘ – published that year. The report revealed serious human rights violations at Natural Fruit’s pineapple juice production facilities

Today’s verdict – just the first of four cases filed against Andy Hall by Natural Fruit – related to an interview Hall gave to the global broadcaster Aljazeera on his criminal prosecutions.

“We are relieved and glad that justice has prevailed in this case”, said Sonja Vartiala, the Executive Director of Finnwatch. But she adds that there remain serious problems in working conditions at Natural Fruit: “The question that now must be asked is why Thailand’s authorities have not taken action against the company.”

Three more legal cases await him

The second case, a US$10m civil defamation case, begins tomorrow at Nakhon Pathom Court.

The third case, computer crimes act and criminal defamation charges, will proceed on 17th November at the Southern Bangkok Criminal Court. Dates for a fourth US$4 million civil case have not yet been confirmed.

If Hall is found guilty of the additional criminal and civil cases, he could face up to seven years in prison and be required to pay as much as $14 million in compensation to Natural Fruit.

Hundreds of other international NGOs regard the court proceedings against Andy Hall as “judicial harassment” and see that his important and successful work is being seriously hindered by these actions.

Finnwatch is now demanding that the company drop all the charges against Andy Hall. “Instead of allowing companies to bring human rights activists to court, Thailand needs to prosecute companies like Natural Fruit, who are violating labour rights”, says Vartiala.

Beware Thai fish, seafood, pineapple products

Writing for The Ecologist last month as his prosecution began, Hall denounced the widespread abuse of workers in Thailand’s export-oriented food sector:

“Abuse experienced by migrants in Thailand, often treated as second class citizens or walking ATMs, extends to many export markets. Consumers across the world should be increasingly aware of this. The abuse extends beyond fishing, seafood and pineapples, those products whose abusive supply chains have already been well publicized.

“Exploitation of migrants by employers, officials and brokers is widespread and systematic in Thailand. Thai migration policy has always been a shambles, devoid of long term planning and the rule of law. Corruption and abuse of power are all encompassing features of the migration system here, every day experiences for the workers themselves.”

But he added that whatever the outcome of the trials for him, they were finally bringing the prospect of respite to the workers themselves:

“My harassment is being used effectively by me, consumer groups, trade unions and rights groups as a means of increasing awareness and interest of consumers and importers of Thai products on the systematic nature of migrant exploitation in Thailand and the link to trade, export and corporate social responsibility.

“With more awareness surely comes more pressure for positive change and then eventually the change itself.”

Demonstrations are being held today in Finland, Netherlands, UK and the United States to support Andy Hall.

The report: ‘Cheap has a high price‘.

Prime Ministers blame Brussels for, well, everything, But trade ministers have just written to EU President Juncker insisting he removes more of their national sovereignty through secret corporate courts.

Conflict rages in Brussels between those seeking to salvage the embattled EU/US trade pact (TTIP) by dropping ISDS as its most controversial aspect, and those who still want to push through the whole project in the face of mounting public opposition.

The ‘investor-state dispute settlement system’ (ISDS) would allow investors and corporations to sue governments in private international tribunals for any policy they deem “unfair” or which could affect their “legitimate profit expectations”. I have written about it here.

It emerged last week that trade ministers from 14 EU member states have written to Juncker, telling him to make sure TTIP does include ISDS, and reminding him that he has a mandate from member states to include that.

‘Please take our national powers away and give them to US corporations’

The ministers include UK’s Lord Livingston, alongside trade ministers from the Czech Republic, Cyprus, Estonia, Denmark, Finland, Croatia, Malta, Lithuania, Ireland, Sweden, Spain, Portugal, and Latvia.

They wrote: “One of the issues that has attracted criticism is investment protection. The Commission is currently analysing the results of a public consultation on this issue and we look forward to the Commission’s response.

“The consultation was an important step in ensuring that we strike the correct balance to ensure that governments retain their full freedom to regulate, but not in a way that discriminates against foreign firms … The Council mandate is clear in its inclusion of investor protection mechanisms in the TTIP negotiations; we need to work together on how best to do so.”

In reality, the negotiating mandate is ambiguous. It is in favour of ISDS and investment protection more generally, but also states:

“the inclusion of investment protection and investor-to-state dispute settlement (ISDS) will depend on whether a satisfactory solution, meeting the EU interests concerning the issues covered by paragraph 23, is achieved. The matter shall also be considered in view of the final balance of the Agreement.”

Juncker stands for British democracy against UK Government

Juncker thus seems correct when he pointed out in his Strasbourg speech:

“The negotiating mandate foresees a number of conditions that have to be respected by such a regime as well as an assessment of its relationship with domestic courts. There is thus no obligation in this regard: the mandate leaves it open and serves as a guide.”

Juncker seems to be defending European member state sovereignty against the trade fundamentalists who would hand it over to corporations – for now.

On 22 October in his speech before the European Parliament vote confirming him as President, Juncker said:

“I took note of the intense debates around investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) in the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) negotiations.

“Let me once again state my position clearly, that I had set out on 15 July in front of this House and that you will find in my Political Guidelines: My Commission will not accept that the jurisdiction of courts in the EU Member States be limited by special regimes for investor-to-state disputes. The rule of law and the principle of equality before the law must also apply in this context.

“The negotiating mandate foresees a number of conditions that have to be respected by such a regime as well as an assessment of its relationship with domestic courts. There is thus no obligation in this regard: the mandate leaves it open and serves as a guide.”

The truth is shrouded under layers of secrecy

The position of Juncker’s new trade commissioner, Swedish Liberal Malmström, is unclear.

At her confirmation hearing she gave no clear indication where she stands on ISDS in TTIP. She said that the EU would want to include ISDS in future agreements with other parties, but added that possibly it could be excluded altogether from TTIP, and emphasized that the system needs to be “reformed”.

Malmström also claimed that there was no need to renegotiate ISDS in the equally controversial Canada free-trade agreement called CETA, since without it the deal could fall apart.

Juncker has just taken away Malmström’s power to negotiate this matter alone, giving new Commission First Vice President Frans Timmermans, a Dutch Social Democrat, oversight of the ISDS issue:

“I have asked Frans Timmermans, in his role as First Vice-President in charge of the Rule of Law and the Charter of Fundamental Rights, to advise me on the matter. There will be no investor-to-state dispute clause in TTIP if Frans does not agree with it too.”

But this conflict with potentially far-reaching implications takes place largely behind closed doors. If it were not for the massive public protests across Europe, the negotiation mandate, agreed secretly between the Commission and the governments of the member states in June 2013, would still be secret.

The public, even the parliaments would know nothing. The US has even prohibited the Commission from giving the US negotiation documents to the member states.

Where is Cameron’s mandate?

Cameron, Merkel, Hollande claim they defend our interests, yet it is difficult to imagine how they can do that when they are prohibited from reading what the US is putting on the table.

And how dare our 14 trade ministers write to Juncker clamoring for ISDS to be kept in TTIP?

Not one of them had a mandate from their public or parliament to write ISDS into the secret negotiation mandate last year. Not one of them told their public or parliament that they did. I am sure not one of them had a mandate from their parliaments or was asked by their public to write such a letter now.

Were it not for some courageous whistleblower, we would not even know that they did.

It is particularly embarrassing for the Cypriot minister that his signature became public. As laid out in ‘Profiting from Crisis‘, Cyprus is being sued by dubious banks in investor-state tribunals for enormous amounts of ‘compensation’ for their speculative investments, based on other existing investment protection treaties with ISDS.

A Greek-listed private equity-style investor, Marfin Investment Group, which was involved in a series of questionable lending practices, is seeking €823 million in compensation for their lost investments after Cyprus had to nationalise the Laiki Bank as part of an EU debt restructuring agreement.

The people are sovereign – but only if we make it so!

‘EU trade policy’ is formulated and carried out in a democracy vacuum. It stinks – and not only in Brussels. It stinks particularly in the capitals of the member states.

It is so easy for trade ministers to push privately for Brussels to adopt policies that never would be agreed in an open, democratic process.

It is so easy for ministers and prime ministers to then point the finger at the Commission in Brussels when voters get angry.

It is time for the voters to tell them who is the sovereign in a democratic country.

Jurgen Maier is Director of the German NGO Forum Environment & Development, a network monitoring international negotiations and currently coordinating Germany’s campaign against TTIP.

This article was originally published on Open Democracy.

The growing Ebola virus outbreak not only highlights the tragedy enveloping the areas most affected but also offers a commentary on they way in which the political ecology in West Africa has allowed this disease to become established.

The narrative goes that the virus appeared spontaneously in the forest villages of Guinea in December 2013. But this is debatable given that there is evidence of antibodies the Ebola virus in human blood from Sierra Leone up to five years before.

Previously only one case of Ebola had been reported in the region, and it was the Ivory Coast strain of the virus. The strain detected in the blood samples is of the more virulent Zaire strain of Ebola, the same strain responsible for the current epidemic.

After months of very little concerted action it’s clear that the disease is now seriously in danger of spreading out of control.

The real drivers of Ebola in West Africa – poverty and oil palm

The global health community has declared it a crisis of international importance, which has led the host nations to implement draconian preventions strategies, tantamount in some places to martial law in terms of surveillance, quarantine, border controls and other logistical aspects of control. But this is too little, too late.

There are several mechanisms through which the virus may have emerged, and it is unlikely that this latest outbreak was spontaneous.

It is poverty that drives villagers to encroach further into the forest, where they become infected with the virus when hunting and butchering wildlife, or through contact with body fluids from bats – this has been seen with Nipah, another dangerous virus associated with bats.

The likelihood of infection in this manner is compounded by inadequate rural health facilities and poor village infrastructure, compounded by the disorganised urban sprawl at the fringes of cities.

The virus then spreads in a wave of fear and panic, ill-conceived intervention and logistical failures – including even insufficient food or beds for the severely ill.

Take for example the global palm oil industry, where a similar trend of deep-cutting into forests for agricultural development has breached natural barriers to the evolution and spread of specific pathogens.

The effects of land grabs and the focus on certain fruit crop species leads to an Allee effect, where sudden changes in one ecological element causes the mechanisms for keeping populations – bats in this case – and viruses in equilibrium to shift, increasing the probability of spill over to alternative hosts.

Palm oil’s relentless march at the expense of forests and health

This is not unheard of; the introduction of fruit tree crops in cleared forests and agricultural expansion in Malaysia was associated with the emergence of Nipah virus. Bats feeding on fruit trees infected pigs in pens, which provided a vector for the virus to humans.

Another example is with vector-borne diseases such as the Japanese Encephalitis, a virus carried by wild birds which expanded its range due to growing rice and pig farming.

Chikungunya and Dengue Fever viruses exploited deforestation for secondary epidemiological cycles, which increased at the forest edge until the virus was able to adapt to secondary hosts and expand globally.

Certainly the complexity of the agro-ecological changes in West Africa warrant scrutiny. Guinea’s new agriculture is in an early stage of development, identified by the World Bank as the highest investment potential for industrial agriculture.

As global markets shift – and tariffs and taxes on multinational companies are removed, farmers with small land holdings are faced with a choice: either sell off or scale up to meet the competition. Forests are one of the first casualties.

A breakdown of traditional governance

Alongside this subtle effect is the dismantling of traditional governance, violence under colonial, neo-colonial and more recent kleptocratic governments and the economic movements of people towards urbanisation.

Such turbulence, poverty, the influx of refugees from neighbouring wars and crumbling health systems have all created an ecosystem in which the natural friction that prevents Ebola from gathering pathogenic momentum has been all but eroded.

Any international response can do little to remedy these contributing factors. In fact the response has been little more than a recognition of the complete failure of neo-liberal development strategies to contain the virus.

The ‘success’ of the Ebola virus is fundamentally based on the sociological factors and population biology of those it infects. But the data required to test the hypothesis – detailed records about what people eat, where they go and how they interact – is presently unavailable.

Instead research has focused on virus hunting, and with little success: more than 40,000 samples have not yet conclusively determined where the natural reservoir of Ebola lies.

All the while, the socio-ecological factors that are critical to the spread of any disease are ignored.

The report: ‘Did Ebola emerge in West Africa by a policy-driven phase change in agroecology?’ is published in Environment and Planning.

Richard Kock is Professor of Wildlife Health and Emerging Diseases at the Royal Veterinary College. He received funding from DFID to explore gaps and opportunities in the treatment or prevention of zoonoses in emerging livestock systems. Funding is current from EU through BBSRC on an emerging livestock viral disease in Africa – specifically PPR virus in wildlife populations.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

The growing Ebola virus outbreak not only highlights the tragedy enveloping the areas most affected but also offers a commentary on they way in which the political ecology in West Africa has allowed this disease to become established.

The narrative goes that the virus appeared spontaneously in the forest villages of Guinea in December 2013. But this is debatable given that there is evidence of antibodies the Ebola virus in human blood from Sierra Leone up to five years before.

Previously only one case of Ebola had been reported in the region, and it was the Ivory Coast strain of the virus. The strain detected in the blood samples is of the more virulent Zaire strain of Ebola, the same strain responsible for the current epidemic.

After months of very little concerted action it’s clear that the disease is now seriously in danger of spreading out of control.

The real drivers of Ebola in West Africa – poverty and oil palm

The global health community has declared it a crisis of international importance, which has led the host nations to implement draconian preventions strategies, tantamount in some places to martial law in terms of surveillance, quarantine, border controls and other logistical aspects of control. But this is too little, too late.

There are several mechanisms through which the virus may have emerged, and it is unlikely that this latest outbreak was spontaneous.

It is poverty that drives villagers to encroach further into the forest, where they become infected with the virus when hunting and butchering wildlife, or through contact with body fluids from bats – this has been seen with Nipah, another dangerous virus associated with bats.

The likelihood of infection in this manner is compounded by inadequate rural health facilities and poor village infrastructure, compounded by the disorganised urban sprawl at the fringes of cities.

The virus then spreads in a wave of fear and panic, ill-conceived intervention and logistical failures – including even insufficient food or beds for the severely ill.

Take for example the global palm oil industry, where a similar trend of deep-cutting into forests for agricultural development has breached natural barriers to the evolution and spread of specific pathogens.

The effects of land grabs and the focus on certain fruit crop species leads to an Allee effect, where sudden changes in one ecological element causes the mechanisms for keeping populations – bats in this case – and viruses in equilibrium to shift, increasing the probability of spill over to alternative hosts.

Palm oil’s relentless march at the expense of forests and health

This is not unheard of; the introduction of fruit tree crops in cleared forests and agricultural expansion in Malaysia was associated with the emergence of Nipah virus. Bats feeding on fruit trees infected pigs in pens, which provided a vector for the virus to humans.

Another example is with vector-borne diseases such as the Japanese Encephalitis, a virus carried by wild birds which expanded its range due to growing rice and pig farming.

Chikungunya and Dengue Fever viruses exploited deforestation for secondary epidemiological cycles, which increased at the forest edge until the virus was able to adapt to secondary hosts and expand globally.

Certainly the complexity of the agro-ecological changes in West Africa warrant scrutiny. Guinea’s new agriculture is in an early stage of development, identified by the World Bank as the highest investment potential for industrial agriculture.

As global markets shift – and tariffs and taxes on multinational companies are removed, farmers with small land holdings are faced with a choice: either sell off or scale up to meet the competition. Forests are one of the first casualties.

A breakdown of traditional governance

Alongside this subtle effect is the dismantling of traditional governance, violence under colonial, neo-colonial and more recent kleptocratic governments and the economic movements of people towards urbanisation.

Such turbulence, poverty, the influx of refugees from neighbouring wars and crumbling health systems have all created an ecosystem in which the natural friction that prevents Ebola from gathering pathogenic momentum has been all but eroded.

Any international response can do little to remedy these contributing factors. In fact the response has been little more than a recognition of the complete failure of neo-liberal development strategies to contain the virus.

The ‘success’ of the Ebola virus is fundamentally based on the sociological factors and population biology of those it infects. But the data required to test the hypothesis – detailed records about what people eat, where they go and how they interact – is presently unavailable.

Instead research has focused on virus hunting, and with little success: more than 40,000 samples have not yet conclusively determined where the natural reservoir of Ebola lies.

All the while, the socio-ecological factors that are critical to the spread of any disease are ignored.

The report: ‘Did Ebola emerge in West Africa by a policy-driven phase change in agroecology?’ is published in Environment and Planning.

Richard Kock is Professor of Wildlife Health and Emerging Diseases at the Royal Veterinary College. He received funding from DFID to explore gaps and opportunities in the treatment or prevention of zoonoses in emerging livestock systems. Funding is current from EU through BBSRC on an emerging livestock viral disease in Africa – specifically PPR virus in wildlife populations.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Climate deniers have been left red-faced as the world basks in some of the hottest temperatures in living memory, with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) predicting that 2014 could break all records.

Lord Lawson, who resigned as chancellor in the 1980s after overheating the British economy, has led the siren chorus of climate change denial – claiming that a recent plateau in global earth surface temperatures is proof that the threat of global warming has been wildly exaggerated. 

The deniers have either ignored or attacked the latest research, which shows that the heat created by increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has been absorbed into the oceans and that surface temperatures are likely to begin rising again.

England has enjoyed balmy evenings with golden sunsets lighting up parks and gardens where trees have retained their amber and green leaves. But this wonderful Mediterranean warmth should also be understood as a chilling warning. 

January to September were the warmest first nine months of a year recorded since the invention of the thermometer. This week, NASA scientists announced that September was the hottest of its kind in 135 years.

This is despite the fact that 2014 was not an El Nino year: a natural weather event that takes place every few years and boosts global average temperatures.

‘The contrarians were wrong’

Only a significant drop in temperatures in November and December, which is unlikely but not impossible, would result in the average measured temperature this year falling short of the record set in 2010. 

DeSmogUK approached the outspoken Dr Benny Peiser, director of a leading climate sceptic group, the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), founded by Lawson. 

But when asked what the record temperatures experienced meant for climate scepticism he simply refused to comment. When asked if this report undermines the GWPF’s claims that climate change had stopped, he replied by saying “No comment”. 

Peiser has not previously been coy about making statements to the media based on the temperature of a given day.

During Christmas one year he told The Times newspaper: “The predictions come in thick and fast, but we take them all with a pinch of salt. We look out of the window and it’s very cold, it does not seem to be warming.”

Climate deniers also created a media storm last year when England was hit by freezing temperatures and deluged by snow when a cold front usually found across Siberia swept the country.

Only weeks ago former environment secretary Owen Paterson claimed that “the forecast effects of climate change have been consistently and widely exaggerated thus far“ – going on to call for the effective repeal of the UK’s Climate Change Act.

The warmest annual average temperature since 1880

Dr John Abraham, an expert in climate change, said of the soaring temperatures: “This year was not supposed to be hot, at least according to those who think climate change had stopped. But the real facts tell us a different story, the Earth is still warming, the ‘pause’ never really was, and once again … The contrarians were wrong.” 

NOAA climate scientist Jessica Blunden said in an interview with AP news agency that it was “pretty likely” that 2014 will be the warmest year on record.

Blunden explained that “persistent record warmth in the global ocean” was “strengthening the chances of the year’s final three months resembling the first nine.”

The report shows that from January through to September all months retained record warm temperatures with an average of 58.72 degrees. That’s 0.68°C above the 20th century average of 14.1°C, according to NOAA scientists. 

These records tie 2014 with 1998 and 2010 for the warmest first nine months on record. The United Nations has pointed out that 13 out of the 14 hottest years recorded have taken place since the turn of the 21st century. 

In a statement, NOAA said: “If the surface temperature remains elevated at the same level for the remainder of the year, then 2014 will set a new record for the warmest annual average temperature since records began in 1880.”

The laws of physics are non-negotiable

A more daunting prospect was recently announced by the UN’s World Meteorological Association (WMA) last month, stating an 80% chance that an El Nino was actually still expected to happen at the end of the year.

Jeff Masters, meteorology director for the private firm Weather Underground, said when talking to the Daily Mail that if an El Nino did happen then: “Next year could well bring Earth’s hottest year on record, accompanied by unprecedented regional heat waves and droughts.”

Explaining further, the WMA said: “Carbon dioxide remains in the atmosphere for many hundreds of years and in the ocean for even longer. Past, present and future CO₂ emissions will have a cumulative impact on both global warming and ocean acidification. The laws of physics are non-negotiable.”

Climate change deniers are, of course, welcome to take silent refuge in the late October shadows into which they have uncharacteristically retreated. I’m surely not alone in hoping they stay there for a good long time to come.

This article was originally published by DeSmogUK.

The Ecologist has received a shocking set of leaked images showing decrepit and grossly inadequate storage facilities for high level nuclear waste at the Sellafield nuclear plant.

The images (right), from an anonymous source, show the state of spent nuclear fuel storage ponds that were commissioned in 1952, and used until the mid-1970’s as short term storage for spent fuel until it could be re-processed, producing plutonium for military use. However they were completely abandoned in the mid-1970s and have been left derelict for almost 40 years.

The photographs show cracked concrete tanks holding water contaminated with high levels of radiation, seagulls bathing on the water, broken equipment, a dangerous mess of discarded items on elevated walkways, and weeds growing around the tanks.

The fuel storage ponds, the largest measuring 20m wide, 150m long and 6m deep, are now completely packed with spent fuel in disastrously poor condition.

If the ponds drain, the spent fuel may spontaneously ignite

The ponds are now undergoing decommissioning in order to restore them to safe condition. But the process is fraught with danger – and nuclear expert John Large warns that massive and uncontrolled radioactive releases to the environment could occur.

“This pond is build above ground”, he said. “It’s like an concrete dock full of water. But the concrete is in dreadful condition, degraded and fractured, and if the ponds drain, the Magnox fuel will ignite and that would lead to a massive release of radioactive material.

“Looking at the photos I am very disturbed at the degraded and run down condition of the structures and support services. In my opinion there is a significant risk that the system could fail.”

“If you got a breach of the wall by accident or by terrorist attack, the Magnox fuel would burn. I would say there’s many hundreds of tonnes in there. It could give rise to a very big radioactive release. It’s not for me to make comparisons with Chernobyl or Fukushima, but it could certainly cause serious contamination over a wide area and for a very long time.”

State of fuel is ‘very unstable’

The ponds were abandoned after they were overwhelmed with spent fuel in 1974. This was the time of Prime Minster Edward Heath’s ‘three-day week’ when coal miners were on strike, causing fuel shortages in Britain’s power stations.

In order the ‘keep the lights on’, the UK’s fleet of nuclear power stations were run at full tilt, producing high volumes of spent fuel that the Sellafield re-processing facilities were unable to keep up with.

“During the three-day week they powered up the Magnox reactors to maximum, and so much fuel was coming into Sellafield that it overwhelmed the line, and stayed in the pool too long”, says Large.

“The magesium fuel rod coverings corroded due to the acidity in the ponds, and began to degrade and expose the nuclear fuel itself to the water, so they just lost control of the reprocessing line at a time when the ponds were crammed with intensely radioactive nuclear fuel.”

“This left the fuel in a very unstable condition, with actual nuclear fuel complete with uranium 238, 235 and all the fission products, in contact with water. The problem then is that you get corrosion with the formation of hydride salts which leads to swelling, outside cracks, and metal-air reactions”, said Large – who gave evidence on the topic to the House of Commons Environment Comittee in 1986.

The whole fuel ponds began to look like milk of magnesia, and what with the poor inventories that had been kept, no one even knew what was in there any more. Even the Euratom nuclear proliferation inspectors complained about it as there was by some estimates over a tonne of plutonium sitting there in the fuel rods and as sludge that was never properly accounded for.”

All part of Britain’s nuclear WMD programme

The two adjacent fuel storage ponds, which lie between the old Windscale nuclear piles, were part of the military plutonium production line using the Windscale spent fuel until the Windscale diasaster in 1957.

With the Windscale piles out of commission, they were then adapted to receive nuclear waste from civilian power stations such as Calder Hall and Hinkley Point.

The first pond in the plutonium production line is B30, which is open to the elements. From there underwater tunnels were used to convey the fuel-bearing skips to other ponds and silos within the adjacent building, where the fuel rods were ‘decanned’ from their cladding.

The fuel was then dissolved in concentrated acids in the B203 reprocessing plant, where the plutonium for Britain’s nuclear weapons programme was chemically separated using the PUREX process. Both ponds contain a mix of fuel, sludge, and other miscellaneous nuclear wastes.

Concrete is riddled with cracks

But in the 40 years since the ponds were abandoned, the entire system has broken down. Locks, gantries, lifts and valves are all broken, missing or seized up.

The concrete is riddled with cracks – including not just the ones that you can see, but also those out of sight in the connecting tunnels. The entire environment is far too radioactive for anyone to be able to enter.

The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) has now started work on the ponds, but reassuring statements have been shown to be over-optimistic. “It’s very disturbing”, says Large. “They have been saying it was all under control, and they thought well cleared out. Now we know it’s not.”

However an important first stage has been completed – the ‘de-flocculation’ of the water so that it’s finally possible to see what’s there. This had previously been impossible due to particulate suspension and algal growth.

“For the first time in decades we can see down into the pond and see the contents, and it’s breathtaking!” comments Large. “It’s all thanks to the whistle blower that I’m looking at them. If the Euratom inspectors could see what we can see now, my there would have been a row! Maybe we should invite them back right now!”

A particlar problem arises from the sludge that has accummulated at the bottom of both ponds and skips, which requires especially careful handling. The sludge has to be kept under water in order to prevent its spontaneous ignition.

But it’s also essential to keep it undisturbed as if the sludges are resuspended into the main body of water, a part of the sludge will add into the surface ‘oil’ of fine particulates which can be released to the atmosphere with any surface water disturbance – giving rise to high radiation levels above the water.

This seriously complicates both the removal and packaging of the sludge itself, and of the fuel-containing skips.

Office of Nuclear Regulation response

Several days prior to publication The Ecologist contacted the Office of Nuclear Regulation, the statutory nuclear safety regulator, with pressing questions about the safety of the site, safety plans in the event of water loss or radioactive release, and whether anyone will be prosecuted over the abandonment of the ponds in this highly dangerous condition.

We have now received their replies:

ONR: “Sellafield is ONR’s highest regulatory priority and receives a significantly enhanced level of regulatory attention. It is also a recognised national priority to reduce the hazard and risk at Sellafield in a safe and timely manner.

“We are focusing significant regulatory attention on retrieval of legacy material from the legacy ponds as we recognise the high hazard and risk that these facilities present.”

TE: Are you satisfied that these nuclear installation are safe and ‘fit for purpose’?

ONR: “The legacy facilities at Sellafield were built in the 1950s and 1960s and therefore don’t meet modern engineering standards. Additionally, the legacy facilities were not designed with retrievals of material or decommissioning in mind.

“This does not mean that operations and activities on these facilities are unsafe, but it highlights the need for Sellafield Ltd to retrieve the legacy material in a safe manner as quickly as reasonably possible.

“Our new regulatory approach is aimed at encouraging and facilitating this objective.  We are working collaboratively with other key stakeholders to focus priorities and help drive improvements at Sellafield.

“The new strategy and collaborative working approach is having a positive impact on hazard and risk reduction, particularly in relation to the Pile Fuel Storage Pond where we have enabled the acceleration of removal of legacy canned fuel by four months. We expect this approach to enable Sellafield Ltd to retrieve further legacy material from these facilities ahead of schedule.”

TE: Given that the operator essentially abandoned these ponds around 1974, is any person (real or corporate) to be prosecuted?

ONR: “ONR is not considering enforcement action in relation to the complex historical chain of events leading to the current situation at Sellafield but instead is focusing, together with other key stakeholders, on accelerating the reduction of hazard and risk on site, and how we can do that quickly and safely.

“The ONR’s top priority is ensuring that Sellafield Ltd maintains or improves upon its delivery programme for the remediation and decommissioning of the legacy facilities so that materials are removed  as quickly and safely as possible”

TE: Do these ponds satisfy Safety Assessment Principles for new nuclear plant?

ONR: “The legacy ponds at Sellafield are old and as a result, do not meet the high engineering standards that would be required for modern nuclear facilities. These legacy ponds bring significant challenge, but we must focus our attention on improving the current situation.

“This does not mean that operations and activities on those facilities are unsafe, and ONR has in place a robust inspection regime to ensure that the licensee is doing all that is reasonably practicable to ensure that operations continue to remain safe.” 

TE: Has ONR put in place any special measures under the Radiation (Emergency Preparedness and Public Information) Regulations 2000?

ONR: “The Radiation (Emergency Preparedness and Public Information) Regulations 2001, (REPPIR) require operators to assess the hazards on site and submit a report of this assessment to ONR.  As the operator, Sellafield Ltd are required to do this.

“This information, along with any additional information ONR may request, is used to determine the need for, and the extent of, the area requiring the local authority to produce an off-site emergency plan to protect the public in the unlikely event of a radiation emergency.”

TE: Has the operator given ONR a hazard report relating to B29 and B30?

ONR: “ONR is fully aware of the hazard and risk associated with all facilities at the Sellafield site, and has an on-going programme of inspections.  These ensure that Sellafield Ltd is complying with its statutory obligations to protect the public and workers from the hazards on  the site.

TE: Have risks associated with these buildings been incorporated into ONR report and placed in the public domain?

ONR: “ONR aims to be open and transparent in publishing our regulatory findings, and we routinely publish our regulatory decisions through project assessment reports and intervention records written by inspectors following site inspections.

“We also produce a quarterly report for the West Cumbria Site Stakeholder Group, which summarises our regulatory activity at Sellafield. There may be instances where it is not appropriate for us to publish certain reports, primarily as they may contain sensitive security information.”

TE: Does Cumbria’s offsite emergency plan address the risks posed by B29 and B30?

ONR: “Under REPPIR, Sellafield Ltd are required to assess the hazards on site and submit a report of this assessment to ONR. This covers the whole site.”

TE: It is reported that the ponds are leaking. Can you confirm this, and can you reveal where any leakage is going?

ONR: “ONR is not aware of any leaks from the ponds.”

Oliver Tickell edits The Ecologist.

The Ecologist has received a shocking set of leaked images showing decrepit and grossly inadequate storage facilities for high level nuclear waste at the Sellafield nuclear plant.

The images (right), from an anonymous source, show the state of spent nuclear fuel storage ponds that were commissioned in 1952, and used until the mid-1970’s as short term storage for spent fuel until it could be re-processed, producing plutonium for military use. However they were completely abandoned in the mid-1970s and have been left derelict for almost 40 years.

The photographs show cracked concrete tanks holding water contaminated with high levels of radiation, seagulls bathing on the water, broken equipment, a dangerous mess of discarded items on elevated walkways, and weeds growing around the tanks.

The fuel storage ponds, the largest measuring 20m wide, 150m long and 6m deep, are now completely packed with spent fuel in disastrously poor condition.

If the ponds drain, the spent fuel may spontaneously ignite

The ponds are now undergoing decommissioning in order to restore them to safe condition. But the process is fraught with danger – and nuclear expert John Large warns that massive and uncontrolled radioactive releases to the environment could occur.

“This pond is build above ground”, he said. “It’s like an concrete dock full of water. But the concrete is in dreadful condition, degraded and fractured, and if the ponds drain, the Magnox fuel will ignite and that would lead to a massive release of radioactive material.

“Looking at the photos I am very disturbed at the degraded and run down condition of the structures and support services. In my opinion there is a significant risk that the system could fail.”

“If you got a breach of the wall by accident or by terrorist attack, the Magnox fuel would burn. I would say there’s many hundreds of tonnes in there. It could give rise to a very big radioactive release. It’s not for me to make comparisons with Chernobyl or Fukushima, but it could certainly cause serious contamination over a wide area and for a very long time.”

State of fuel is ‘very unstable’

The ponds were abandoned after they were overwhelmed with spent fuel in 1974. This was the time of Prime Minster Edward Heath’s ‘three-day week’ when coal miners were on strike, causing fuel shortages in Britain’s power stations.

In order the ‘keep the lights on’, the UK’s fleet of nuclear power stations were run at full tilt, producing high volumes of spent fuel that the Sellafield re-processing facilities were unable to keep up with.

“During the three-day week they powered up the Magnox reactors to maximum, and so much fuel was coming into Sellafield that it overwhelmed the line, and stayed in the pool too long”, says Large.

“The magesium fuel rod coverings corroded due to the acidity in the ponds, and began to degrade and expose the nuclear fuel itself to the water, so they just lost control of the reprocessing line at a time when the ponds were crammed with intensely radioactive nuclear fuel.”

“This left the fuel in a very unstable condition, with actual nuclear fuel complete with uranium 238, 235 and all the fission products, in contact with water. The problem then is that you get corrosion with the formation of hydride salts which leads to swelling, outside cracks, and metal-air reactions”, said Large – who gave evidence on the topic to the House of Commons Environment Comittee in 1986.

The whole fuel ponds began to look like milk of magnesia, and what with the poor inventories that had been kept, no one even knew what was in there any more. Even the Euratom nuclear proliferation inspectors complained about it as there was by some estimates over a tonne of plutonium sitting there in the fuel rods and as sludge that was never properly accounded for.”

All part of Britain’s nuclear WMD programme

The two adjacent fuel storage ponds, which lie between the old Windscale nuclear piles, were part of the military plutonium production line using the Windscale spent fuel until the Windscale diasaster in 1957.

With the Windscale piles out of commission, they were then adapted to receive nuclear waste from civilian power stations such as Calder Hall and Hinkley Point.

The first pond in the plutonium production line is B30, which is open to the elements. From there underwater tunnels were used to convey the fuel-bearing skips to other ponds and silos within the adjacent building, where the fuel rods were ‘decanned’ from their cladding.

The fuel was then dissolved in concentrated acids in the B203 reprocessing plant, where the plutonium for Britain’s nuclear weapons programme was chemically separated using the PUREX process. Both ponds contain a mix of fuel, sludge, and other miscellaneous nuclear wastes.

Concrete is riddled with cracks

But in the 40 years since the ponds were abandoned, the entire system has broken down. Locks, gantries, lifts and valves are all broken, missing or seized up.

The concrete is riddled with cracks – including not just the ones that you can see, but also those out of sight in the connecting tunnels. The entire environment is far too radioactive for anyone to be able to enter.

The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) has now started work on the ponds, but reassuring statements have been shown to be over-optimistic. “It’s very disturbing”, says Large. “They have been saying it was all under control, and they thought well cleared out. Now we know it’s not.”

However an important first stage has been completed – the ‘de-flocculation’ of the water so that it’s finally possible to see what’s there. This had previously been impossible due to particulate suspension and algal growth.

“For the first time in decades we can see down into the pond and see the contents, and it’s breathtaking!” comments Large. “It’s all thanks to the whistle blower that I’m looking at them. If the Euratom inspectors could see what we can see now, my there would have been a row! Maybe we should invite them back right now!”

A particlar problem arises from the sludge that has accummulated at the bottom of both ponds and skips, which requires especially careful handling. The sludge has to be kept under water in order to prevent its spontaneous ignition.

But it’s also essential to keep it undisturbed as if the sludges are resuspended into the main body of water, a part of the sludge will add into the surface ‘oil’ of fine particulates which can be released to the atmosphere with any surface water disturbance – giving rise to high radiation levels above the water.

This seriously complicates both the removal and packaging of the sludge itself, and of the fuel-containing skips.

Office of Nuclear Regulation response

Several days prior to publication The Ecologist contacted the Office of Nuclear Regulation, the statutory nuclear safety regulator, with pressing questions about the safety of the site, safety plans in the event of water loss or radioactive release, and whether anyone will be prosecuted over the abandonment of the ponds in this highly dangerous condition.

We have now received their replies:

ONR: “Sellafield is ONR’s highest regulatory priority and receives a significantly enhanced level of regulatory attention. It is also a recognised national priority to reduce the hazard and risk at Sellafield in a safe and timely manner.

“We are focusing significant regulatory attention on retrieval of legacy material from the legacy ponds as we recognise the high hazard and risk that these facilities present.”

TE: Are you satisfied that these nuclear installation are safe and ‘fit for purpose’?

“The legacy facilities at Sellafield were built in the 1950s and 1960s and therefore don’t meet modern engineering standards. Additionally, the legacy facilities were not designed with retrievals of material or decommissioning in mind.

“This does not mean that operations and activities on these facilities are unsafe, but it highlights the need for Sellafield Ltd to retrieve the legacy material in a safe manner as quickly as reasonably possible.

“Our new regulatory approach is aimed at encouraging and facilitating this objective.  We are working collaboratively with other key stakeholders to focus priorities and help drive improvements at Sellafield.

“The new strategy and collaborative working approach is having a positive impact on hazard and risk reduction, particularly in relation to the Pile Fuel Storage Pond where we have enabled the acceleration of removal of legacy canned fuel by four months. We expect this approach to enable Sellafield Ltd to retrieve further legacy material from these facilities ahead of schedule.”

Given that the operator essentially abandoned these ponds around 1974, is any person (real or corporate) to be prosecuted?

“ONR is not considering enforcement action in relation to the complex historical chain of events leading to the current situation at Sellafield but instead is focusing, together with other key stakeholders, on accelerating the reduction of hazard and risk on site, and how we can do that quickly and safely.

“The ONR’s top priority is ensuring that Sellafield Ltd maintains or improves upon its delivery programme for the remediation and decommissioning of the legacy facilities so that materials are removed  as quickly and safely as possible”

Do these ponds satisfy Safety Assessment Principles for new nuclear plant?

“The legacy ponds at Sellafield are old and as a result, do not meet the high engineering standards that would be required for modern nuclear facilities. These legacy ponds bring significant challenge, but we must focus our attention on improving the current situation.

“This does not mean that operations and activities on those facilities are unsafe, and ONR has in place a robust inspection regime to ensure that the licensee is doing all that is reasonably practicable to ensure that operations continue to remain safe.” 

Has ONR put in place any special measures under the Radiation (Emergency Preparedness and Public Information) Regulations 2000?

“The Radiation (Emergency Preparedness and Public Information) Regulations 2001, (REPPIR) require operators to assess the hazards on site and submit a report of this assessment to ONR.  As the operator, Sellafield Ltd are required to do this.

“This information, along with any additional information ONR may request, is used to determine the need for, and the extent of, the area requiring the local authority to produce an off-site emergency plan to protect the public in the unlikely event of a radiation emergency.”

Has the operator given ONR a hazard report relating to B29 and B30?

“ONR is fully aware of the hazard and risk associated with all facilities at the Sellafield site, and has an on-going programme of inspections.  These ensure that Sellafield Ltd is complying with its statutory obligations to protect the public and workers from the hazards on  the site.

Have risks associated with these buildings been incorporated into ONR report and placed in the public domain?

“ONR aims to be open and transparent in publishing our regulatory findings, and we routinely publish our regulatory decisions through project assessment reports and intervention records written by inspectors following site inspections.

“We also produce a quarterly report for the West Cumbria Site Stakeholder Group, which summarises our regulatory activity at Sellafield. There may be instances where it is not appropriate for us to publish certain reports, primarily as they may contain sensitive security information.”

Does Cumbria’s offsite emergency plan address the risks posed by B29 and B30?

“Under REPPIR, Sellafield Ltd are required to assess the hazards on site and submit a report of this assessment to ONR. This covers the whole site.”

It is reported that the ponds are leaking. Can you confirm this, and can you reveal where any leakage is going?

“ONR is not aware of any leaks from the ponds.”

Oliver Tickell edits The Ecologist.

The Ecologist has received a shocking set of leaked images showing decrepit and grossly inadequate storage facilities for high level nuclear waste at the Sellafield nuclear plant.

The images (right), from an anonymous source, show the state of spent nuclear fuel storage ponds that were commissioned in 1952, and used until the mid-1970’s as short term storage for spent fuel until it could be re-processed, producing plutonium for military use. However they were completely abandoned in the mid-1970s and have been left derelict for almost 40 years.

The photographs show cracked concrete tanks holding water contaminated with high levels of radiation, seagulls bathing on the water, broken equipment, a dangerous mess of discarded items on elevated walkways, and weeds growing around the tanks.

The fuel storage ponds, the largest measuring 20m wide, 150m long and 6m deep, are now completely packed with spent fuel in disastrously poor condition.

If the ponds drain, the spent fuel may spontaneously ignite

The ponds are now undergoing decommissioning in order to restore them to safe condition. But the process is fraught with danger – and nuclear expert John Large warns that massive and uncontrolled radioactive releases to the environment could occur.

“This pond is build above ground”, he said. “It’s like an concrete dock full of water. But the concrete is in dreadful condition, degraded and fractured, and if the ponds drain, the Magnox fuel will ignite and that would lead to a massive release of radioactive material.

“Looking at the photos I am very disturbed at the degraded and run down condition of the structures and support services. In my opinion there is a significant risk that the system could fail.”

“If you got a breach of the wall by accident or by terrorist attack, the Magnox fuel would burn. I would say there’s many hundreds of tonnes in there. It could give rise to a very big radioactive release. It’s not for me to make comparisons with Chernobyl or Fukushima, but it could certainly cause serious contamination over a wide area and for a very long time.”

State of fuel is ‘very unstable’

The ponds were abandoned after they were overwhelmed with spent fuel in 1974. This was the time of Prime Minster Edward Heath’s ‘three-day week’ when coal miners were on strike, causing fuel shortages in Britain’s power stations.

In order the ‘keep the lights on’, the UK’s fleet of nuclear power stations were run at full tilt, producing high volumes of spent fuel that the Sellafield re-processing facilities were unable to keep up with.

“During the three-day week they powered up the Magnox reactors to maximum, and so much fuel was coming into Sellafield that it overwhelmed the line, and stayed in the pool too long”, says Large.

“The magesium fuel rod coverings corroded due to the acidity in the ponds, and began to degrade and expose the nuclear fuel itself to the water, so they just lost control of the reprocessing line at a time when the ponds were crammed with intensely radioactive nuclear fuel.”

“This left the fuel in a very unstable condition, with actual nuclear fuel complete with uranium 238, 235 and all the fission products, in contact with water. The problem then is that you get corrosion with the formation of hydride salts which leads to swelling, outside cracks, and metal-air reactions”, said Large – who gave evidence on the topic to the House of Commons Environment Comittee in 1986.

The whole fuel ponds began to look like milk of magnesia, and what with the poor inventories that had been kept, no one even knew what was in there any more. Even the Euratom nuclear proliferation inspectors complained about it as there was by some estimates over a tonne of plutonium sitting there in the fuel rods and as sludge that was never properly accounded for.”

All part of Britain’s nuclear WMD programme

The two adjacent fuel storage ponds, which lie between the old Windscale nuclear piles, were part of the military plutonium production line using the Windscale spent fuel until the Windscale diasaster in 1957.

With the Windscale piles out of commission, they were then adapted to receive nuclear waste from civilian power stations such as Calder Hall and Hinkley Point.

The first pond in the plutonium production line is B30, which is open to the elements. From there underwater tunnels were used to convey the fuel-bearing skips to other ponds and silos within the adjacent building, where the fuel rods were ‘decanned’ from their cladding.

The fuel was then dissolved in concentrated acids in the B203 reprocessing plant, where the plutonium for Britain’s nuclear weapons programme was chemically separated using the PUREX process. Both ponds contain a mix of fuel, sludge, and other miscellaneous nuclear wastes.

Concrete is riddled with cracks

But in the 40 years since the ponds were abandoned, the entire system has broken down. Locks, gantries, lifts and valves are all broken, missing or seized up.

The concrete is riddled with cracks – including not just the ones that you can see, but also those out of sight in the connecting tunnels. The entire environment is far too radioactive for anyone to be able to enter.

The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) has now started work on the ponds, but reassuring statements have been shown to be over-optimistic. “It’s very disturbing”, says Large. “They have been saying it was all under control, and they thought well cleared out. Now we know it’s not.”

However an important first stage has been completed – the ‘de-flocculation’ of the water so that it’s finally possible to see what’s there. This had previously been impossible due to particulate suspension and algal growth.

“For the first time in decades we can see down into the pond and see the contents, and it’s breathtaking!” comments Large. “It’s all thanks to the whistle blower that I’m looking at them. If the Euratom inspectors could see what we can see now, my there would have been a row! Maybe we should invite them back right now!”

A particlar problem arises from the sludge that has accummulated at the bottom of both ponds and skips, which requires especially careful handling. The sludge has to be kept under water in order to prevent its spontaneous ignition.

But it’s also essential to keep it undisturbed as if the sludges are resuspended into the main body of water, a part of the sludge will add into the surface ‘oil’ of fine particulates which can be released to the atmosphere with any surface water disturbance – giving rise to high radiation levels above the water.

This seriously complicates both the removal and packaging of the sludge itself, and of the fuel-containing skips.

The Ecologist has contacted the Office of Nuclear Regulation, the statutory nuclear safety regulator, with pressing questions about the safety of the site, safety plans in the event of water loss or radioactive release, and whether anyone will be prosecuted over the abandonment of the ponds in this highly dangerous condition.

We await their reply.

The Ecologist has received a shocking set of leaked images showing decrepit and grossly inadequate storage facilities for high level nuclear waste at the Sellafield nuclear plant.

The images (right), from an anonymous source, show the state of spent nuclear fuel storage ponds that were commissioned in 1952, and used until the mid-1970’s as short term storage for spent fuel until it could be re-processed, producing plutonium for military use. However they were completely abandoned in the mid-1970s and have been left derelict for almost 40 years.

The photographs show cracked concrete tanks holding water contaminated with high levels of radiation, seagulls bathing on the water, broken equipment, a dangerous mess of discarded items on elevated walkways, and weeds growing around the tanks.

The fuel storage ponds, the largest measuring 20m wide, 150m long and 6m deep, are now completely packed with spent fuel in disastrously poor condition.

If the ponds drain, the spent fuel may spontaneously ignite

The ponds are now undergoing decommissioning in order to restore them to safe condition. But the process is fraught with danger – and nuclear expert John Large warns that massive and uncontrolled radioactive releases to the environment could occur.

“This pond is build above ground”, he said. “It’s like an concrete dock full of water. But the concrete is in dreadful condition, degraded and fractured, and if the ponds drain, the Magnox fuel will ignite and that would lead to a massive release of radioactive material.

“Looking at the photos I am very disturbed at the degraded and run down condition of the structures and support services. In my opinion there is a significant risk that the system could fail.”

“If you got a breach of the wall by accident or by terrorist attack, the Magnox fuel would burn. I would say there’s many hundreds of tonnes in there. It could give rise to a very big radioactive release. It’s not for me to make comparisons with Chernobyl or Fukushima, but it could certainly cause serious contamination over a wide area and for a very long time.”

State of fuel is ‘very unstable’

The ponds were abandoned after they were overwhelmed with spent fuel in 1974. This was the time of Prime Minster Edward Heath’s ‘three-day week’ when coal miners were on strike, causing fuel shortages in Britain’s power stations.

In order the ‘keep the lights on’, the UK’s fleet of nuclear power stations were run at full tilt, producing high volumes of spent fuel that the Sellafield re-processing facilities were unable to keep up with.

“During the three-day week they powered up the Magnox reactors to maximum, and so much fuel was coming into Sellafield that it overwhelmed the line, and stayed in the pool too long”, says Large.

“The magesium fuel rod coverings corroded due to the acidity in the ponds, and began to degrade and expose the nuclear fuel itself to the water, so they just lost control of the reprocessing line at a time when the ponds were crammed with intensely radioactive nuclear fuel.”

“This left the fuel in a very unstable condition, with actual nuclear fuel complete with uranium 238, 235 and all the fission products, in contact with water. The problem then is that you get corrosion with the formation of hydride salts which leads to swelling, outside cracks, and metal-air reactions”, said Large – who gave evidence on the topic to the House of Commons Environment Comittee in 1986.

The whole fuel ponds began to look like milk of magnesia, and what with the poor inventories that had been kept, no one even knew what was in there any more. Even the Euratom nuclear proliferation inspectors complained about it as there was by some estimates over a tonne of plutonium sitting there in the fuel rods and as sludge that was never properly accounded for.”

All part of Britain’s nuclear WMD programme

The two adjacent fuel storage ponds, which lie between the old Windscale nuclear piles, were part of the military plutonium production line using the Windscale spent fuel until the Windscale diasaster in 1957.

With the Windscale piles out of commission, they were then adapted to receive nuclear waste from civilian power stations such as Calder Hall and Hinkley Point.

The first pond in the plutonium production line is B30, which is open to the elements. From there underwater tunnels were used to convey the fuel-bearing skips to other ponds and silos within the adjacent building, where the fuel rods were ‘decanned’ from their cladding.

The fuel was then dissolved in concentrated acids in the B203 reprocessing plant, where the plutonium for Britain’s nuclear weapons programme was chemically separated using the PUREX process. Both ponds contain a mix of fuel, sludge, and other miscellaneous nuclear wastes.

Concrete is riddled with cracks

But in the 40 years since the ponds were abandoned, the entire system has broken down. Locks, gantries, lifts and valves are all broken, missing or seized up.

The concrete is riddled with cracks – including not just the ones that you can see, but also those out of sight in the connecting tunnels. The entire environment is far too radioactive for anyone to be able to enter.

The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) has now started work on the ponds, but reassuring statements have been shown to be over-optimistic. “It’s very disturbing”, says Large. “They have been saying it was all under control, and they thought well cleared out. Now we know it’s not.”

However an important first stage has been completed – the ‘de-flocculation’ of the water so that it’s finally possible to see what’s there. This had previously been impossible due to particulate suspension and algal growth.

“For the first time in decades we can see down into the pond and see the contents, and it’s breathtaking!” comments Large. “It’s all thanks to the whistle blower that I’m looking at them. If the Euratom inspectors could see what we can see now, my there would have been a row! Maybe we should invite them back right now!”

A particlar problem arises from the sludge that has accummulated at the bottom of both ponds and skips, which requires especially careful handling. The sludge has to be kept under water in order to prevent its spontaneous ignition.

But it’s also essential to keep it undisturbed as if the sludges are resuspended into the main body of water, a part of the sludge will add into the surface ‘oil’ of fine particulates which can be released to the atmosphere with any surface water disturbance – giving rise to high radiation levels above the water.

This seriously complicates both the removal and packaging of the sludge itself, and of the fuel-containing skips.

The Ecologist has contacted the Office of Nuclear Regulation, the statutory nuclear safety regulator, with pressing questions about the safety of the site, safety plans in the event of water loss or radioactive release, and whether anyone will be prosecuted over the abandonment of the ponds in this highly dangerous condition.

We await their reply.