Radioactive discharge in Essex, please help!

[sloth]

Please help to stop the discharges of radioactivity into the environment and atmosphere of the Blackwater Estuary in Essex Petition

 

Please sign this, and if you do Facebook/tweet things share it.

Bradwell power station is imminently going to start discharging a new type of radioactive waste into the River Blackwater - a sensitive, protected, marine environment.

This can be nothing but bad!!!

 

Please sign and share!

 

Many thanks...

 

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[sloth]

It's a joke they can be allowed to discharge any radioactive waste of any kind here!

A little about the Blackwater Estuary:

 

this large site (1031 hectares) has a real variety of habitats, from mudflats, salt & grazing marsh, intertidal mudflats, to one of the largest reedbeds in Essex. This variety allows a large number of bird and invertebrate species to flourish. As the largest estuary in Essex, it is also a great place to get a real sense of coastal wilderness.In addition to being a National Nature Reserve, the Blackwater Estuary is recognised as internationally important and is designated a Special Protection Area (SPA), a Special Area for Conservation (SAC) and a Ramsar site (an internationally important wetland area).

 

Taken from http://www.naturalengland.org.uk/ourwork/conservation/designations/nnr/1006650.aspx

 

How can this possibly be legal!?

 

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[Triassic]

The magnox waste reduction technology has been in use for a few years and has a good track record. Any discharge to the environment would have to be below internationally accepted limits. The process has been used elsewhere in the UK, the following article is worth a read.

 

Dissolution solution - Nuclear Engineering International

[sloth]

Thanks for the link. I'll read it later when my power cut is over.

I still feel 'international limits' do noy guarantee safety- especially where people are regularly consuming sea food, including shellfish (which are an area speciality) on a regular basis. Things like this tend to accumulate over time...

 

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[ArthurBottlesworth]

Some of my family lived down wind from Sellafield on scottish side of estuary

 

In 1970's theirs was the only civil defence in the UK without a geiger counter - every death in village ( bar accidents) was from cancer

 

You do the math

[felixthelogchopper]

Signed and shared on facebook. As you can guess Kev, I have a bit of a vested interest in this. Thanks for posting.

[hedgesparrow]

done no discharge and its radioactive is a good thing. if we were to discharge anything like this EA would be on your backs and taking you to court

[Lee Winger]

I'm a Tollesbury boy, this is disgusting, I couldn't care less what the international limit is etc etc I don't want nuclear waste in the Blackwater, saying that Bradwell power station had been leaking crp into the river for 40 years with no apparent harm lol. Is it any coincidence that so many people in that area have died of cancer I personally think not!

[sloth]

It is disgusting. I recently attended a talk on the matter by a prof. Tim Deere-Jones; what a clever hippy he is! A specialist in radioactivity in the marine environment, he has extensively been in involved in written papers on similar situations all over the place. Much of his mention of all kinds of isotopes and different radioactive elements and their individual characteristics once released into the wider environment went over my head to be honest. However some key points were (and no I can't remember exact figures or names!)

- the original 'nuclear safety group' created a hypothesis on the activity of radioactive material in the environment in the early 50's, around a decade later it was admitted that it was a false hypothesis. An experiment. But it was ok, because they learnt 'a lot' from the huge lie.

- the current safe limits etc are based on this very old, and admitted false hypothesis.

- less than half of the radioactive elements released by the magnox dissolution process have been studied in any significant scientific detail.

- there is no safe lower limit when it comes to radioactivity. High exposure causes big problems, low exposure causes low levels of cell damage- over time these accumulate.

-very little testing/monitoring has ever been done on the behaviour and mobility of these radioactive elements in the environment, and most of what has been done has been funded and released by the very industry which stands to make millions from the 'right results'- and which also has a poor track of telling the truth. So, the 'facts' put forward by the pro nuclear organisations are based on little more than 'massaged data' and guess work based on a decades old false hypothesis.

- previous case history (such as Sellafield) has shown the radioactive material can travel hundreds of miles and accumulate in higher levels elsewhere. Mud/silt (which the Blackwater has lots of!) can adsorbe large amounts of it.

-given Bradwells location inland with shallow slow moving water over silt/mud, rather than on a headland with fast moving deep water over sand, it is a poor location for radioactive discharge.

- a bigger issue than the relatively low levels in the water is spray from the water surface and in particular, aerosol spray (finer droplets), which in effect concentrates the levels of radioactivity, and carries them inland for potentially several miles. It then settles on crops/washing/is inhaled etc.

In this way radiation above expected normal levels (note there is no 'safe' level) has been found in house dust 10 miles from other magnox sites (in Scotland I think).

- in floods a few years ago in Wales, sediment deposits miles inland from the sea tested positive for radioactive elements from Sellafield, 100s of miles away. It was suggested by the testers that sediments deposited in Somerset recently ought to be tested by the EA, they didn't.

- some of the people most likely to be affected by this dumping are those living some distance from the source.

 

Apologies I can't be more specific, I should have taken notes. But as you can tell, there are many different reasons not to do this. The only reason that it is happening is that it saves the nuclear industry a lot of money over storing the fuel element debris (fed) in large quantities in sealed bins on site. The more cynical among us may speculate long term this method frees up enough storage space at Bradwell to take fed from other sites- more discharge, more profit...

 

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