nothing is just not an option.”
Indeed. Doing nothing means continuing to store most of the UK’s nuclear waste at the Sellafield site itself.
Perplexing Unite believes the Cumbria decision – the second rejection by the county council in 14 years – is even more perplexing because leaders of two borough councils in the county – Copeland, where Sellafield is based, and Allerdale – voted on the same day in favour of moving to the next stage in the search for a suitable site.
Unite officials have since met with the borough council leaders, and Ed Davey, energy secretary, to try to break the impasse. “We hope to have more talks and will continue to lobby for a geological study to be made,” said Craig.
“There’s a triple-lock on this – the geology has to be suitable, the level of investment has to be acceptable, and the local community has to be in agreement.”
Unite national officer Kevin Coyne said nuclear waste cannot continue to be stored at surface level, so it was vital the
deadlock over a geological disposal facility (GDF) was broken.
“The only long term solution is a GDF, especially to help achieve a carbon-free future. We need to have nuclear.”
Kevin said the government should now redouble efforts to find a suitable site for the safe disposal of nuclear waste, despite a distinct lack of interest outside Cumbria in even considering holding studies.
The promise of huge investment and thousands of new jobs has failed to entice any authorities outside Cumbria to lodge a formal application for tests to be held.
Even if an authority from another part of the UK did come forward, and a suitable site was found – two very big ifs – waste would have to be transported from Sellafield, opening up other risks, such as the transportation of nuclear materials.
“It would make much more sense to try to find a site in Cumbria – it seems madness a compromise cannot be found. The county council should look at this again,” said Kevin. “Cumbria has lived with the risk from nuclear for years – its
Grey day for Sellafield – Unite’s Steve Hogg, John Tear, Craig Dobson and Nick Jeffrey face an uncertain future
future is in trying to find safe disposal.”
The campaign against a site in Cumbria was well orchestrated by environmental groups, including the 38 Degrees organisation, which gathered a 45,000- name petition opposing burying nuclear waste anywhere in the Lake District.
Some union officials believe the views of nuclear workers did not receive enough consideration, given the importance of the industry to the region’s economy.
“There was very little recognition of that aspect of the argument,” Kevin reckons, even though building an underground facility could create 8,000 jobs in the construction phase, and up to 1,000 afterwards, jobs which are badly needed in Sellafield – an area, which the public accounts committee noted in its report, suffered from “considerable deprivation, with high unemployment.”
Ministers will have to move quickly to generate fresh interest from local authorities in the search for a nuclear repository site, otherwise the issue will be firmly on the back burner – and that sounds a very dangerous place for radioactive waste to be.
13 uniteWORKS March/April 2013
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