BNFL fined over Sellafield safety

BNFL has already faced court action this year

The owners of the troubled Sellafield nuclear reprocessing plant have been fined £24,000 for failing to comply with nuclear safety rules.

British Nuclear Fuels Ltd (BNFL) pleaded guilty to four charges of not complying to an improvement notice served on it by the Health and Safety Executive in March last year, and of mismanaging sealed radioactive sources on the Cumbrian site.

The company has also been ordered to pay £4,817.50 costs by Whitehaven magistrates.

It is the second time this year that BNFL has been prosecuted over safety breaches at Sellafield.

Source 'went missing'

There are 3,500 sources on the site kept in 171 special buildings.

Of these sources,1,613 must be monitored in accordance with the Ionising Radiation Regulations 1999.

We accept we weren't doing all we should have been in the past but we are putting it right

John Clarke, Sellafield

They contain a small amount of radioactive material, and are kept at the plant to help test and calibrate radioactive monitoring equipment.

BNFL pleaded guilty to one charge of failing to ensure checks had been carried out at intervals to detect whether there was any leakage of radioactivity from the sealed sources.

It also pleaded guilty to misplacing one source, failing to keep appropriate records of the quantity and location of the sealed sources, and of not complying with the improvement notice.

'No harm caused'

Defending, Andrew Carr said the sealed sources contained as much radioactivity as household items such as smoke detectors or luminous watches, and were about as harmful as these items.

"At no time has any employee or member of the public been exposed unnecessarily to radioactivity, no harm was caused."

Outside court John Clarke, head of environment, health and safety at Sellafield, said BNFL was committed to making improvements.

He said: "We have demonstrated our commitment to ensuring this site is properly and thoroughly managed.

"We accept we weren't doing all we should have been in the past but we are putting it right."

Acid spill

The company was fined £40,000 with £35,000 costs at Carlisle Crown Court in June, after it admitted breaching safety regulations, which were partly responsible for an acid spill at the plant.

There was also a high-level management shake-up at BNFL after a damning report threw up serious concerns over a lack of a safety culture at the plant.

This report followed revelations that some data had been falsified.