In the frosty month of January, I found myself driving through the boondocks of Cumbria, just a mile and a half from the front gate of Sellafield, the most hazardous and perilous nuclear facility in western Europe. Suddenly, I noticed a police car’s blue lights flashing ominously in my rearview mirror and rapidly making its way dangerously close to my vehicle. The officer, signalling I should stop, appeared poised to converse.
As he came near to my car and its window, it was evident that he was armed. His weapon was holstered, but there was something choreographed about his swagger that forcefully drew my eyes to it. Barely had he begun his approach when a second police vehicle arrived. It contained two officers who seemed more heavily equipped with weaponry, including automatic firearms. Though they stayed at a distance, they bore a striking resemblance to the officers guarding the main gate of Sellafield.
All of them are part of the Civil Nuclear Constabulary (CNC), a unit that guards the United Kingdom’s most critical nuclear sites with specialist training. They are not yo-yo security men, stopping people for amusement. These officers, rather, have counterterrorism and the prevention of espionage as their primary duties.
The first officer was courteous but assertive while discussing the reason for pulling over my car. He had spotted it parked a tad too close to the entrance of Sellafield.
“Why were you outside your car?” “Were you taking photos?” “What was the purpose?” he asked.
His dissatisfaction with my response was clear: it was all part of my journalistic duties.
“What is your article about?” he continued to probe. Upon suggesting that it was not his concern, the officer pressed on.
“Does it pertain to recent media coverage of Sellafield?” he enquired, possibly hinting at the Guardian reports that had previously accused Sellafield of being hacked by Russia and China. The accusations also mentioned a toxic workforce culture – all of which Sellafield refuted. The regulatory authorities declared they would initiate proceedings against Sellafield for purported IT security offences later that week.
Despite the polite denial, it still took an additional 15 minutes for the officer’s coworkers to verify the car and identification details. Ultimately, even Cumbria police appear at the scene, curious about the happenings. With the verification of everyone present, it was time to leave, but not before a final warning from the CNC: “Should your car be spotted again, expect to be halted as it is now recorded in our system.”
Sellafield represents various things to different groups. From the UK authorities’ perspective, it’s a decommissioning centre taking initiative in rectifying the early nuclear industry errors of Britain, made before long-term waste disposal became a concern.
Sellafield, which is about 180km from Ireland, is generally regarded as a potential risk, a synonym for danger. It was formerly a reprocessing site for deadly spent nuclear fuel rods and also acknowledged for Calder Hall, a decommissioned power station that was added on but was always a minor component. The principal activity was reprocessing.
Currently, Sellafield is considered more as a nuclear waste storage for the country’s most radioactive material. The work is part of an ongoing 100-year, £134 billion (€156 billion) decommissioning project.
According to one nuclear industry insider, the site acts as a “gravy train” for high-earning personnel and major contractors. Every year, the clean-up strategy of Sellafield Ltd, the site’s UK government-owned operator aiming to ensure its safety, costs over £2.5 billion. It also serves as a lively workplace around the clock for 11,000 individuals whose average annual income is €91,000.
Beyond the heightened security measures including 3.6m-high fences, blast barriers, armed officers and razor wires, Sellafield is a self-sufficient town with its own railway and 1,000 structures. Some of these buildings have been standing since the 1950s and are deteriorating, posing additional threats with the nuclear waste stored within.
Sellafield, recognised for being the location of the planet’s largest plutonium stockpile and four of Europe’s riskiest structures, two old nuclear silos known for leakage, and two storage ponds bearing dangerous matter, nestles in Britain. The most egregious of these ponds, unit B30, has earned the disreputable nickname “Dirty 30”.
The spectre of 9/11 has painted Sellafield in a troubling light, positioning it as a possible attack point for Britain’s adversaries, including terrorists seeking nuclear materials for a potential dirty bomb. This hypothesis was amplified by allegations of cyber threats published by the Guardian in December, and complaints of poor staff morale from whistleblowers, augmenting the perceived risk.
The watchful scrutiny of the CNC can be interpreted in this context, as illustrated by the aforementioned car encounter. Critics of the site, including UK scholar and radiation consultant to the Irish State, Dr Paul Dorfman, caution against the nuclear industry’s attempts to beguile the public using sleek PR. While Sellafield counters by asserting its commitment to transparency.
The company, accountable to the British government via the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA), acknowledged that it was the most recent media agency from the Republic to access the site, granting them an insider’s glimpse into the handling of high-risk nuclear materials.
Even after high-profile protests, such as Bono’s Greenpeace demonstration, and nearly two decades since the last lawsuit filed by the Republic over safety concerns, Sellafield’s significance to Ireland perseveres. The struggle to maintain its safety continues, reminding us that Sellafield hasn’t disappeared.
Sellafield, known to overlook the ‘most radioactive sea in the world’, is located on the shores of the Irish Sea, bordering the Lake District’s west edge. This area, arguably the most picturesque in England, is closely neighboured by Whitehaven, the former coal port that was once a trade center to Ireland. A little over an hour’s journey will lead to the nearest city, Carlisle, an ancient stronghold residing just a quarter of an hour from the Scottish border.
The region used to be known for mining and agriculture, and it is the home of globally renowned Cumbrian sausages. Over the past seven and a half decades, western Cumbria has also gained notoriety as the centre of Britain’s nuclear industry. However, despite a recent downturn, there are upcoming plans for the UK to reinvest in nuclear.
A drive past Egremont village, which has flourished in the hills above the nuclear facility, affords a view of the expansive industrialised zone beneath, emerging from the enveloping farmland under the brilliance of the spring sun. This sight was disclosed during our recent official trip.
While the expedition is strictly monitored by the organisation’s authorities, it offers an open vista to all demanded sites. These incorporate the hazardous zone housing the fourmost dangerous old buildings, one of which, known as “Dirty 30”, consistently spews radioactive liquid into the earth.
Permission is also given to tour the defunct Thorp reprocessing plant, the Magnox East River fuel rod depot and the Sixep plant, effectively a nuclear filtration system, which purifies radioactive water prior to dispersing it in the Irish Sea.
The tour is directed by several high-ranking Sellafield personnel, among them Dr Rex Strong, the chief of regulatory integration, who was recently honoured with an OBE for spending 40 years in the nuclear industry. Dr. Strong provided expert counsel on the clean-up operation following the 2014 nuclear disaster in Fukushima, Japan. Furthermore, he’s consistently deployed since the 1970s to assuage recurrent concerns over safety in Ireland.
In his characteristically understated manner, Dr Strong admits that the earlier rapport between Sellafield’s UK management and Ireland was “less than stellar”. The subsequent hiring of consultants in Dublin to liaise with local concerns led to improvements. Among the prominent Irish anxieties was the expulsion of nuclear-contaminated water into the Irish Sea, which contributed to its unwelcome distinction as the “most radioactive sea globally.”
Information dissemination witnessed an enhancement after the unsuccessful endeavour by Ireland to take legal action against Britain in The Hague nearly twenty years ago. As Strong, a former member of the bilateral UK-Ireland Contact Group dealing with Radiological Matters points out, the situation evolved from being antagonistic to a more mature one. The said Contact Group continues to share insights on nuclear safety to this day.
Described by a former UK politician as an ‘unending abyss of torment, finance, and desolation’, Sellafield is a repository of a substantial amount of hazardous nuclear waste. Dorfman, a nuclear specialist from the University of Surrey, is qouted saying that the risks emanating from the site are colossal. He is part of the radiation protection committee (RPAC) which counsels the Republic via the Environmental Protection Agency. Furthermore, Dorfman is the founder of Nuclear Consulting Group, which opposes nuclear power, advocating instead for renewable energy.
The waste stored in Sellafield is classified as low, intermediate, and high-risk material, with the latter being lethal upon immediate contact. Tour staff highlighted how the high-risk materials are generally byproducts of spent nuclear fuel rods reprocessing, a method to extract more plutonium and uranium.
Almost all of the waste at Sellafield came from other British nuclear locations, such as the 26 Magnox reactors, replicas of the Calder Hall power plant inaugurated in the 1950s at the Sellafield site. The waste supply halted when Magnox was decommissioned in 2018.
Subsequent-generation AGR nuclear reactors, 14 in total built in the UK including the well-known Golf Ball reactor at Sellafield, also disposed of their waste at the site. Of these, about seven AGR reactors are still in operation and they continue to send material to Sellafield for dismantling and storage, but not reprocessing.
Approximately 80 percent of Sellafield’s waste volume is low-risk material like paper, pens, and personal protective gear used in radioactive zones. This gets dispatched to a local repository. Ireland creates similar low-level waste in facilities like hospital radiology departments.
Strong revealed that Sellafield may have declined a request by the Irish government to handle the Republic’s radioactive waste. As of now, low-level nuclear waste in Ireland is held in designated areas within hospitals and other facilities until its radioactivity is reduced to safe levels – then it’s discarded as regular rubbish. Higher radioactive material that comes into Ireland in sealed containers is usually sent back to its origin after use.
Approximately 19% of the nuclear waste at Sellafield carries an intermediate to high risk, consisting mainly of old nuclear fuel rod casings. These are disposed of by cutting them into pieces, mixing them with concrete, and storing them in specially designed containers. The waste also comprises old tools and skips contaminated with high-level radioactive waste.
Around 1% of the total waste at the facility poses a severe threat, including redundant fuel rods that require decades for their radioactivity to cool down after being withdrawn from nuclear reactors. The high-risk category also includes liquids that remained after reprocessing, and which are then solidified in glass.
A tour of the Sellafield site first reveals Thorp, a facility that has been handling waste from global nuclear reactors on a commercial basis since the ’90s. Here, the waste is strategically stored – container within containers – like nesting Russian dolls, as one employee explained. These are then submerged in deep, 8-meter pools of brightly blue water that acts as a shield against radiation. The water is sourced from Wast Water, the deepest lake in England.
The tour then leads to the site’s most hazardous area, a compound hosting the four oldest and most dilapidated structures housing toxic substances, including the infamous “Dirty 30” surface pond and the leaky B38, or Magnox Swarf Storage Silo. The latter has been experiencing leaks since 2019 at least, and it’s excessively dangerous to enter for repair work.
Strong stressed that the toxic material held in these structures must be removed. The structures, built in a different era, don’t conform to contemporary safety standards and hence are a potential risk. Furthermore, accurate records of what exactly these structures house are unavailable due to inadequate record-keeping practices of the past.
Dr Paul Dorfman, a radioactivity adviser, has stated by fact, not query, that Sellafield hosts one of the world’s most perilous locations. Human entry into the site’s radioactive core is fatal, necessitating the construction of intricate, remote-controlled machines designed to gradually extract radioactive material for deposit in contemporary, safer storage facilities. Still, Sellafield engineer Strong likens the slow, challenging process to emptying a rubbish bin using a teaspoon and anticipates it might extend into the 2050s. Considering the daunting task of removing 10,000 skips of material from site B38, of which only 40 have been so far dealt with, his projections are understandable.
The housing of ultra-hazardous substances necessitates bolstered security measures, including personal identification checks, pin-activated access cards, and heightened perimeter defences around particular structures. Staff don protective gear known as “active area” apparel whilst everyone on-site carries personal radiation detectors that increase chirping as radiation exposure intensifies. Internal signage warns occupants against lingering in “highly radioactive area.”
Within each structure, the unending tick-tock echo serves as a safety marker, reminiscent of the soundtracks from nuclear submarine cinema scenes. A frisk probe is employed upon exiting these active zones. This handheld gadget hums like a Geiger counter upon sensing contamination.
Sellafield directs a third of its £2.5 billion yearly budget towards managing this minute hazardous compound. Unfortunately, the buildings are outdated, vulnerable to leaking, and too proximate to each other, hampering the potential for better-engineered responses.
In light of the recent allegations regarding IT hacking published in the Guardian, environment secretary Claire Coutinho has requested Sellafield provide a justification. Initially, the UK government appeared to acknowledge Sellafield’s rebuttal to the accusations’ foundation.
The Guardian brought charges of cyber intrusion linked to Chinese and Russian groups into Sellafield’s systems as early as 2015, suggesting the possibility of certain viruses remaining active within the systems and alleging the firm’s failure to fully report these incidences to regulators.
Before cybersecurity related charges were unveiled this week, Sellafield made clear: “There are no reports suggesting successful cyber attacks on our networks from any entity. Our mechanisms for surveillance are effective and we strongly believe our system is clear of any such malicious software.” Sellafield’s CEO, Euan Hutton, repeated these denials on BBC, even as The Guardian maintained the validity of its story. The country’s Nuclear Regulation office also refuted any idea of international hacking, and had introduced “special measures” to keep an eye on potential digital vulnerabilities at Sellafield.
Francis Dorfman, in response to these hacking claims, called it “a moment for reflection”. He also brought up the alleged danger stemming from a “harmful work environment” at the site. According to The Guardian, numerous current and past employees voiced their concerns about intimidation, targeted harassment and derogation, resulting, tragically, in some employees ending their own lives.
While Sellafield rejects any correlation between their plant and these suicides, they do acknowledge the previous issues regarding their work environment, especially after a company-wide staff survey in 2018 flagged concerns with morale. Sellafield assured it has made significant strides to improve the working ethos since 2018 and any form of misconduct is not tolerated. However, Alison McDermott, a former HR consultant enlisted to resolve the company’s internal issues, was terminated shortly after voicing her concerns in 2018. Subsequently, McDermott sued the company at an employment tribunal for whistleblowing, but was unsuccessful. Currently, she faces substantial court expenses stemming from her lawsuit against the company.
During a conference held last year, McDermott highlighted “grave and systematic bullying and harassment problems” at Sellafield that, she argued, increased the risk level at the nuclear site. Publicly, she mentioned an incident where a new graduate was advised by a wayward staff member that she required a “corrective rape”.
“Sellafield adamantly maintains that there is zero tolerance for any form of bullying or harassment within its premises, and encourages anyone with substantiated claims of such to step forward.
The corporation further ensures it has maintained transparency about nuclear leaks and assures that a strategy is in place to address them. Officials from Ireland have had the opportunity to tour Sellafield in July 2022 and 2023, and it is anticipated that there will be further visits in the current year. With regards to queries on recent cyber hacking incidents, the Department of Environment affirms its contentment with being kept abreast of developments.
Eamon Ryan, the Minister for the Environment, has reassured the Dáil that currently, from the Republic’s perspective, there are no anxieties related to Sellafield. The Environmental Protection Agency also asserts that the State’s risks are exceptionally low.
Conversely, Dorfman reveals his difficulty in rousing interest from the RPAC radiation protection committee, comprised of advisers based in Ireland and the UK, to discuss pertinent issues related to Sellafield.
“It’s not just an allegation but a fact, that Sellafield is among the most hazardous sites globally. It’s absolutely vital that RPAC makes it a significant item on the Irish agenda.”
A potential long-term solution for Sellafield’s nuclear waste problem is to dispose it thousands of years deep underground in hard-rock bunkers. However, sceptics argue that this would eradicate the need to use substantial amounts of UK taxpayers’ money to manage the waste above ground.
Sellafield reports that efforts to identify a suitable community willing to host such a “geological disposal facility” are still underway, with Cumbria being considered a possible location.
The endless discussions regarding Sellafield are likely to endure almost as along as the radioactivity it houses.”