27 breaches of radioactive guidelines at BNFL in one year

BY ROBBIE MacGABHANN

British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL) has made losses for the past two years. In December 1999, it was found to have falsified safety data in one of its fuel reprocessing plants and in the last year had 27 breaches of its environmental licenses. Add in the litany of accidents, including last month's days of misinformation over lost fuel rods, and you have a company with serious problems.

You have a company where management is clearly not doing its job properly. Well, maybe not, because despite an admission from BNFL chairperson Hugh Collum that ``there are areas where performance was clearly unacceptable'', the board at BNFL have paid some its members substantial bonuses.

BNFL's annual report, published last week, showed that chief executive Norman Askew, earned a bonus of £75,250 on top of his £350,000 basic salary. Finance director John Edwards won a bonus of £44,750 to add to his £191,250 annual salary. Two other directors also got bonuses of £38,000 apiece.

BNFL's annual report also contains a range of interesting statements and interpretations of the company's dire financial performance. Despite losses across the board, including their flagship Thorp reprocessing plant at Sellafield, BNFL are forging ahead with the sad news for Irish citizens that the notorious Sellafield site is ``key to the future'' for the company.

The annual report also claims that in Britain, ``radioactive discharges to the environment from our operating sites remained within authorised limits''. This sounds ok until you read on and find that BNFL then admits, ``we did not comply with some of the technical conditions of our environmental licenses'', and that their ``performance in this area has not improved since last year''.

This `non-compliance' happened on 27 occasions during 2000, once a fortnight on average. Seven of the 27 `events' involved discharges above the legal limit. Many of these discharges are into what BNFL calls the marine environment, the sea to you and me. Incredibly, it will not be until 2020 that BNFL meets international requirements for stemming radioactive leaks into the sea.

Sinn Féin's Louth representative and Dundalk councillor, Arthur Morgan, criticised the bonuses paid to board members. Morgan said, ``it is incredible to believe that bonuses could be paid to the management of not just a loss making company, but one that has breached environmental guidelines so many times in one year. This is a slap in the face for the people of Louth, who live in daily fear of what could go wrong at BNFL's plants on Britain's west coast''.