Radioactive Waste - In a Landfill Near You ?

A staggering 56,000m3 a year of radioactive waste from decommissioned nuclear plants is planned for Keekle Head and Lillyhall in Cumbria. Local councillors have opposed - but radwaste is already coming to Lillyhall landfill from for example Magnox North at Chapelcross at the
rate of 26000m3 a year.

Radiation Free Lakeland say : the nuclear industry is sticking two fingers up to Cumbria - while masquerading as "green" - there is an unfathomable void between nuclear power and the truth.

The Keekle Head planning meeting is scheduled to take place on 25th May in Kendal. This is a widely opposed proposal - even the pronuclear MP Jamie Reed has opposed the plan. Radiation Free Lakeland will speak in opposition. GDF Suez Watch are also opposing.

BUT Lillyhall is already being polluted with Radwaste unbeknown to anyone it seems including the Council officers in charge of the license.

RAFL enquired if the Lillyhall application to recieve Radwaste was to be heard at the same time as Keekle Head ..

- what was revealed is astounding and beyond satire-

according to the County Council and Copeland officials under "present conditions" the operators of Lillyhall landfill site can bring in as much High Volume Very Low Level Radioactive Waste as they like.

They have "no need" to apply for permission to do this- the "present conditions" run out in 2014. We have had sight of the conditions of the Lillyhall license (below) and there is no mention of radioactive waste in any shape or form.

"Very Low Level Rad Waste" is a new classification - made to enable radioactive waste to be put into ordinary landfill. No other individual or company could get away with polluting in this way. In fact the laws applying to everyone apart from the nuclear industry have been tightened
up "From July 2004, 'non-hazardous' sites have been only allowed to accept non-hazardous waste. The Directive has banned whole tyres from landfill since 2003, with this ban extending to shredded tyres from July 2006, while liquid wastes have been banned from landfill since October 2007. The Directive also brings with it tighter site monitoring and engineering standards. This is supplemented by the new European Waste Catalogue, which has extended the range of materials classified as 'hazardous', and the Waste Acceptance Criteria, which has introduced stringent pre-treatment requirements".

At the last council meeting the councillors were horrified that ordinary landfill could be used for radwaste and voted to oppose it - .....but according to the council official Radiation Free Lakeland spoke to yesterday -"the Waste Recycling Group and Energy solutions who run
Lillyhall do not 'need' planning permissions.

The site is not monitered unless there are complaints - then there is one man - the council's monitering officer who would go and have a peek- so no one would be any the wiser as to exactly how radioactive/dangerous the waste is.

This document from Magnox North outlines the industry's wish list - which Goverment departments are falling over themselves to provide at the expense of our safety...
"magnox north has a need to dispose of solid waste .....normally disposed by transfer to the LLWR (Drigg) .....LLWR has refused to accept the waste. It is now proposed to dispose of this waste to a specified landfill site"
it goes on
"This can take up to 4 months from the date of recieving the application ......there is usually another 28 days before you can start accumulating and disposing of radioactive waste"

according to the council this is happening now at Lillyhall - there is no monitoring and there is "no need" for planning procedures - they can "take as much as they want"

Document from Chapelcross Magnox North
 http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:B7lJN8DdWuUJ:www.sepa.org.uk/about_us/consultations/idoc.ashx%3Fdocid%3D9824bc77-c263-46eb-a25d-926703895f9e%26version%3D-1+lillyhall+chapelcross+magnox+sepa&hl=en&gl=uk&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEEShJtfGYeEHaoxkkwH7FvFPwLKynNqax2GLhPS-1QHDRPP4Lm-o1-GUMyBgM8DYkmkJY0Fx2nCFQ4R-vdGzqh9qtvu6MhsvcaYy-xdUOXXoaoQiHZNXwbxf_fKlVr9cgDiQ_F5Jv&sig=AHIEtbTKxGZCMbzBc8X5K8_5f-a82h291g

Hazardous Waste and Landfill (for all except the nuclear industry)
 http://www.letsrecycle.com/legislation/landfill/


"Present Conditions" for Lillyhall - the report and the minutes from the meeting
held on 27 May 2004 say nothing about radioactive waste!

Report
 http://www.cumbria.gov.uk/CouncilMeetings/Content/Public/2976/3812711341
9.pdf

Minutes
 http://www.cumbria.gov.uk/CouncilMeetings/Content/Public/2976/381829370.
pdf