UPDATED STORY: A report of ‘elevated radiation’ has led to a safety alert at Sellafield, the nuclear plant in Cumbria that’s about 34 miles away from the Manx coastline.
The site has been shut to day workers with only essential staff told to report for duty.
The firm says it is in response to an ‘operational condition’ and the decision to suspend day operations was taken with the safety and the security of the workforce as a priority.
A company statement says: ‘In response to an operational condition on the Sellafield site a conservative and prudent decision has been taken, to operate the site at reduced manning levels, commensurate with safe operations.’
It adds: ‘Levels of radioactivity detected are above naturally occurring radiation but well below that which would call for any actions to be taken by the workforce on or off the site.
‘The site is at normal status and employees and operational plants are continuing to operate as investigations continue. All our facilities have positively confirmed there are no abnormal conditions and are operating normally.’
Director of stakeholder relations Rory O’Neill said: ‘One of the 20-odd site perimeter monitors that we have is registering above normal levels of radiation.
‘It’s not a level that would trigger any kind of activity on or off site. It’s below levels that would demand us to do sheltering or anything like that.”
Part of the plant is being cleared to allow detailed investigations and the ‘relevant experts’ are on site.
The company said it could not rule out that the alarm had detected naturally occurring levels of radiation.
While day personnel, agency staff and contractors have been told to stay at home, oher workers, including transport and utilities personnel, are working as normal ‘in support of plant continuity requirements’.
There is no active nuclear reactor at Sellafield but the site stores and reprocesses waste.
One worker has been reported as saying an air sampler on a perimeter fence had detected a problem, which led to all non-essential staff being told to stay away. It is understood nothing has been detected inside the plant.
He said employees had not been given any details of what had happened at Sellafield.
There was speculation that safety staff were checking to see if there was a malfunction in the air sampler.
Prof Richard Wakeford, professor of epidemiology at the University of Manchester, told the Daily Telegraph’s website that the elevated level of radiation would not pose a risk to health.
‘From the information currently available, it appears that an elevated level of radioactivity has been detected at the north of the site, but that it is at a low level above normal,’ he said.
‘Such a level would not pose a risk to health that is more than encountered in everyday life, but until the cause of this increase has been identified (for example, what type of radioactive materials are responsible), the Sellafield management have told non-essential staff not to come into work.
‘This is a prudent precaution until the cause is known and the situation rectified.’
A Department of Energy and Climate Change spokesman confirmed the elevated levels of radioactivity but said they were ‘well below levels of concern’.
The Manx government has long campaigned for the plant to be closed.
{http://www.iomtoday.co.im/news/isle-of-man-news/closure-of-nuclear-plant-is-welcomed-1-3647095|Click here to read a recent story about the issue.}