British Group Condemns Waste Move During Flooding

The fuel, originally intended for the Prototype Fast Reactor at Scotland’s shuttered Dounreay nuclear facility, arrived at the Sellafield site in Cumbria, England, on Dec. 7 after a 400-mile trip, according to the organization Cumbrians Opposed to a Radioactive Environment (CORE). That same week Storm Desmond hit Cumbria, causing severe flooding and prompting evacuations of thousands of homes and businesses.

In a statement issued Saturday, CORE questioned what considerations were given to emergency response when many local and national resources were committed to storm-related incidents.

"It beggars belief that the decision to risk the plutonium fuel transport was taken despite the widely trailed storm evidence and rail warnings,” CORE spokesman Martin Forwood said in the statement. “We condemn the perverse decision as being dangerously irresponsible and as a blatant breach of the stringent safety and security rules required for such transports. Those responsible have shown a level of incompetence that verges on criminal and should be weeded out so that public and rail safety is not similarly endangered again. If any public confidence at all in such transports is to be salvaged, answers on the decision making must be given and lessons learned.”