Scottish lawmaker Roseanna Cunningham on Sunday raised concerns about the state of environmental cleanup and personnel at the former Dounreay fast-reactor research and development site.
“There continues to be cause for concern in Dounreay’s environmental performance, with the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA) having to take action. In addition, the recently published [Nuclear Decommissioning Authority] annual report presented in stark terms the lack of progress at Dounreay across a wide range of projects,” Cunningham, a member of the Scottish Parliament and cabinet environment secretary, wrote in a letter to Richard Harrington, U.K. parliamentary undersecretary for the Department for Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy (BEIS).
For 2016, SEPA rated Dounreay “at risk” for radioactive waste management and “poor” for management of the site’s low-level waste vaults, NDA acknowledged in its annual report. The agency said Dounreay Site Restoration Ltd., the contractor in charge of cleanup at the facility, is expected to improve its practices to the level demanded by both NDA and SEPA.
Cunningham also questioned plans to cut the workforce at Dounreay given the significant amount of work that remains to be done at Dounreay. “Local stakeholders have told me they cannot understand why the current substantial voluntary redundancy programme is in place where there is still so much work to complete on the site,” she wrote.
Dounreay Site Restoration said in April it anticipated cutting up to 200 positions, among its staff of roughly 1,000, over the coming year as decommissioning progresses.
The NDA and BEIS said Monday they would respond to Cunningham’s letter at a later time. “The NDA continues to monitor progress at the Dounreay site closely to ensure that it is delivering high quality work and that it remains value for money,” a BEIS spokesperson said by email.
