Atomic Weapons Establishment seeks to increase discharge of radioactive material

The Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) in Aldermaston has applied to the Environment Agency to increase an environmental permit limit relating to the discharge of radioactive material.

The permit in question is the radioactive substances activity permit, made under the Environmental Permitting Regulations 2016. The environmental permit allows AWE to receive and dispose of radioactive material on or from the site. The permit is issued under the provisions of the Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2016.  Those Regulations include the control of radioactive material to which conditions and limits are applied. Within the conditions and limits the permit allows materials that are produced during AWE’s operations to be discharged to the environment as aqueous or gaseous materials or transferred as solid material to other national facilities permitted to treat and dispose of the material.

This change seeks to increase the Aldermaston site limit for volatile beta discharges from 4.4 megaBecquerels to what it previously was in the early 1990’s, 100 megaBecquerels.

Anti-nuclear campaigners have responded to the news, with CND spokesperson Dr Ian Fairlie, a radiation expert, saying, "While the radiation amounts appear to be relatively low in the AWE application, they represent a 23-fold increase, and we should note that the 100 megabequerels quantity given is a cumulative figure for the whole year. If radiation is released into the water supply in spikes, this could still present a danger to people living in Britain."

Dave Webb, CND chair, said, "The reason given for the increase in radiation is to carry out tests to prepare for nuclear terrorism, but the root cause of nuclear terrorism is being side-stepped by the British government. Dangerous nuclear materials, that could fall into the hands of terrorists, are being transferred around the world because of our own nuclear weapons system and the nuclear power industry.

"Unless we work internationally to eradicate nuclear weapons – by cancelling Trident replacement and supporting the United Nations nuclear weapons ban – as well as scrapping plans to build a new generation of nuclear power stations, the threat of nuclear terrorism will continue to grow.”

Read the Environment Agency application from AWE here 

*AWE http://awe.co.uk/

*CND http://www.cnduk.org/home

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