8 months ago
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Gratitude, but no cash, is the disappointing response from the Department of Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) to the suggestion made in a letter first sent by the UK/Ireland Nuclear Free Local Authorities and six campaign groups to the Secretary of State for Science Michelle Donelan that public funding be provided for citizen science projects to test levels of radioactivity near to civil nuclear power plants.
After redirection from Science to Energy, a response has been received from Departmental civil servant Sarah Wells acting for the DESNZ Correspondence Unit. In the reply, thanks are conveyed for the idea from an anonymous ‘Minister’ within the Department, believed to be Nuclear Minister Andrew Bowie, but there is no promise of money for citizen science as ‘the Government has no plans to enhance existing environmental monitoring arrangements at this time’.
The remainder of the letter amounts to a repetition of the government and nuclear industry standard response that seeks to provide assurance that the regulators have everything in hand, that nuclear reactors would not be permitted to operate if they were ‘not safe’, that there are ‘no elevated levels of uranium’ around nuclear sites, and that radioactivity in the environment and food chain are ‘well below’ legal limits.
(Our letter and the DESNZ reply appear at the end of this release).
Radiation Free Lakeland has previously commissioned the scientific analysis of soil samples taken along the West Cumbrian coast which identified disturbing levels of radioactivity that were far above acceptable limits.
(The link to the analysis by the Worcester Polytechnic Institute report appears at the end of this release).
In contrast to the ‘everything is fine’ tenor adopted by the author of the letter, RBL founder Marianne Birkby exposes the shocking reality:
“The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero states that the exposures to the public are ‘well within legal limits’. But the actual reality is that the nuclear industry assumes a fatality risk from radiation set at 1 in 10,000 per annum for members of the public and 1 in 1000 per annum for nuclear workplace risks. This is what the industry deems to be ‘As Low As Is Reasonably Practical’ (ALARP) and acceptable.
“Yet, even by this optimistic industry standard, the public risk of dying from radioactive emissions is TWICE that of being killed in a car accident (which one in approximately 20,000 according to some statistics) and, in a reverse lottery, many times greater than that of winning the National Lottery. But the difference is that the public can choose to avoid the fatal traffic accident or playing the lottery, but they cannot avoid the dangers posed by the radioactive particle inhaled on a West Cumbrian beach”.
“The industry says this risk is low, but our own sampling shows elevated radioactivity in a full third of all samples taken from the Lake District Coastline. There are thousands of ALARP deaths every year due to radioactive emissions even by the industry’s own optimistic standard”.
The NFLAs are also grateful to Richard Bramhall from the Low-Level Radiation Campaign (LLRC), who has made a detailed rebuttal of the assertions contained in the letter:
“DES&NZ claim that the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) and the regulators (the Environment Agency, the Scottish Environment Protection Agency, and Natural Resources Wales) would not allow nuclear power to operate if they didn’t believe it to be safe. This is a circular argument because those organisations don’t require the emission of particles to be monitored, nor do they take account of evidence that the particles are more dangerous than they think.
“In 2022 and 2023, LLRC and other NGOs had a dialogue with ONR on this topic; it ended with ONR failing to answer the scientific issues and walking away, although LLRC’s legal advisor had pointed out that the legislation establishing ONR gives them freedom to conduct relevant research on their own responsibility.
“DES&NZ’s letter claims in the final sentence of paragraph 6 that ‘[the regulators] assess that there is not a pathway for uranium particulates to be released from routine operations … and therefore do not require specific discharge monitoring. This appears to be a significant misperception on DES&NZ’s part. LLRC has discussed particle pollution extensively with Environment Agency, which does not deny that nuclear power stations (NPSs) routinely release dust particles. Since uranium is the principal component of NPSs there is no doubt that the particles contain uranium and other alpha-emitting elements like plutonium and americium.
“Our enquiries with all four of the environment agencies of the UK revealed that they hold NO data on radioactive dusts.”
Richard is also particularly dismayed that the definition of what is a ‘safe’ dose is flawed:
“The Environment Agency sets a limit on the amount of radiation that is supposedly ‘safe’ for a person to be exposed to, but this supposed ‘safe’ dose is an average.
“Averaging fails to account for the especial impact of alpha tracks inside the human body. Ionising radiation exists as subatomic particles travelling at substantial fractions of the speed of light. There are three types — alphas, betas and gammas. Here we are concerned with alphas, which are relatively massive events/objects, identical to the nuclei of helium atoms.
“Because of their large mass and cross-section, the tracks of alphas interact with (or collide with) body tissue intensely. This slows them down within a few microns, which is why they cannot penetrate the layer of dead cells on the surface of human skin. But if specks of dust containing alpha-emitters, like uranium, are ingested or inhaled they can be deadly to living cells, since any cell hit by an alpha decay track receives hundreds of millisieverts.
“Such extreme doses kill most of the cells within a few microns of the dust, even though their impact is tiny when averaged across the whole body or a whole organ. But, in addition, some cells receive a dose too small to kill but high enough to mutate. This can lead to cancer and leukaemia. Where sperm and egg cells are affected, babies die in the womb or are born deformed.
“We should always beware of official statements about ‘doses’ if the exposure they are talking about involves any contribution from dust containing alpha-emitters.
“And it should be noted that the Environment Agency doesn’t require nuclear power stations to report emissions of alpha-emitting dusts — they rely on the design of the filters to keep doses low enough not to worry about. But those doses are falsely conceived as averages across the whole body. And, where they discuss the dose implications in terms of “collective” doses, they are averaging the health impact across the whole human population”.
Councillor Lawrence O’Neill, Chair of the UK/Ireland Nuclear Free Local Authorities, is disappointed by the refusal of financial support for citizen science:
“Despite the counterclaims of the government and nuclear industry, it is clear from the work of Marianne and Richard that radiation is present in higher levels than is conventionally expected in parts of West Cumbria and that radiation causes damage to the human body even at low, and supposedly safe, levels.
“Recent long-term studies published in the British Medical Journal have also revealed higher levels of cancers amongst workers in the nuclear industry than expected at lower doses. People working in nuclear plants, living with them, or living close to such plants may have justifiable concerns about their exposure.
“Statutory government environment agencies have limited capacity to monitor radioactivity and may have limited local knowledge. Teams of citizen scientists can supplement their efforts taking their own soil and air samples independently, and more widely, for analysis. Citizen science is also a vehicle for the education of students and a means to engage more members of the public in scientific endeavour. It is therefore disappointing that the government has chosen not to put any money behind it, perhaps this is because they have something to hide… We will now have to look elsewhere for support.”
Ends//… For further information please contact the NFLA Secretary, Richard Outram, by email at richard.outram@manchester.gov.uk
Notes to Editors
The findings of the survey carried out by volunteers from Radiation Free Lakeland published by the Worcester Polytechnic Institute can be found here:
https://www.nuclearpolicy.info/wp/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Worcester-Polytechnic-Institute-Report-Sediment-Radition-at-Sellafield.pdf
The letter sent to the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology on 25 Jan reads:
The Rt Hon Michelle Donelan MP,
Secretary of State, Science, Innovation and Technology
correspondence@dsit.gov.uk
25 January 2024
Dear Secretary of State,
An Appeal for Citizen Science
Today (25 January) is the birthday of American ornithologist Wells Cooke, considered to be the founder of modern citizen science. From 1881, he engaged amateur birding enthusiasts in collecting information about bird migration. His program evolved into the government-run North American Bird Phenology Programme, supported by volunteers across the nation.
In more recent times, British television programmes, such as the BBC’s seasonal Nature Watch shows, have sought the collaboration of many citizens in making observations of the great outdoors, and this data has been invaluable in understanding and monitoring our natural world.
Citizen science has many positive outcomes:
- It encourages and engages stakeholder citizens to learn more about their local environment and about science in general.
- It provides students with opportunities to take a meaningful role in the process of scientific research, sometimes leading to careers in STEM.
- It improves scientific literacy in general.
- It provides ‘big data’, generally of high quality, from many observers in many locations, which can then be subjected to centralised analysis by research professionals.
Consequently, citizen science increases community engagement; makes science more relevant and ‘immediate’ to the general population; and has a significant and increasing positive impact on research outcomes.
Despite this, there are insufficient financial or technical resources made available by government, the scientific and academic institutions, and by industry to support the expansion and sustainability of citizen science projects.
This letter then is an appeal for those resources to be made available to more citizen science projects in general, but more specifically for the study of radioactivity in our environment.
Secretary of State, your colleague the Minister for Nuclear and Renewables, the Rt Hon Andrew Bowie MP, recently announced the UK Government’s Civilian Nuclear Roadmap proposing a massive expansion of nuclear power generating capacity to 24 GW by 2050. The plan comprises the development and operation of two large mega-watt plants at Sizewell C in Suffolk and one other site, mostly likely Wylfa or Moorside, and the deployment of Small and Advanced Modular Reactors at numerous, yet to be determined, sites. In addition, we have Hinkley Point C in construction; five operational stations; and many former operational sites under the stewardship of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority.
In his written statement on the announcement of the Roadmap to the House of Commons dated 11 January,[1] Mr Bowie said:
‘It is our intention that safety will remain paramount, with the highest safety, security and environmental standards overseen by the independent nuclear regulator and environment protection agencies. Public consultation and community engagement would also remain an essential part of the process.’
Recent revelations in The Guardian newspaper highlighted leakages of radioactive contaminants, both historic and ongoing, from the Sellafield plant, which have been reinforced by the findings from research conducted into the presence of radionuclides in West Cumbria by Radiation Free Lakeland, and in the last twelve months there have also been newspaper reports in Scotland concerning the clean-up of radioactive materials from Dalgety Bay and the detection of radioactive particles on the beaches surrounding Dounreay.
A common public concern in relation to the operation of civil nuclear sites is the inevitable radioactive contamination, airborne and of the ground and watercourses, of the surrounding environment. Routine discharges of alpha-emitting radioactive dusts are unmonitored although, once inhaled, they confer high doses to local tissue. We are concerned that the only published information on dusts emitted from nuclear power stations was for the early 1990s [2] and that no information on the uranium component of the dusts has ever been published.
For these reasons we welcome the Nuclear Minister’s stated commitments to ensure that ‘safety will remain paramount’ and that ‘community engagement would remain an essential part of the process’. If these commitments are to be upheld then surely it is only right that this government – and the nuclear industry – fund and support the establishment of new citizen science projects, led by local people, local schools and colleges, and local NGOs, to monitor radiation around existing and future nuclear sites?
If such sites are indeed safe, then the government and nuclear industry has nothing to hide and engaging the public in such projects would provide them with reassurance.
Secretary of State, we are writing to you assuming that this matter falls within the remit of your department rather than that of the Department of Energy Security and Net Zero to make the appeal for the necessary funding and support to make it so.
Thank you for taking the time to read this letter and consider its contents. We hope that we might have the opportunity to work with you and departmental civil servants to take this proposal forward and we look forward to your reply.
In the first instance could I ask you to reply by email to Richard Outram, NFLA Secretary, at richard.outram@manchester.gov.uk
Yours sincerely,
Councillor Lawrence O’Neill, Chair, UK/Ireland NFLA Steering Committee
Endorsed and supported by:
Marianne Birkby, on behalf of Radiation Free Lakeland
Richard Bramhall, on behalf of Low-Level Radiation Campaign and Welsh Anti-Nuclear Alliance (WANA)
Rita Caine, on behalf of Ayrshire Radiation Monitoring Group
Sue Aubrey on behalf of Stop Hinkley
Pete Wilkinson, on behalf of Together against Sizewell C (TASC)
1. https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-statements/detail/2024-01-11/hcws177
2. http://www.unscear.org/docs/publications/2000/UNSCEAR_2000_Annex-C-CORR.pdf. Table 34
The reply received from Sarah Wells at the DESNZ Correspondence Unit dated 13 February 2024:
