British Nuclear Group (BNG), the operator of the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing plant, were fined £500,000 on 16 October 2006, following a radioactive leak. 83,000 litres of acid containing 20 tonnes of uranium and 160 kg of plutonium escaped from a broken pipe into a sealed concrete secondary containment site in April 2005. Nobody was injured in the leak at the Thermal Oxide Reprocessing Plant (THORP) and no radiation escaped from the plant itself, however it was enough for the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) to withhold £2 million from the company.
An internal investigation into the incident severely criticised the Sellafield plant's safety procedures, stating the leak should have been detected in days rather than the eight months it took. They were also accused of having a "new plant culture" - a careless attitude based on the assumption that nothing can go wrong in a new plant. BNG had already pleaded guilty to three counts of breaching their site licence for the Sellafield plant, granted under the Nuclear Installations Act 1965, but reacted with disappointment over the size of the latest fine. They did however state they, "Will continue to work closely with the regulators and implement new measures to make sure nothing similar can ever happen again."
