Magnox Electric Ltd has been fined a total of £400,000 for over 14 years of radioactive leaks at the former Bradwell nuclear power station in Southminister, Essex. Sentence was passed at Chelmsford Crown Court, 11 days after Magnox (formerly Nuclear Electric Plc) was found guilty by jury of three offences of failing to carry out any inspections of a holding tank that had been leaking liquid radioactive waste since 1990.
The company was also sentenced for two offences of failing to maintain a sump, which is a type of holding tank, in the decontamination bay at the site during two periods between January 1993 and February 2004, when the leak was discovered.
The court heard that the breaches came to light because of a voluntary disclosure by Magnox to the Nuclear Regulation Group (NRG) and the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate (NII) in 2004. Staff working to clear sludge from the sump realised that when full of water, levels in the sump fell and when empty, the sump was backfilling by a couple of inches a day. A pump was immediately brought in and all liquid and sludge carefully removed.
The Environment Agency prosecution told the court that prior to the work to clear the sludge, no inspection of the sump had been carried out and no tests had been undertaken to check its integrity. The Agency, which monitors the environment outside the site's boundaries every month said that over the period of the leak no pollution was detected and that the leak "did not cause any risk to local people or the environment."
