COMPLACENT plant operators took an astounding eight months to spot a massive leak of highly radioactive liquid at the UK鈥檚 Thermal Oxide Reprocessing Plant (THORP) at Sellafield in Cumbria, an internal board of inquiry reported on 29 June. THORP is operated by BNG, a subsidiary of British Nuclear Fuels, which runs nuclear facilities in 16 countries.
The plant extracts plutonium and uranium from spent nuclear fuel, but production was halted indefinitely in April after cameras showed the floor of an unmanned stainless steel processing vessel had flooded. The 83 cubic metres of escaped liquor contained 20 tonnes of plutonium and uranium dissolved in nitric acid.
The report says that 鈥渙perational complacency鈥� led to the plant鈥檚 operators failing to notice discrepancies in the expected liquor volumes in some vessels. To avoid such problems, the inquiry board recommended near real-time tracking of nuclear materials at the plant. BNG says it will 鈥渁ddress and resolve every issue鈥� raised in the report.
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