Plymouth attacks MoD over radioactive leak
COUNCIL chiefs have attacked the Ministry of Defence for failing to let them know about a radioactive leak from a nuclear submarine in the River Tamar.
Plymouth City Council, responsible for emergency planning, only heard about the incident involving HMS Trafalgar from media reports yesterday – four days after it happened.
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The MOD admitted it should have told the council and said it was working to make sure there was no repeat of the breakdown in communication.
The Royal Navy has confirmed up to 280 litres of water, likely to have been contaminated with tritium, poured from a burst hose as it was being pumped from the submarine in the early hours of Friday.
Nobody was hurt and the vessel’s nuclear power plant was unaffected.
A spokeswoman said: “We were alarmed to learn about this incident through the media this morning – given that it happened on Thursday night.
“We understand the leak was extremely small and while the MoD is not legally obliged to inform the council, we would have expected them to tell us out of courtesy and to keep us updated on developments. It appears they followed the letter of the law but not the spirit of it.
“The council is represented on the Devonport Local Liaison Committee whose purpose is to inform the public about nuclear safety and the significance of any incident and it is also responsible for the Devonport offsite safety plan, should any incident escalate.
“We are seeking urgent reassurances from the MoD that the breakdown in the co-operation we strive to maintain will not happen again.”
The Navy said that as soon as the leak was discovered, the transfer was stopped, the area was quarantined, monitoring and sampling carried out and a clean-up operation was completed.
An analysis of river water has not shown any detectable contamination.
The Environment Agency, Health and Safety Executive and the Defence Nuclear Safety Regulator have been informed of the incident.
A Ministry of Defence spokesman said: “The MoD acknowledges that given the media interest in this site event, we should have informed Plymouth City Council earlier.
“We have reassured the council and are now working with them to ensure that such a breakdown in communication does not happen again.”
26 Comments
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by Nick, Plymouth
Thursday, November 13 2008, 10:58AM
“Rhetorician,
They were obliged to tell people and they did. They informed bot the EA and the NII. They seem to have had no obligation to inform the local council and I would assume that was due to the relatively small scale of the event.”
by abi, plymouth
Thursday, November 13 2008, 9:45AM
“good morning robroy, i know, whats with the 'i earn £20 an hour'. haha so he must have some sort of professional job to be earning that much.
His first comment was removed, but he was saying that i must be jobless and he is always reading my comments on her. well he must be on here as much as me to be reading my comments :) pot...kettle, nuff said”
by RobRoy, The Delta Quadrant
Thursday, November 13 2008, 9:21AM
“Good morning Abi, and well said. He's just another gobby, childish numpty with nothing intelligent, or even witty, to say.
DLTBGYD”
by abi, plymouth
Thursday, November 13 2008, 8:53AM
“george! was that petty and very childish comment supposed to make me jealous. i earn about 2 3rds of what you earn and have a very flexible job, because i work for my fathers business so thats why i have so much time to do what i want (which is sitting on this site). Grow up”
by Heidi, Camel's Head
Thursday, November 13 2008, 8:35AM
“Surely its cheaper for the tax payer for the navy or yardies to release it into the river than storing it for some hideously expensive waste treatment.”
by Michael, Plymouth
Wednesday, November 12 2008, 11:22PM
“We should be more concerned with the stock pile of decomissioned subs dumped in the yard.!”
by Rhetorician, Plymouth
Wednesday, November 12 2008, 9:22PM
“I agree with you Nick and said pretty much the same in my earlier posting Tritium is naturally occurring and is only harmful by inhalation or ingestion and the amount lost would soon be diluted by the Tamar.
Nevertheless they shouldn`t be leaking the stuff especially when they are not obliged to notify anyone about it.”
by Alistair, Haye Road
Wednesday, November 12 2008, 8:13PM
“if it had been a thousand gallons, would it have any noticeable impact after a week. There is such effective tidal scouring in the Hamoaze that i doubt even experts with gadgets would detect any significant difference. if we want the Navy and also the civilian jobs we must be prepared to accept incidents much much worse than this without complaint. This story needs to end here and pass from oversensitive and ill informed popular memory.”
by Nick, Plymouth
Wednesday, November 12 2008, 6:15PM
“Oh and I forgot to say, I happen to agree that no amount of spillage is good or acceptable and I would expect ANY organisation involved with any toxic spill to undertake an examination of their safe systems of work. My point is that in this instance the initial findings are that this has not caused a significant increase in the existing tritium levels in the river.”
by Nick, Plymouth
Wednesday, November 12 2008, 6:12PM
“Rhetorician,
I happen not to work for the MoD so lets not start down that route! Your incident in the 1980's is unfortunate and an understandable precautions were taken following it. As you have said, you were covered in it, in other words you received a fairly concentrated amount of material in direct contact with your skin. This incident an amount of liquid was released into the river and was immediately diluted as a result. The overall effect of the two incidents has very different results. I therefore stand by my statement about this incident. I would not however suggest the same metaphor for your incident!”