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.

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.”