The Forecast for UK's Coast: Radioactive

New revelations reveal a near certain threat of flooding and erosion that will cause radioactive pollution from a coastal nuclear waste dump in the UK.

In operation since 1959, the Low Level Waste Repository (LLWR) near Drigg in Cumbria houses nuclear waste from the nearby Sellafield nuclear reprocessing site in addition to military, hospital and oil industry nuclear waste.

An Environment Agency (EA) document dated 9 January 2014 and provided to the Guardian states, “It is doubtful whether the location of the LLWR site would be chosen for a new facility for near-surface radioactive waste disposal if the choice were being made now,” and adds that leaking onto the shoreline from the dump will happen “a few hundred to a few thousand years from now.”

More shoreline-battering storms and rising sea levels are “the expected evolution scenario,” it states.

The document further warns of “the potential appearance on the beach and in its accessible surroundings, during the process of erosion, of discrete items carrying a significant burden of radioactivity individually.”

The Guardian‘s reporting on the document follows the same warnings of “erosion and inundation” at the nuclear dump as reported by the UK’s Independent in February.