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The UK’s largest nuclear site could continue leaking radioactive water until the 2050s, MPs have warned, while its clean-up operations struggle to progress quickly enough.
The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) criticised the speed of decommissioning work at Sellafield in Cumbria, citing “cost overruns and continuing safety concerns” in a report published on Wednesday.
Although the committee noted there were “signs of improvement”, PAC chairman Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown said Sellafield continued to present “intolerable risks”.
The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) acknowledged the leak at its Magnox Swarf Storage Silo (MSSS) was its “single biggest environmental issue”.
The MSSS, which the NDA described as “the most hazardous building in the UK”, has been leaking radioactive water into the ground since 2018, releasing enough to fill an Olympic swimming pool every three years.
It is likely to continue leaking until the oldest section of the building has been emptied in the 2050s, about a decade later than previously expected.
Sir Geoffrey said: “As with the fight against climate change, the sheer scale of the hundred-year timeframe of the decommissioning project makes it hard to grasp the immediacy of safety hazards and cost overruns that delays can have.
“Every day at Sellafield is a race against time to complete works before buildings reach the end of their life.
“Our report contains too many signs that this is a race that Sellafield risks losing.”
Pointing to the fact that Sellafield Ltd had missed most of its annual targets for retrieving waste from buildings, including
