Horrifying Greenpeace Survey results on radioactivity.
Director of Cancer Registry blames Life style of Louth People for
cancer deaths.
``People round here are afraid to mention it, leave alone study its
effects. They are too frightening. They just want to pretend it
isn't there'' - and it isn't. Its across the Irish Sea, at
Sellafield.
``There is Sellafield, directly across the water from us, in breach of
EU laws concerning the pollution of the environment; undoubtedly
responsible for radioactive pollution of the Irish Sea and air and
counties along the Eastern seaboard through oft recorded leaks and
emissions of radioactive waste into the sea. Yet it still goes on,''
says Arthur Morgan, a long time campaigner for the closure of
Sellafield.
Every year radioactivity accumulates, and it doesn't go away - not
for a half life, in the case of plutonium, for instance, of 24,000
and odd years.
``On just one road into Carlingford, 76 people out of some 200
households have died of cancer in recent years! It is a horrific
figure. A local doctor in the Cooley peninsula reports 2 or 3 cases a
year of cancer in small children - something which a doctor would not
expect to find in his practice more than perhaps once or twice in a
decade.''
``Our evidence may be anecdotal,'' says Arthur, who is a founder member
of the Cooley Environmental and Health Group, ``but that is because
the statistics, which should have been gathered, collated and
analysed, over the years, by the health boards and Government
agencies, have not been. Only in 1994 did the Government set up the
Cancer Registry in Ireland.''
But Greenpeace statistics gathered around Sellafield are not
anecdotal. They are horrifying.
Cumbria is in the direct vicinity of Sellafield. Greenpeace found the
risk of leukaemia in children and youth in Cumbria to be 10 times
higher than the national average. A study of more than 3,300 young
people in Britain and Ireland found plutonium present in their teeth.
Pigeons were found, 3 miles away from Thorp which had radioactive
counts of caesium-137, and alpha emitting plutonium, that they would
be classified as ``Flying Radwaste'' and under UK law, would have to be
disposed of in nuclear disposal sites.
Lobsters caught off the coast of Sellafield had as much as 52,000
bequerels per kilogram of technetium-99, which is 42 times higher
than permitted levels of radioactivity in food. (The half life of
technetium is 4 million years). The EU Commission's level at which
emergency measures have to be taken is 1,250 Bq/kg. It is only
coincidence that these lobsters happened to prefer the east side of
the Irish sea to make their living.
A type of wrack, a brown algae in the sea, was analysed 3 years ago,
by Greenpeace and showed concentrations of 4,000- 5,000 bq/kg. The
concentration of americium-241 in soil samples from Cumbria qualified
it to be treated as Radwaste.
As the Greenpeace survey points out, ``Around the stricken Chernobyl
reactor, a 30 kilometre zone is prohibited to humans, and no longer
used for agriculture. However in the vicinity of Sellafield
reprocessing plant, people live, work, farm, fish and swim.''
``In fact no one in Government really seems concerned at all. Emmett
Stagg and after him, Bertie Aherne, after repeated radioactive leaks
into the Irish Sea, built high media profiles on the issue of closing
Sellafield, which only created an illusion of movement. There has
been none. `Sound and fury signifying nothing''' says Arthur Morgan,
who has campaigned tirelessly for the closure of Sellafield, and
takes the view that closure of Sellafield is the main issue in the
Leinster EU election next summer, in which Arthur is selected as the
SF candidate.
The Government promised to fund the massive expenses of over £300,000
of STAD, (Stop Thorp Alliance Dundalk) a support group of the four
individuals taking their case to Europe challenging the continued
operation of Sellafield, in the absence of the obligatory
Evironmental Impact Study which BNFL never made in Ireland. But
subsequently the government far from meeting their costs - has only
made excuses for not doing so.
Local councillors and council officials have been no better. At
a.public meeting, the Director of the Cancer Register in Ireland, a
Dr. Harry Comber himself put the high incidence of cancers in the
county, which between 1991 and 1995 were higher than anywhere in the
country, down to smoking, and in particular the tobacco factory in
Dundalk, which is closed.
Arthur Morgan asked him had he considered Sellafield as a cause. No.
He didn't think it was relevant and anyway ``there is no point because
we can do nothing about that,'' Comber replied. Arthur, in
characteristic style, retorted that ``you can close Sellafield a lot
sooner than change the life style of people in the county. It is an
appalling indictment that that is the attitude of the director of
the Registry himself.''
In fact as Sean Crudden who is Secretary of the Cooley Environmental
and Health Group says, ``People are afraid to talk about Sellafield.
They would rather pretend there is no problem in case it reduces
tourism and business'' Meanwhile the cancer deaths go on.
Many believe that the recent advent of the Green Party, which has
consistently opposed nuclear power, into coalition government in
Germany, and the announcement that Germany intended to phase out its
use of nuclear energy, that the consequent loss of £1 Billion in
revenue to Thorp, which at present reprocesses German spent fuel,
might provide a conclusive financial argument for closure, where a
life and death argument concerning Irish people did not.
But, as always, Britain has another agenda, beyond the mere
profitability of its nuclear reprocessing plant. ``Must we wait
patiently until the STAD case is heard, may be next year, in Europe,
whilst radiation continues to accumulate in our sea and the fish, our
farm land and foodstuffs, and in the air which blows across Ireland.
Remember the sheep in Donegal and in Scotland, that could not be
eaten because the east wind blew radioactive dust from the Chernobyl
nuclear catastrophe over Europe?.
``What'', asks Arthur Morgan, ``is everyone waiting for. A nuclear
explosion which blows the storage tanks into the sea, and the people
of this country into a painful death?''
Is Louth County Council gathering the necessary statistics to prove
what is evident to most people? What steps is the Council taking to
do something to stop Sellafield? What is the Government doing to
force the English Government to close Thorp? Where is equality
between nation states in the EU?
Far from doing anything at all, 9 years ago, Ireland signed the
protocol which permitted an EU low cost loan to finance the building
of Thorp!
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