From: Greenpeace via Jym Dyer <jym@mica.berkeley.edu>
Newsgroups: misc.activism.progressive,alt.activism,talk.environment
Subject: NEWS: Missing Uranium and Misled Public (Dounreay, Scotland)
Followup-To: talk.environment
Date: 13 Aug 1992 06:28:30 GMT
Organization: The Naughty Peahen Party Line
NNTP-Posting-Host: anableps.berkeley.edu
Originator: jym@anableps.berkeley.edu

[Greenpeace Press Release from Greenbase -- Redistribute Freely]

GREENPEACE PRESS RELEASE 
(for NENIG) 
 
PUBLIC AND MPs MISLED ON DOUNREAY'S MISSING URANIUM 
      --------------------------------------------------- 
 
DOUNREAY, SCOTLAND July 31, 1992 (GP) Commercial pressures are 
threatening safety at Dounreay and there has been a long history 
of unrecorded movements of hazardous nuclear material, a report 
published today (FRIDAY 31ST JULY) reveals.  It also shows that 
the real reasons for last December's loss of enriched uranium at 
the site was kept hidden from MPs and the public. 
 
The report, Dounreay's Missing Uranium - How the Public was 
Misled, is published by the Shetland-based environmental 
organisation NENIG.  It reveals that the European Commission's  
Euratom nuclear inspectors were concerned throughout 1991 about 
serious problems in Dounreay's uranium recovery plant, including 
unrecorded discharges and transfers of nuclear material and poor 
record keeping.  
 
The report reveals that in September 1990 rebuilding and 
improvement work to the plant, intended to support Dounreay's 
drive for more commercial work, contained a design and 
installation fault in the dissolver which left an `open-cycle', 
allowing hazardous material to escape into the site's waste 
system.  Modifications carried out in August 1991 failed to 
rectify the problem and unrecorded transfers and discharges of 
nuclear material continued for another three months before the 
then director of Dounreay, Mr Gerry Jordan, shut the plant down 
in December 1991 after an inventory showed a major shortfall of 
11.3kg of uranium-235. 
 
The NENIG report is based on the European Commission's decision, 
published after its own investigation, and a report to the 
European Parliament's Energy Committee by Mr Gordon Adam, MEP for 
Northumbria.   Mr Adam found that commercial pressures were part 
of the problem at Dounreay. 
 
NENIG spokesman Chris Bunyan said:" Our investigation shows that 
the press, public and MPs were misled by false and misleading 
trails laid by Dounreay and official statements including the 
then Energy Minister Mr John Wakeham's statement in the Commons 
in January 1992 failed to disclose the true nature of the 
problems."  
 
"The whole affair was presented as a one-off incident 
`discovered' by an inventory of uranium in November 1991.  
Dounreay expressed surprise and their suggested possible 
explanations included human error, a misplaced decimal point, or 
even that the material had never existed in the first place. 
Officially it was always presented as an accounting error.   
 
"This was totally misleading.  Dounreay knew there had been 
serious problems with this plant - and had unsuccessfully 
modified the plant in August 1991 to try and rectify the design 
fault.  
 
"The full facts show an extremely worrying picture of how 
Dounreay has been allowed to operate.  The true seriousness of 
this whole affair has been hidden in an attempt not to undermine 
public trust and confidence in the nuclear industry.  The end 
result is just the opposite." 
Newsgroups: misc.activism.progressive