Resolution
On radioactive pollution from Sellafield UK

Original Text

The European Anglers Alliance, representing 18 European nations and over 6 million anglers, held its 8^th General Assembly on 5^th – 8^th April 2002 in Prague.

The European Anglers Alliance is seriously concerned about the increase in the radioactive pollution from the reprocessing plant at Sellafield in Cumbria, England, in particular we are concerned about the increased discharges of technetium-99 (Tc-99) since 1994, and the increasing concentrations of Tc-99 found in the environment of northern Europe.

The Environment Agency of England and Wales is proposing to allow Sellafield to continue discharging high levels of Tc-99 until 2006, rather than reduce them to pre-1994 levels immediately.

The European Anglers Alliance is also concerned that the Environment Agency is proposing to allow Sellafield to increase actual discharges of other radioactive substances over the next decade, as a result of increasing throughputs in the two reprocessing plants, whereas the UK Government committed itself in 1998 at an International Treaty known as OSPAR to "progressive and substantial reductions" of radioactive discharges.

The European Anglers Alliance expresses the most serious concern at the failure of the United Kingdom Government to control the radioactive output from its plant at Sellafield. This is totally unacceptable to all environmental groups and most governments with an interest in the Irish Sea, North Sea and North Atlantic at large.

The European Anglers Alliance calls the European Union and the United Kingdom Government for an immediate reduction in the discharges of Technetium-99 from Sellafield, and for progressive and substantial reductions in actual discharges of all other radionuclides.

The European Anglers Alliance also expresses its dismay at the UK Government's decision to allow British Nuclear Fuels Limited to open the new Sellafield MOX Plant. This plant will not only perpetuate the pointless reprocessing of spent nuclear waste fuel which is polluting the Irish Sea, but it will also require dangerous shipments of plutonium-MOX fuel through the Irish Sea and English Channel. An accident involving one of these ships could devastate the marine resources of northern Europe.