Protest outside court house as judge weighs legality of radioactive mud dumping

A Cardiff, Wales judge on Monday adjourned a High Court court hearing for a week after being presented with inaccurate documentation by lawyers for an EDF subsidiary, NNB. NNB claims that the transfer of radioactive mud dredged from EDF’s Hinkley Point C nuclear construction site in England and dumped into Welsh waters did not require an environmental impact assessment (EIA) under European regulations. The defendants must now share additional documentation with the judge and plaintiffs before the case can resume. An injunction against the marine dumping, which is now underway just over one mile off the Cardiff coast, has been sought by Cardiff resident, Cian Ciaràn, keyboardist for the rock group, Super Furry Animals. Beyond Nuclear joined the protest outside the courthouse and attended the hearing. The injunction is intended to call a temporary — and ultimately a permanent —  halt to the dumping. No testing was done for plutonium or uranium in the mud using alpha spectrometry, although these isotopes are likely to be present given the now closed Hinkley Point A reactor was built and operated to manufacture plutonium for British nuclear warheads. The Hinkley site has experienced numerous leaks and fires over the years. A mid-1990s study found a higher risk of cancer mortality in an English seaside community downwind of the nuclear site living in close proximity to an offshore mud bank used as a repository for radioactive waste discharged from Hinkley Point. More