§ Mr. Martyn JonesTo ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food whether he will amend the statutory environmental monitoring programme of the Sellafield reprocessing plant as a condition of its authorisation, to require British Nuclear Fuels Limited to take and analyse samples and carry out external exposure rate measurements on the four-mile intertidal stretch of the River Esk in Cumbria and publish the results; and if he will make a statement.
§ Mr. CurryBNFL's statutory environmental monitoring programme already includes gamma dose rate measurements at Hall Waberthwaite in the intertidal stretch of the Esk. It also includes ground level river bank monitoring in the area. The results are submitted to the Ministry and to the Department of the Environment and BNFL publishes an annual report. The Ministry is not aware of any factors which would justify amendment of the programme in this area. However, the programe is continually under review.
§ Mr. Martyn JonesTo ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (1) whether he has assessed the public radiation exposure of people who live close to the four-mile intertidal stretch of the River Esk in Cumbria; and if he will make a statement;
(2) whether he will undertake a detailed radiological assessment of public exposure to radioactivity in the four-mile intertidal stretch of the River Esk in Cumbria, and if he will make a statement.
§ Mr. CurryThe River Esk has been monitored closely for more than 20 years. The Ministry carefully studies the time spent by people close to the Esk and we have found that the length of time people spend regularly there is very small. We have recently completed a new survey and the report on that work is being prepared for publication.
Our routine monitoring includes a number of locations where regular measurements of external dose rates are carried out. These are locations which are representative of the highest levels of external exposure which are likely to result from public occupancy of intertidal areas. Our 33W report for 1988 records measurements at 11 locations in the Ravenglass estuary (which includes the Esk) and most locations were monitored monthly. For the Esk six locations were monitored. Detailed statistics of this monitoring including estimates of public radiation exposures at these locations are published annually.
§ Mr. Martyn JonesTo ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will list the dates when his Ministry has reassessed habit surveys of members of the public around the Sellafield reprocessing plant in the past 10 years.
§ Mr. CurryHabit surveys in respect of discharges from Sellafield have been carried out in each of the last 10 years except for 1980.