§ Lord Jenkins of Putneyasked Her Majesty's Government:
What is the daily discharge of radioactively contaminated water into the Irish Sea from Sellafield; whether these discharges have received their consent; and whether they consider it necessasry to limit these discharges.
§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of the Environment (Baroness Denton of Wakefield)The current authorisation for the discharge of liquid radioactive waste from BNFL's Sellafield site limits daily discharges of alpha and beta radioactivity in liquid aqueous effluent to 0.2 and 40 terabecquerels respectively. BNFL is only required to report daily discharges if they are in excess of these limits. More stringent and detailed limits are, in particular, applied on an annual basis. These limits restrict total discharges of alpha and beta radioactivity in liquid aqueous effluent to 10 terabecquerels per year and 500 terabecquerels per year respectively, and provide additional restrictions on the discharges of those individual radionuclides regarded as being of greatest significance. Details of BNFL's actual annual discharges are contained in the company'sAnnual Report on Radiation Discharges and Monitoring of the Environment, copies of which have been placed in the Library of the House.