Notable case, Seascale, Cumbria, England, United Kingdom
Sellafield
Britain's main nuclear complex: military plutonium reactors from 1950, then fuel reprocessing. The 1957 Windscale fire happened here, and for decades liquid discharges carried caesium and plutonium into the sediments of the Irish Sea.
At a glance
- Status
- Remediation under way
- Area
- 265 ha on land1
- Activity
- 1947–2022
- Media
- soil, groundwater, sediment, surface water, air
- Kind of site
- nuclear, military, accident
- Area. Area of the nuclear licensed site; the contaminated sediments of the Irish Sea are not included.
Contaminants
Status
Remediation under way
Power generation ended in 2003 and fuel reprocessing on 17 July 2022. Decommissioning is planned to finish in 2120; the cost was estimated at £121 billion in 2018 (Wikipedia). Waste retrieval from the Magnox swarf silo, begun in 2022, is expected to take about twenty years.
Story
The site began in 1942 as a munitions factory and from 1947 was converted for the nuclear programme. The two Windscale "piles" started up in 1950 and 1951 to make plutonium; in 1956 the Calder Hall power station was connected to the grid.
On 10 October 1957 the core of Pile 1 caught fire. About 750 TBq of radioactive material was released, including 740 TBq of iodine-131 and 22 TBq of caesium-137: the accident is rated level 5 on the INES scale. Reprocessing discharges to the sea peaked in 1975 with 5,200 TBq of caesium-137; an estimated 200 kg of plutonium has settled in the sediments of the Irish Sea (OSPAR).
The hardest legacy is the ponds and silos of the 1950s and 1960s: in 2014 the First Generation Magnox Storage Pond held about 1,200 m³ of radioactive sludge and 14,000 m³ of contaminated water. In 2005 a leak in the THORP plant spilled 83,000 litres of acid solution with radioisotopes.
Timeline
- 1947Construction of the nuclear plants begins.
- 195710 October: fire in Windscale Pile 1.
- 1975Peak of caesium-137 discharges to the Irish Sea.
- 2003Calder Hall stops generating electricity.
- 2005Leak in the THORP plant (INES level 3).
- 202217 July: fuel reprocessing ends.
Health
A study of the 1,181 children born in Seascale between 1950 and 1989 found an excess of leukaemia and non-Hodgkin lymphoma; the COMARE committee judged it unlikely to be due to chance, without being able to attribute it to radiation, and found no excess for 1991–2006. Population mixing is one of the hypotheses.
Remediation
- 2022waste retrievalWaste retrieval from the Magnox Swarf Storage Silo begins.
From the literature
Species that acted on one of this site's contaminants in at least one study. The list is automatic and takes no account of this site's soil, concentrations or climate.
Plants
- Amaranthus retroflexusRedroot pigweedCaesium-137Evidence: field
- Brassica junceaIndian mustardCaesium-137Evidence: field
- Helianthus annuusSunflowerUraniumEvidence: field
Fungi
- Funneliformis mosseaeUraniumEvidence: greenhouse
- Cladosporium sphaerospermumRadionuclides (mixed)Evidence: laboratory
- Rhizophagus irregularisUraniumEvidence: laboratory
- Rhodotorula taiwanensisRadionuclides (mixed)Evidence: laboratory
- Saccharomyces cerevisiaeBaker's yeast, brewer's yeastUraniumEvidence: laboratory
- Boletus edulisKing bolete, porciniCaesium-137Evidence: survey of wild specimens
Nearby
Notable case, England (Northamptonshire), United Kingdom
Corby (steelworks reclamation)
283 km
Notable case, England (Bristol), United Kingdom
Avonmouth zinc smelter
328 km
- Chemical warfare agents (mustard, arsenicals)
Trial, England, United Kingdom
Woburn Experimental Farm, sludge-treated plots
330 km
Phytoremediation
Sources
- Sellafield, Wikipedia, 2026
Draft compiled from public sources, not yet reviewed.