The Welsh Government is currently carrying out a 12-week consultation to see if anywhere in Wales would volunteer to be the home of a nuclear waste disposal site. It would house the most radioactive material, some of which won’t be safe for 250,000 years. The waste and its containers would occupy 650,000 cubic metres, which is about half the volume of the Millennium Stadium. Labour’s First Minister, Mark Drakeford’s refusal to support a nation-wide ban on the storage of Nuclear Waste in Wales has been criticised by Plaid Cymru AM Llyr Gruffydd. “A Geological Disposal Facility for nuclear waste has been categorically ruled out by the Scottish Government and the UK Government has confirmed that no such dumping will take place in Northern Ireland. That leaves just Wales and England.” said Llyr Gruffydd. “I waited in vain for the First Minister to make it clear that the dumping of nuclear waste is not welcomed in Wales and yet he hid behind community consent rather than taking a lead.” When the Government-run Radioactive Waste Management (RWM) organised 2 consultation meetings in Swansea and Llandudno to discuss where to create a Geological Disposal Facility (GDF) no details of any potential sites were made public and it was understood that the body was seeking “a willing host community” where radioactive waste could be stored hundreds of metres underground. However, after Swansea Council objected to the plan and large numbers of anti-Nuclear Power activists expressed an interest in the Llandudno meeting RWM decided not to hold a meeting in Wales and do it online instead. The result was that what were supposed to be 3-hour meetings were reduced to a one hour “webinar”, half of which was the showing of a RWM video and no chance of a come-back to the experts online. In fact since activists only saw the experts online there is no evidence that they actually came to Wales at all. Swansea was only the first County Council to object to Nuclear waste GDF as five other County Councils have already objected and, according to CND, over 50 Town and Community Councils have joined them so far. Scotland and Northern Ireland have already ruled out hosting the dump in their countries. It is time for the Labour Welsh Government to speak for the nation and say that Wales will not host this nuclear waste disposal site.
Nation Cymru 9th April 2019 read more »
