Nuclear worries
Sir: In attacking Alexandra Artley's article `From rad to worse' (6 May) Mr Preece (BNF PR Department) indulges (Letters, 20 May) in the usual tired form of defen- sive posturing used by the nuclear industry.
Mr Preece challenges the statement that the Irish Sea is the most radioactive sea in the world. This piece of information came not from the mouth of some rabid anti- nuclear campaigner, but from the Conservative-dominated House of Com- mons Select Committee on Nuclear Waste. Of course, it might well be that they, too, were mistaken and simply indulging in `a personal anti-nuclear diatribe' (the charge laid at Miss Artley's door). Perhaps Mr Preece knows best in these things. I am sure he will write to the Committee to put them right.
Mr Preece wrote that the increased cost of Thorp, £1.2 billion, was also wrong. The original cost for Thorp was given as £350 million (1976). This has steadily risen over the years (£700 million in 1979, £900 million in 1981). The last estimate I heard for Thorp, which was given to me by BNF on 21 March, is that the plant would cost £1.85 billion.
Mr Preece writes that there are too many errors in Miss Artley's article for him to reply to. I suspect that Mr Preece simply finds certain facts unanswerable and chooses instead to ignore them. There is nothing new in this. In 1983, when the above Select Committee recommended a financial review of the Thorp project, BNF and the Department of Energy refused to undertake the work.
Miss Artley's greatest sin is that she raised issues of concern about Sellafield. Those who have first-hand experience of BNF will know that the 'shoot the messen- ger' approach has long been advocated by BNF as the best method of dealing with unpleasant news. Yet her article raises exactly the same type of criticisms that have come from British MPs, the Euro- pean Parliament, the Irish Government and many scientists.
BNF have squandered vast amounts of taxpayer's money to try to convince us that we should be grateful that our sea is seriously contaminated, we should be pleased at being made a national and international nuclear dumping ground. Next they will be telling us that we should give praise for the very existence of BNF.
The truth is that Mr Preece and his colleagues are scared because they serve an ailing industry and, even now, they realise that their open cheque book will not buy public confidence.
Jean McSorley
Campaign Secretary, Cumbrians Opposed to a Radioactive Environ- ment, 98 Church Street, Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria
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