Sellafield have withdrawn their application. Bittersweet News!

Image: the River Calder before it enters the Sellafield site.  

Dear Friends,

Sellafield have withdrawn their application to the Environment Agency for abstraction and disposal of 40 cubic metres an hour of contaminated water into the Rivers Calder and Ehen for the next seven years.  

The revoking of the licence would at first glance seem to be a very good thing – but it is not what it seems.  Sellafield have gone ahead and mined out a 7 metre deep tunnel near to the leaking Magnox Silos. This was done as we waited to see if our appeal to go forward with a judicial review was successful.  It is essentially a stitch up.  

On 26 July 2024, Sellafield applied to the Environment Agency for a full licence to abstract contaminated groundwater from the Alluvium Sandstone Deposit above the West Cumbria Aquifer. The application was to abstract that water for a period of over seven years at a rate of 40 cubic metres an hour; 960 cubic metres a day; 350,400 cubic metres a year.  The contaminated water would then be discharged directly and indirectly to the Calder, Ehen and Irish Sea.  

Our central argument was that in approving Sellafield’s application for the now revoked licence, the Environment Agency had failed to assess the proposed abstraction’s impact on the River Ehen Special Area of Conservation (SAC)in breach of Habitats Regulations.

We argued that the risk of impacts on the River Ehen SAC were not merely “hypothetical” as High Court Judge Karen Ridge had concluded  because:

• Sellafield had acknowledged that: (a) there was at least a “less than moderate” risk of “leaching and migration of volatile contaminants” in groundwater; and (b) the general groundwater flow was “towards the River Ehen”  and
• The EA’s own internal guidance on ‘screening and assessing new water resources permissions for impacts’ specifically highlights the risks where a proposed activity takes place close to a migratory route for Atlantic Salmon, which “links to the population in a… SAC… even if the proposed activity is very distant from the boundary of the protected area”  This guidance is clear that an appropriate assessment should be carried out in these circumstances. 

Lakes Against Nuclear Dump’s legal challenge was rejected by Deputy High Court Judge Karen Ridge at a hearing in November 2025.  While we were waiting for a decision on whether an appeal could go ahead Sellafield took it upon themselves to mine out the 7 metre tunnel and groundworks anyway with a complete disregard for public concern, transparency and it could be argued for due legal process.

There has been no environmental or hydrological assessment on the effects of this development.  The impacts on protected species such as natterjack toad and Atlantic salmon have not been assessed. Sellafield have informed neither the Environment Agency nor the public of the exact reason for the 7 metre deep tunnel apart from that it would facilitate the moving of highly active nuclear wastes from the partially buried Magnox Silos to the proposed Box Encapsulation Plant Product Store 2.   No one begrudges Sellafield building new stores for old and highly active nuclear waste but it should not be at the further expense of the rivers Calder and Ehen, ‘protected’ Atlantic Salmon and other wildlife.

It breaks our hearts to have to tell you this news however we will be looking at what we can do to protect our incredibly special rivers, the Calder and the Ehen from Sellafield’s ongoing developments.  Your support has meant that we have been able to put forward a challenge and raise public awareness of Sellafield’s ongoing crimes against the natural world.  If we can take some solace, we have at least achieved a revocation of the licence, which is effectively the same result that the legal case could have got us through a quashing, and we have forced Sellafield – faced with our legal challenge – to end the licence significantly sooner than they had planned for. We can take heart in the fact that we have curtailed Sellafield’s activities and helped to stop huge amounts of contaminated water being abstracted and ‘disposed’ of, all the way until 2032.

 As a footnote, alongside the footpath outside the Sellafield fences leading to the mouths of the Rivers Calder and Ehen is a footpath noted for its wild flowers.  People take care to keep to the footpath and let the flowers grow.  Patches of natural beauty are important in the face of the massive industrial behemoth of Sellafield. These wildflowers including ragged robin, marsh orchid and bee orchid are a remnant of what is left of the once abundant coastal plain now largely covered by Sellafield’s toxic mess.  In an action indicative of  Sellafield’s apparent total disregard for the natural world the wild flowers including ‘protected’ species have been mown down.  Natural England ’s advice was to contact Wildlife Crime Officers at Cumbria Police (CP however work closely with Sellafield).  We will keep fighting  for justice for the natural world against these horrible odds weighted in favour of the nuclear waste industry.

Thanks to everyone who has made this challenge possible, not least the amazing lawyers Leigh Day, all of this helped to raise important awareness of the ongoing acts of nuclear ecocide against the Lake District’s rivers and coast. Saving what is left is so important.

Onwards and Upwards

Marianne

More info here