Massifs is a series of images made in response to the disposal of 80,000 tonnes of mud in an underwater sandbank known as Cardiff Grounds, which is located approximately 1.8 miles from the Cardiff coastline. Discussions around the safety of the mud and plans to dispose of up to 800,000 tonnes are currently ongoing between the energy company, EDF, the UK government and Natural Resources Wales. The plans for further dredging and dumping of the mud have been met with fierce opposition from local environmental groups, due to the lack of information and consultation with the people most affected.
Through the exploration of information this project asks questions about the effect on local communities, as well as the environmental impact, of dumping potentially harmful contaminated mud very close to a city. The work also touches on the mutually beneficial exchanges between governments and corporate entities, as well as the citizens and wildlife affected by, but without a say regarding, their actions. Do governments have a legal or moral duty to protect their citizens?
The images in this series have been made along the Welsh coast line, from Cardiff to Barry Island. This is the area of the coast line that will be most affected by any contamination.
Cyfres o ddelweddau yw Massifs a wnaed mewn ymateb i waredu 80,000 tunnell o fwd mewn banc tywod tanddwr o’r enw Tiroedd Caerdydd, sydd oddeutu 1.8 milltir o arfordir Caerdydd. Mae trafodaethau ynghylch diogelwch y mwd a chynlluniau i waredu hyd at 800,000 tunnell yn parhau ar hyn o bryd rhwng y cwmni ynni, EDF, llywodraeth y DU ac Adnoddau Naturiol Cymru. Mae’r grwpiau ar gyfer carthu a dympio’r mwd ymhellach wedi cael gwrthwynebiad chwyrn gan grwpiau amgylcheddol lleol, oherwydd y diffyg gwybodaeth ac ymgynghori â’r bobl yr effeithiwyd arnynt fwyaf.
Trwy archwilio gwybodaeth mae’r prosiect hwn yn gofyn cwestiynau am effaith dympio mwd halogedig a allai fod yn niweidiol yn agos iawn at ddinas. Mae’r gwaith hefyd yn cyffwrdd â’r cyfnewidiadau sydd o fudd i’r ddwy ochr rhwng llywodraethau ac endidau corfforaethol, yn ogystal â’r dinasyddion a bywyd gwyllt y mae eu gweithredoedd yn effeithio arnynt, ond heb ddweud eu dweud.
A oes gan lywodraethau ddyletswydd gyfreithiol neu foesol i amddiffyn eu dinasyddion?
Mae’r delweddau yn y gyfres hon wedi’u gwneud ar hyd llinell arfordir Cymru, o Gaerdydd i Ynys y Barri. Dyma ardal llinell yr arfordir y bydd unrhyw halogiad yn effeithio fwyaf arni.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
An updated framework for the long-term management of higher activity radioactive waste
-
In Dark Ecology, Timothy Morton writes about the loops of ecological awareness, such as positive and negative feedback loops, phasing loops, and so on. One of these loops is the Anthropocene. I understand the Anthropocene in the following terms: we human beings have continually deposited layers of carbon into the Earth’s crust since the late eighteenth century, and this combined with the levels of greenhouse gases we continue to emit into the atmosphere has made humanity into a “a geophysical force on a planetary scale.” Morton refers to the Anthropocene as a “strange loop” in which “levels of geology and humanity” begin to “flip into one another” even though they “appear utterly separate.” (Morton, 2016)
It is clear that alternatives to fossil fuels are essential to the well-being of both the planet and future generations, of humans and all life on Earth, and our reliance on fossil fuels must decrease. In the UK, alternatives such as electricity from renewable sources are increasingly being used, and our consumption of electricity is rising. Earlier in 2021 the BBC reported on the rise of the electric car:
Global sales of electric cars raced forward in 2020, rising by 43% to a total of 3.2m, despite overall car sales slumping by a fifth during the coronavirus pandemic… That will leap to 40% by 2030, and by 2040 virtually every new car sold globally will be electric, says UBS. (Rowlatt, 2021.)
This brings me to one of Morton’s examples of the ecological impact of our daily lives. For example, if I turn my key to start my fossil fuel-using petrol car, this in itself is statistically insignificant, and in doing so I am not making a conscious effort to bring harm to the Earth or the environment. But, if that turn of the key is “scaled up” from this individual act to “Earth magnitude,” and I see myself as a member of the collective human species, rather than an unthinking being, then, according to Morton, “something weird happens.” My one key turn now relates closely to billions of other keys turning, and the harm caused by this act becomes much clearer. As people start to become more and more aware of environmental damage, leading to climate guilt or climate grief, the need and desire for alternative carbon-free fuels and energies increase. Climate, or ecological, grief, is a multi-faceted, complex and confusing experience of anxiety, uncertainty, fear, loss, anger and sadness. The losses included those of “human, animal, and plant life, but also loss of identities, beliefs and lifestyles.” The individual experiencing such grief might face reminders of it every minute, in the form of “disputes and practical choices.” (Pihkala, 2020.) Many individuals try to lead environmentally-friendly lives, but the benefits of these choices are minimal when compared to the damage done by multi-national corporations and capitalism’s compulsion to grow indefinitely at any cost.
Nuclear energy has often been touted as a clean energy and the UK Government states on its website that it is “a pioneer of nuclear technologies.” Its nuclear power facilities, it says, have “generated electricity for more than 60 years and our country remains a world-leading nuclear enterprise.” Further reading of the website also reveals that:
The radioactive waste resulting from power generation, medicine, defence and other industries needs to be managed carefully. Existing waste is currently stored above ground at more than 30 sites around the UK. These surface stores can be safe for many decades, but require continuous protection to keep them secure and in good condition, as the waste remains radioactive for hundreds of thousands of years.(gov.uk, 2021)
It is this last sentence that causes concern. In 2015 the Welsh government brought in the The Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act in order to protect the environment and prosperity of the country for years to come. The Act “gives a legally-binding common purpose – the seven well-being goals – for national government, local government, local health boards and other specified public bodies” and it “places a duty that the public bodies will be expected to carry out. A duty means they have to do this by law.” The well-being duty states that:
Each public body must carry out sustainable development.
The action a public body takes in carrying out sustainable development must include: a. setting and publishing objectives (“well-being objectives”) that are designed to maximise its contribution to achieving each of the well-being goals, and b. taking all reasonable steps (in exercising its functions) to meet those objectives.
This means that each public body listed in the Act must work to improve the economic, social, environmental and cultural well-being of Wales. To do this they must set and publish well-being objectives.
One of the named public bodies that must adhere to this Act is Natural Resources Wales. This is the principal adviser to Welsh Government, industry, and the wider public and voluntary sector, and is principal communicator about issues relating to the environment and its natural resources.
In 2018 the energy company EDF, with permission from the U.K. government, dumped 80,000 tonnes of mud in an underwater sandbank known as Cardiff Grounds, which is located approximately 1.8 miles from the Cardiff coastline. Plans for further dredging and disposal of mud, which is a by-product of the construction of the nuclear power plant at Hinkley Point C, located directly across the Bristol Channel from Cardiff, were met with fierce opposition from local environmental groups, due to the lack of information and consultation with the people most affected. In support of the opposition, documents were highlighted, relating to a leak containing plutonium at the Hinkley Point A site in the 1950s and it was confirmed, in government documents, that the site was included in the military plutonium programme during this period. Most of the mud being disposed at Cardiff Grounds will be taken from the former Hinkley Point A site.
In an interview with the BBC, independent marine pollution consultant Tim Deere-Jones, who specialises in marine radioactivity, claimed that the sampling of the mud to check for potentially harmful contaminants had been “inadequate.” He told BBC Wales that low-level waste from the nuclear plant had entered the water surrounding Hinkley Point over a period of more than 50 years and that there was a lack of knowledge about the potential harm of moving the mud:
Rather than being relatively stable at the Hinkley site it is being churned up and brought over here to be dumped. Radioactive and non-radioactive pollutants will inevitably enter inshore waters and coastal environments. Several studies have shown that wastes dumped into the sea transfer to the land in sea spray and episodes of coastal flooding. As a result Welsh coastal populations could be exposed to doses of marine radioactivity. (Deere-Jones, 2020.)
In March 2021, a report for the Welsh Government from the Hinkley Point C Stakeholder Reference Group stated that after further testing in 2020 the levels of radioactive micronuclides contained within the mud due to be dumped fell below the de minimis criteria used by CEFAS (Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science) and developed by the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency). Therefore, from a radiological perspective, the sediments that dredged in 2018 were ‘suitable’ for disposal at sea according to the London Convention & Protocol. At the time of writing there are currently three marine licence applications awaiting approval from Natural Resources Wales for the disposal of 800,000 more tonnes of mud from the Hinkley Point site.
In conversation with Tim Deere-Jones I learnt the following. Radionuclides adsorb (stick to) particles of fine sediment, like mud or sand, in the marine environment, and of course “there is more surface area in a cup of fine sediment, than in a cup of sand. ” When you interrogate what the government agencies are testing, the sand is much coarser than the sediment found along the South Wales coast and is inadequate. Funding constraints mean that testing is generally only for gamma emitters, which, whilst dangerous, are not nearly as harmful as alpha emitters. As most alpha emitters do not emit gamma, these tests also fall short of what is needed. “There is one of the alpha emitters that does also emit gamma, and that is americium. It is widely acknowledged in the nuclear research community that where you have americium you’ve almost certainly got plutonium.” Americium and caesium-137 were found at several points at several points up to 17 miles inland on the banks of a river near Hinkley Point.
In a study on the outer Hebridean island of Uist undertaken by a group of doctors, who initiated the study after they noticed an inordinate amount of stomach cancers on the island. The study looked at diets of crofters who were eating traditional local produce such as dairy, meat and locally-grown vegetables, and also at the diets of people who were eating shop-bought produce, brought in from the mainland. “The report showed unequivocally that the people who ate a local diet had a higher radioactivity count of caesium and americium.”The residents of the island who mainly ate seafood, such as fish, did not have as high marine radioactivity content as the people who ate the terrestrial produce, which was a surprise. Some of the people eating the terrestrial produce had higher doses of caesium even than people living close to sites of nuclear discharge. North Uist is 200km from Sellafield, an active nuclear power plant back to where these radionuclides can be traced.
The sea-to-land transfer of the radionuclides, which is thought to be the cause of the high radioactivity count on Uist, occurs when a wave breaks creating bubbles. The bubbles are driven down into the water and collect up sediment through adsorption. When they rise, those that come up to the top burst, and they eject microdroplets, which contain microparticles of sediment. This ejection is called the aerosol process. When that sediment has plutonium and the americium adhered to its surfaces and blows ashore, it has found to have travelled up to 10 kilometres inland, following a potentially far longer journey in the sea. The aerosol process has been found to increase the concentration of the radionuclides by up to five hundred times.
Sea-to-land transfer of micronuclides is almost certainly happening as a result of the 2018 disposal of mud at Cardiff Grounds, and will only increase if and when more Hinkley Point mud is disposed of there. There is currently no baseline data on the levels of radiation of the mud along the South Wales coastline. EDF, the U.K. government and Natural Resources Wales have never tested the levels of radiation along the South Wales coast, thus making it impossible to prove any increase in radiation levels following the dumpings. After our discussion, Tim Deere-Jones took his own samples at three locations affected by the disposal to understand the levels of radiation there. He is awaiting the results.
