"Serious safety concerns at Britain's most hazardous nuclear facility - revealed by the people who were in charge." "This is a race against the clock, OK," "Some day that clock's going to run out" "We'll show how years of neglect have left parts of Sellafield" "It was just not up to standard." "It was, it was like a - it was a different world for me." "A nuclear site where there aren't always enough workers to meet" "It defies belief, actually, that anything could be working" "Where radioactive plutonium and uranium are stored" "This stuff should have been kept in a very, very safe place" "The organisation is now focusing on putting right some" "And where insiders fear a serious accident." "If there is a fire there, it could generate a plume of radiological waste that will go across Western Europe." "Britain's most hazardous nuclear site." "Almost all of our nuclear waste comes here - and stays here." "Some of the material will be dangerous for hundreds" "You'd expect day to day safety to be beyond reproach." "I arrived thinking it would be a level of excellence, a level of engineering competence far exceeding anything I'd seen" "But it became fairly evident that all those things" "This man helped run some of Sellafield's most" "Were you ever worried about what you saw?" "Ultimately, I think something will happen there." "There will be an emission or somebody will die." "We have also seen hundreds of documents - from 2012 to earlier this year - that show the reality of life" "In this programme, we will show you safety problem after safety" "Now, each is shocking in its own right - but taken together, they paint a frightening picture" "Sellafield is not a power station - it stores" "A lot of what happens here is very complicated." "But some of the problems we've found are pretty basic." "Many of the plants on this site need a minimum number of workers on shift" "But we've discovered that parts of Sellafield" "How dangerous is below minimum safety?" "If you have an incident, you would not be able" "So if something went wrong, you couldn't deal with it?" "So on those days, it's just luck that something didn't go wrong." "Now, minimum safe manning levels can apply to teams" "They are a long way below normal staffing levels." "If a plant has, say, 60 workers, the minimum might be just six." "Our leaked documents from 2012 and 2013 show minimum levels" "It defies belief, actually, that anything could be working" "I think that falls squarely with management, because how can that be allowed to happen?" "The leaked documents say "any deviation from the safe minimum" "Sellafield says the situation has improved." "But minimum safety levels are still being breached" "What happens, then, if you haven't got enough people?" "I mean, you make alternative arrangements so the things that have to be done get done, and facilities are shut down if in fact, we're not able to operate them in the way" "What do you think about the fact that it's" "Below minimum standards is dangerous, isn't it?" "Why is it listed as below minimum standards, then?" "and report on it, but the important thing to take other steps in order to maintain safe" "Our whistleblower was concerned about another very" "Sellafield has thousands of sensors and alarms." "He says when he was there, staff frequently reset alarms" "What are these alarms drawing attention to?" "fire door, fairly benign, right up to getting a leakage of effluent." "You kind of lose sense of which are important ones and which are the not so important ones." "And we've seen a report that shows alarms were being ignored at several of Sellafield's nuclear facilities." "Two plants had an "unacceptable rate of alarms" - more than a thousand" "Sellafield says the report was about software-based alarms, rather than the hard-wired alarms that are important for safety." "And the government body responsible for Sellafield says" "Our whistleblower says that because there are so many alarms, they are just reset almost immediately." "No, there is not a problem with alarms being ignored." "Because we keep a constant surveillance on what is happening or Sellafield carry out investigations, the regulator of alarms that people responded to is large." "Sorry to interrupt, but I think that was his point," "I think, that there's so many alarms?" "Those alarms are promptly responded to, is my point, though." "We've also discovered that liquid containing radioactive plutonium and uranium has been stored in thousands of plastic bottles" "The bottles were only designed for temporary storage" "Sellafield has been working for years to remove them." "But right now on the site, there are still more than 2,000 plastic bottles containing plutonium and uranium." "There was a period a number of years ago in one of the facilities where some waste materials were being stored" "We've been working to get that material into proper storage." "This stuff should have been kept in a very, very safe place because it was very dangerous, and it was placed in a plastic container, which was degrading," "What does that tell us about the way this place is run?" "It says that the organisation is now focusing on putting right some underinvestments to support the hazard and waste reduction mission that the site has," "Sellafield later told us that any plutonium and uranium samples are "kept securely" and that "to imply that such material is inappropriately managed is simply not true."" "Many of Sellafield's problems date back decades." "In 2008, the Government tried to sort them out." "It awarded the contract to run Sellafield to an American-led consortium, Nuclear Management Partners, or NMP." "Now, many of the problems we're showing were happening" "But for the first time, some of the Americans who managed" "They say they had no idea just how bad Sellafield" "Our site managers were saying" ""I've never seen anything like this, we've got to get it fixed"." "What sort of state was the infrastructure" "I can tell you that there are very hazardous materials there, as you know, and there were situations where the facilities or equipment were on the verge of breaking down." "The condition of the facilities and the equipment was below what they had understood it to be." "I would not have allowed it to continue." "Without sounding too dramatic, this is a race against the clock, OK, it's a ticking clock." "Some day, that clock's going to run out" "NMP says safety and performance at Sellafield improved" "But our whistleblower says parts of the infrastructure" "Each plant has got a number of complicated systems that electrical systems, ventilation systems," "The hard infrastructure, the pipework, the bridges - most of this was built '50s, '60s, '70s, and the maintenance wasn't really" "We've obtained a report written by NMP in 2013." "It used these pictures to show just how run down the site had become." "The report says "years of neglect" had led to "intolerable conditions"." "And minutes of a safety committee highlight failures in the supplies of water, electricity" "Now, Sellafield says things have improved." "But at a nuclear facility, these basics can't be allowed to fail." "What do you think of a place like Sellafield having poor electricity supply, poor steam supply?" "What we've been told is that it's dangerously run down, we've seen reports that talk of years of neglect, intolerable conditions, that doesn't sound safe, does it?" "Well, I don't accept the, the wording that's used." "Well, it's dangerously run down, I don't accept that." "Years of neglect, intolerable conditions?" "There are elements that are run down, there are elements that are classed as intolerable under the HSE's definition of intolerable, which means, and it's a not a natural language, tolerable, what it means is that you must spend money to improve it" "So, what are the risks if the infrastructure's faulty?" "Well, we've been able to piece together events from November 2013 when Sellafield's poor condition led to a serious incident." "An electricity substation has been badly wired," "Some of the site's nuclear facilities lose power." "Part of an emergency safety system also fails." "In one of the treatment plants, an evacuation begins." "The power cut means the ventilation system's stopped working - radioactive dust is spreading through parts of the building." "An internal report said it was believed to be" ""the worst level of contamination" in this plant's history." "But there is a second part to this story." "A week later, the American consortium's top managers appeared" "Sellafield's then Managing Director Tony Price was asked about the leak." "But he didn't tell MPs about how serious the situation was." "Mr Price, you talked earlier about the vitrification plant." "I understand that there are problems with it right now, in that the ventilation system is not working properly." "So that is working fine now and workers are able to work in it normally - there are no problems with ventilation" "To be clear, the workers were wearing special suits" "That's not the impression I got on committee..." "It was a whole year before things were fine." "Well, that's misleading Parliament, that's a very serious matter." "I'm just gob-smacked really that someone could come and tell me something that just was patently not the case." "Sellafield later wrote to the committee twice with" "But MPs weren't given the complete picture for another 15 months." "Do you understand why people might get nervous that very senior figures at Sellafield seem to be not entirely straight" "Well, if that were true, then of course I would understand that." "He said that things were back to normal." "It took a year for things to go back to normal and that's" "What had returned within a few days was the normal electrical supplies, the normal ventilation" "The production capability of that one line did not return back to committee now and I'm asking you, four days after the event," "Well that's completely hypothetical, I don't know what I would say." "Well, I think the answer's no, isn't it?" "It looks, doesn't it, like he wasn't being straight." "There's no way that gentleman was spinning the story." "NMP told us that at the time of the hearing, "Mr Price could not have possibly known the full extent of the problem"." "It said the safety and security of Sellafield have always been the "overriding priorities" and that over the past eight years the site" "Sellafield admits some areas of the site currently pose" "One of the worst is an old concrete storage pond." "Radioactive waste was dumped here for more than 50 years." "These are old, decrepit structures holding quite a large quantity of nuclear waste, and it's quite worrying to see that things haven't moved on quick enough to get that waste out and put it" "As this footage shows, the bottom of the pond" "The nuclear waste has corroded to form a radioactive sludge." "But internal documents say the pond has numerous cracks." "There were some hundreds of cracks, some of which were showing detectable leakage either by radiation measurement" "It doesn't mean that all of a sudden the pond was going to" "With continued neglect - nobody doing anything - we have, we repaired the major leak area already, but absent that, and continuing degradation, sooner or later there will be a big crack, a big leak and then" "It was not, it was not up to commercial" "And em...it was just not up to standard." "Experts say it is unlikely the pond will collapse, but it is possible and that could mean radiation spreading beyond Sellafield." "If the pond was to catastrophically collapse and the water was to drain" "If it burns, it means particles are dispersed into the atmosphere." "So you'd be in a situation where you'd be in the laps" "Would it go out to sea, would it go inland, would it deposit" "And it could be a significant radioactive plume, maybe stretching" "We've been told that there are hundreds of cracks." "Concrete structures have cracks in them and there are indeed hundreds in the walls of that building." "There are a small number, a small proportion, which are - do show signs of let's say seepage of liquor over the years and those are the ones that are monitored to establish that there is no issue." "It's been said to us by several people that one of the possibilities is, if that pond leaks, it would create a fire." "The material in there is pyrophoric, it would burst into flames, and that would create a very dangerous plume." "Is that something that you're concerned about?" "that particular scenario is very extreme." "All that is necessary to prevent that sort of fuel setting" "Another highly dangerous area of Sellafield is another" "This time the waste is stored in silos in a concrete building." "They're built by people hastily in the 1950s because they needed" "So, these are not the kind of facilities that were intended to hold waste for a long period of time." "The silos are now so degraded, Sellafield says they, too," "As this footage shows, they contain metal and other radioactive waste." "It's material that would burn on contact with air." "We've got a clean-up programme involving one of these facilities that's scheduled to take another 20 or 25 years." "We don't have a lot of confidence that building is going to hold up" "It doesn't mean we think it's going to fall down tomorrow," "The radioactive material shown in this Sellafield footage needs to be removed before the silos degrade too far." "But we have discovered that Sellafield spent nine years and more than £200 million on a plan that was shelved." "It included a robotic arm that was supposed to reach inside and retrieve the waste, but was never built." "A leaked report says poor leadership had allowed the project" "The vast majority of the money that's been spent on that project, the building of a superstructure, the means of cutting holes, the means of putting doors over the holes will still be used, the specific robotic arm won't be used because we've now got" "a better technology but that's completely different to saying that we've, - your phrase - wasted £200 million," "But 11 years after work started, Sellafield still hasn't removed any" "If things do go wrong, it's vital Sellafield can" "In 2012 a report by the nuclear regulator said it..." ""does not have the level of capability required to respond to the nuclear emergencies effectively"." "And a Sellafield report from 2013 says: "significant gaps exist in all major aspects of emergency management"." "Significant gaps exist in all major aspects of emergency planning - this is not a very attractive picture, is it?" "We've done a huge amount of work in recent years in order to ensure that the Fire and Rescue Service is in a position to continue to support" "We keep going through these different areas, sir, and you tell me that all's well, so either I'm wrong every time" "Safety is our priority and we are managing a very complex site, which has got a great deal of hazardous radioactive materials on it, so these are not simple straightforward decisions." "The last two and a half years have seen significant" "We have put particular pressure on Sellafield to make" "Those improvements are now by and large realised and we're happy with the standards that the site's achieving." "But some parts of Sellafield are kept open, even when everyone" "Take Magnox, one of the main reprocessing plants on the site." "In 2014 it marked its 50th anniversary." "This is a facility that has run safely for 50 years." "And it's run safely in one of the heaviest, most regulated" "But a report from the nuclear regulator says a few months earlier there'd been an incident that could potentially have" "And then there was another incident that "could have resulted in a criticality" - a nuclear reaction " "But these warnings from the regulator are dismissed by the Government official in charge of Sellafield." "It says in the reports that these were potentially fatal incidents." "That's someone's view, I don't accept that view." "So, you don't accept reports, so what's the point of having a report if you don't - it's investigated, it says it's a potentially fatal incident and you just dismiss that?" "No, I'm not dismissing it, what I'm saying..." "No, I didn't, what I said is I disagree with an element of this particularly emotive statement about near fatal." "I absolutely accept that there are elements in that which were not as we wished it to be, actions have been taken to make sure as to what was the right thing to do in the best overall interests" "Over the following year, there were two more serious safety" "The regulator published this extraordinary report." "It says it would normally consider closure because of" "But then it also says that would lead to a dangerous pile" "So, despite all the safety problems and even though "further breaches are likely", Magnox is allowed" "If the plant wasn't safe, we wouldn't have operating, but what we did was we made a balanced decision, looking at the strengths and weaknesses that the plant has." "And we felt that allowing a continued operation under close supervision was the right course of action." "Magnox is like much of the Sellafield site - there are risks to keeping it open, but it's too important to close." "But if Sellafield can't be closed down no matter how" "Where does it leave the general public?" "Sellafield's main job - reprocessing - is due to finish within four years, but the clean-up may take 100 years." "We've now been told it could cost as much as £162 billion." "It's unimaginable for most taxpayers, this amount of money." "It's enormous and they've got to just be really much more transparent about how they're working out the costs." "How much is this going to cost the nation," "There are financial projections, over the planned period which goes" "The American consortium had been criticised over rising costs." "Its contract to run Sellafield was terminated in April." "The Government says it wanted direct control." "So, there are 10,000 people who work at Sellafield, they all live in the local community, I live two miles from the site," "I mean there's no way that anybody like me or others would choose to live on the doorstep of something if we thought we were putting ourselves and our communities at risk, no way at all." "So, absolutely the site remains safe, today, and it will remain safe tomorrow, and it will remain" "But our whistle-blower worries that safety is an ongoing and real risk." "What's the thing that most worries you about Sellafield?" "It is the fire in one of the silos or one of the processing plants." "If there is a fire there, it could generate a plume of radiological waste that will go across Western Europe." "This is the world's most complex nuclear facility." "But we have found poor management, run-down infrastructure" "Sellafield - the nuclear site that struggles with the basics." "I told you, I don't need any help." "And I told you, you've got it."