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Tritium, a radio-active form of hydrogen, occurs in nature formed by the action of cosmic rays on the earths atmosphere.

All nuclear reactours produce tritium in there fuel elements as a by-product of the fission of uranium and plutonium.

AGRs, Advanced Gas Reactors diffuse tririum through the stainless steel clading , consequently tritium formed in AGRs is Realeased on the site.

PWRs, (Pressurised water reactors) do not diffuse tritium redily through the magnox and zircalloy fuel cladding of magnox pressurised water reactours.

PWRs and Magnox do not release tritium, nutil reprossest.

Larger amounts of Tritium are there for released from AGRs than other types of reactors in Britton.

Discharges from tritium from Nuclear Plants occur in mainly two forms, Gas, (HT) and tritilated water (HTO)

The elemental form of (HT), tritium is invisible, odouless and pervasive. It permitrates most materials including ruber and most grades of steel relativerly easily.

Tritilated Water is more hazardous than tritilated gas, because it is chemicaly identicle to water, it diffuses rapidly throughout the hydroshere and biosphere.

People living down wind from large nuclear facilities can thus be expected to be tritilated to HTO leval

HT0 is considerd 25,000 times more Hazardous due to the mobility and uptake in the air than HT acording to the Int. Com. on Radiological Protection, (ICRP).

Tritium has a low energy making tritiums beta radiation dificult to detect and virtully imposible to detect with most hand held portable instruments, thermo luminescent dose-metres, film badges and other personle dose metres.

Detecting, seperating and mesuring tritium in organicaly bound tritium in food and other organic bodies is even more difficult and requires technical specialist lab technitions.

Tritium has an undisided, un-estimated Q factor, due to the ingestion and uptake of Organically bound tritium.

Tirtiums Weakness is a danger in its self, since its low energy and short track may result in considrable damage to DNA Macromolecule, the critical site of radiation.

Tritium Emissionsin 1990 from Dungenes B AGR was recorded as, in 1990……..

3.2-5 TBq/a Tritilated WaterVapour admissio to atmospher.

7.3-6 TBq/a Tritilated water discharged to the sea.

The International Comision for Radiological Protection (ICRP), in calculating consentrations of tritium in the bodey due to the tritium that will bind with the bodys organic molecules and it ignores the ingestion of tritium in food.

Acording to the International Council for the Expotation of the seas, the enviromental conditions at the time of release and a few months after. Wind varibles, currents and river inputs make estimates of resident time extremely dificult, due to these inputs, spread over a particular time.

Brittish Nuclear Fuels, (BNF), have emited that it is unkown how radioactivity is likly to dispence after a radio active leak, into the Irish Sea from Sellafield pielines in 1983.

After this incident, the Irish Sea Project, an indipendent research group conducted a number of studys showing how radio-activity might be concentrate and remain in coherent masses over a period of months and these coherent masses could be traped in certan types of costal location for even longer periods.

The MAFFs Aqatic Enviromental Monitoring Report purports to be a definitive list of the discharge of Liquid Radioactive Waste from UK nuclear establishments. This data is far from compleate. It is unfortunatly inevitable that sites as complex as nuclear establishments will suffer from accidental leaks, ie the 1983 pipeline leak at Sellafield had gone unoticed for a considrable time and was only discoverd due to Green Peace Protesters working off the end of the pipeline. BNF repesentatives are unable to deny there has been similar incidents in the past.

Beach surveys that have been tacken place since 1983, show that contamination on the Cumbrian Coast occured in years other than 1983.

(The Department of Fisheries and Food, monitord the beach contaminated following the incident at BNLF Sellafield Cumbria in November 1983. Ressults July 1984, HMSO, London 1985)

MAFFs aquatic env. monitoring report also dose not acount for the solid radio-active waste in the Irish Sea. The BNF discharges contaminated work gloves, bits of highly radioactive bitumen, (probaly from the lining of the pipeline itself) and particles of radio-active stainless steel from Nuclear fuel pins and reactor cores. Such items are not included in the computations for liquid radio active waste. There is no official record of these wastes, subject to the moratorium of dumping solid waste into the marine enviroment

In Febury1979, a serious leak was discoverd at the Central Electricity Generating Board, (CEGB), instalation at Hinkley point, sommerset. This was escaping via a site drain which was only checked every six months. GECB Hinkey guesed that the leak might have started on the 8th or perhaps the 17th of January. It was not until June that the levals of Radiatioactivity escaping were reduced to close background levals. The leak may have released aproximatly 185 million bercquerels of maily Caseium-137 onto the beach No action was taken to clear up the contamination because it was felt that the washing action of the Sa was sufficient to reduce the radioactivity.

Incidents of this nature occur every year at Brittish Nuclear establishments and because of bad site desighn, lax attitudes and failer to monitor on site and pipeline monitoring, it is almost imposible to obtain infomation on the duration and the radioactivity content of these leaks.

Another unquantified input of man made radioactivity into the Sea’s around the UK, is the Chernobyl plume, which is thought to have deposited some 20,250 curies of radiation into the Irish Sea alone in 1986. This was responsible for 100 fold increase in radiation in Irish shellfish in only a few days.

Logic assumes that the regular gaseous discharges from UK Nuclear Power stations are contaminating the Seas.

Unfortunatly the authorities do not monitor such sources and have no intetion of monitoring such sources and quantifying there importance just as no atempt has been made to quantify the importance of the Chernobyl derived radioactivity entering coastal waters as a result of the run off from the contaminated Highlands of Scotland, Ulster, North West England and North Wales in the years sinc 1986.

Other contributional factors of man made marine radioactivity are the radioactive cargos lost at Sea, as well as nuclear powerd Warships which routinely discharge at least six nuclides in significant quantities. There are also no Nuclear sites which produce radioactive waste by products which are flushed into the sea.

Plutonium 241 emits beta rays. It was originally thought to be unimportant in terms of human radiobiology and was consequently discharged into the sea in unlimited and unquantified amounts. Its guestimated that up to the end of 1982, some 5550,000 curies of this substance had ben discharged from the sellafield pipelines allone.

It is now excepted that Plutonium 241 is a risck to human health in its own wright.

More seriosly, Plutonium 241 decays to produce Americum 241 that emitts blth beta and alpha rays.

Amercium is considerd 2.5 times more hazardous than the most dangouras of the Plutoniums.

Amercium accumalates in marine sediments and silts and in living organisams. it is particularly prone to being incorperated into Sea spray and so transfers back to land.

Amercium is discharged from all nuclear power stations in very small quantities.

Because of the late discovery that amercium 241 apears in the marine enviroment as a result of plutonium 241 decay, limits nowbeen impossed upon discharge of both plutonium 241 and amerciun241.

Due to these cut Amercium levals in the Irish Sea, including those of decaying plutonium-241, was aproximatly 45.5 curies.

In comparison it is estimated amercium production in the Irish Sea silts resulting from the decay of historically discharged plutonium 241decay will peak to 1300 curies a year into the Irish Sea towards the end of the 21st Century.