The Sizewell A nuclear power station in Suffolk hasn’t produced electricity since December 2006. Since then the plant has been going through a lengthy decommissioning period. However, it has come to light this week that in January of 2007, the Sizewell A plant had leaked around 40,000 gallons of radioactive water from its cooling ponds.
The cooling pond’s water level had dropped by over a foot, and it wasn’t until someone involved in decommissioning the nuclear power station saw leaking water in the laundry room that the problem was recognised. A new alarm system was in place at the time to check the level of the cooling ponds, but it hadn’t been tested and didn’t go off. Even if it had gone off, staff based at the nuclear power plant had been ignoring alarms from another incident for the last two days and possibly wouldn’t have taken any notice anyway.
