The Environment Agency at the Cross-roads

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The Environment Agency at the Cross-roads

South-eastern Europe News:
UN Official Questions Bosnia's Handover of Six Algerians to US
New Bulgarian President: EU, NATO Membership Top Priority

Discontent as Former IMF Chief Named to UN Conference

By our Nuclear Correspondent

The so-called Precautionary Principle agreed at Rio in 1992 and built into two EU Treaties seems to require governments at least to make polluters slow down if faced with scientific uncertainty. European radiation protection law seems to require somebody (the who is not specified!) to review regulations if new and important evidence comes to light. Scientific uncertainty certainly exists; and new and vital evidence there surely is, but the world' s radiation protection agencies are so locked into a long-established scientific culture that they are almost incapable of change.

In discussions at a scientific conference in Oslo in October last year, it was confirmed what people have known for quite a while – that getting the scientific community to consider all the evidence is a matter of politics.

This is a very important time for action because of the gradual radio-activisation of the world. It is important that action is taken on at least some of the points in the briefing "The Environment Agency at the Cross-roads" by the Low Level Radiation Campaign (LLRC), which is reproduced below. The present Consultation on regulation of waste from Sellafield is especially important, and although the official closing date has passed (December 3, 2001), the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA) have asked for contributions to be made by March 12. The Agency will not publish a decision for many months.

The Environment Agency at the Cross-roads

A briefing (November 2001) on

• The Environment Agency’s proposed Decision on disposal of radioactive waste from MAGNOX power stations

• The Government’s decision on the Sellafield MOX plant

• Consultation on the future of radioactive waste disposal from BNFL Sellafield.

In making policy on radioactive waste disposal the UK Government relies on the Environment Agency to weigh all the issues and then to recommend a decision to the Government. This involves the Agency in considering complex arguments about radiation protection, epidemiology, and radiobiology. Unfortunately the Agency has no relevant scientific expertise of its own and relies on advice from the National Radiological Protection Board (NRPB).

The Agency has a legal duty to make sure that it uses "sound" science when making decisions, so it is even more unfortunate that NRPB's view of radiation risk was formulated even before the structure of DNA was discovered. NRPB's model may be reasonably accurate for high doses and for external radiation, but where it concerns internal radiation from radioactive pollution that we inhale or ingest it is complete rubbish.

The role of the Low Level Radiation Campaign

Last year LLRC told the Environment Agency in detail about the flaws in NRPB’s advice. In particular we pointed out that the sharp increase in infant leukaemia in five countries immediately after the Chernobyl accident provides incontrovertible evidence that NRPB’s risk factors are wrong – they underestimate the hazard by a factor of at least 100.⁽¹⁾ We asked to meet the staff who have to implement the Agency’s duty to make sure they use "sound science" and we explained why our information was relevant to all the many sources of man-made radioactivity in the environment.

The Agency’s one-sided response

It took the EA nine months to answer us. Robert Smith, its Policy Adviser on Radioactive Substances Regulation, says the EA is

satisfied that ... NRPB’s current advice on radiological risk factors ... provide (sic) the best current advice.

The EA is reducing the industry’s "headroom" – i.e. the amount of emissions they are now authorised for but which they don’t actually need to use – but this is a window-dressing exercise to mask the fact that their recommendation is "business as usual" for the nuclear industry.

About a quarter of the Agency’s draft Decision Document on discharges from Magnox stations (published at the end of August) is taken up with answering the many arguments submitted by LLRC and others.

The Document shows that

• The EA sent all the criticisms of NRPB’s model to – guess who – NRPB, who (prisoner, judge and jury in their own court) found themselves "not guilty".

• The EA allowed NRPB space to attack Chris Busby’s Second Event theory (which explains why chronic doses from some forms of internal radiation have a disproportionately high probability of causing genetic damage) but they did not give Busby a chance to reply to NRPB’s obvious omissions.

• The EA printed (twice) a paper in which Colin Muirhead, NRPB’s head of epidemiology, attempted to refute a paper ⁽¹⁾ which quantifies the error in NRPB’s risk factors, but did not print LLRC’s demolition of Muirhead's arguments. A very significant point is Muirhead's claim that the increased number of babies who had leukaemia after the Chernobyl disaster doesn't present a problem for NRPB's risk factors. This, he argues, is because some of the babies might have had bigger doses than the rest of the population. This is crucial; the risk factors depend on the idea that dose variations would make no difference, high doses and high risks being balanced out by lower risks from lower doses. Muirhead's argument admits the invalidity of NRPB’s approach of averaging out risks from population exposures, but the Environment Agency's Decision Document does not even mention our submissions on this point.

• The EA reproduced in full a paper from the Small Area Health Statistics Unit which uses questionable figures for cancer mortality in an attempt to refute findings of raised cancer rates near the polluted Blackwater estuary in Essex, but did not print the original study, which used figures which are probably reliable since they came from the Office of National Statistics. This one-sided approach characterises the whole draft Decision Document.

Consultative Exercise on Radiation Risk from Internal Emitters

The UK Departments of Health and of the Environment have set up a new Working Group to investigate the health effects of internal radiation. This is the Consultative Exercise on Radiation Risk from Internal Emitters (CERRIE; see note at end of briefing). It means that NRPB's risk factors are in effect under review. Announcing the Working Group in July, Environment Minister Michael Meacher said:

There are significant differences of view among experts about the precise impacts of the internal ingestion of radionuclides and these need to be resolved. This new Working Group will reach across all parties in the debate on risks of radiation, to assess the impact and reach a consensus on whether the current risk models continue to be valid.

LLRC has two representatives on CERRIE. The Group’s workload will include the post-Chernobyl infant leukaemia effect, biological mechanisms including Second Event effects, and new research on human minisatellite mutations in Chernobyl liquidators’ children ⁽²⁾ which shows a 2000-fold error in NRPB’s estimation of risk.

Risk model melt-down

The Environment Agency accepts that there is ongoing research on various aspects of low level radiation and health. Robert Smith says the Agency will remain alert to developments in this area and, if appropriate, will review relevant authorisations ... accordingly. Relevant topics mentioned by the Agency are:-

• leukaemia studies current in UK (though the Agency does not say that the Medical Research Council is investigating one of the studies, following a complaint to the General Medical Council),

• the newly discovered childhood leukaemia cluster in Chepstow,

• NRPB's admission that evidence on radiation-induced diseases other than cancer is only just beginning to emerge.

Other developments

• A unanimous resolution of the European Parliament in May this year ⁽³⁾ says ... based on new scientific evidence suggesting doubts about aspects of the radiation risk model, particularly as concerns the effects of the Chernobyl fall-out, [the Parliament] requests the Commission to arrange an epidemiological study of the effects of Chernobyl through wider Europe as a whole; also calls on the IAEA and UNSCEAR, as well as ICRP [International Commission on Radiological Protection] and Euratom, to re-examine the risk model.

• The Precautionary Principle ⁽⁴⁾ requires governmental action if there is significant scientific uncertainty about the effects of pollution. The Consultative Exercise on Radiation Risk from Internal Emitters may mean that the UK is the only state in the EU complying with the Principle.

• The European radiation protection Directive ⁽⁵⁾ set in stone the "Justifications" of all the existing types of process which expose us to radioactivity BUT Article 6(2) allows the Justifications to be revised if new and important evidence about their .... consequences is received. There certainly is "new and important evidence", so there should be a complete recalculation of the "cost" side of the Justification equations.

• Although Margaret Beckett and Alan Milburn, acting for the UK Government, have claimed that MOX is justified they explicitly accept ⁽⁶⁾ that if new information about the effects of fuel reprocessing becomes available the Justification will have to be reviewed.

Two Big Questions:-

1. How can the Government make new decisions about exposing us to radioactive pollution when they obviously know that there are serious problems with the risk estimates? The many uncertainties have to be resolved before they can proceed with MOX, decommissioning old Magnox stations, recycling contaminated waste, delicensing contaminated land, or tolerating a new generation of nuclear power stations. And so on through Trident, Depleted Uranium weapons, nuclear medicine, incinerating radioactive hospital waste, and all the other sources of radioactive junk in the environment.

2. When will the European Commission act on the European Parliament's call ⁽³⁾ for the risk models to be re- examined?

This is a political issue ...

It is clear to us that the radiation risk agencies and the regulators will continue with business as usual unless and until they are forced to take account of new scientific information. Science alone is not the driver for change. Political pressure is vital.

... and then there's the law.

• One UK campaign group has already initiated the process leading to a Judicial Review if the Government makes a premature decision on Magnox emissions.

• In the Irish High Court the prosecution of BNFL grinds on.

• We will, once more, plug all the available evidence into the current consultation on the regulation of waste from Sellafield [Consultation closes on 3rd December 2001]. We will seek a Judicial Review if the Agency fails to consider any of it fully.

The Consultative Exercise on Radiation Risk from Internal Emitters (CERRIE)

CERRIE is jointly funded by the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Department of Health. It is administered by the Committee on Medical Aspects of Radiation in the Environment (COMARE) and intends to report in 2003.

The members are:-

Professor Dudley Goodhead (Chair),
Professor Eric Wright,
Dr. Colin Muirhead (NRPB),
Dr. Richard Wakeford (BNFL),
Pete Roche (Greenpeace)
Dr Roger Cox (NRPB),
Dr. John Harrison (NRPB),
Professor Jack Simmons,
Dr Chris Busby (Green Audit and LLRC)
Richard Bramhall (LLRC),
Dr Phil Day (FoE and University of Manchester School of Chemistry).
Dr Barrie Lambert (Barts Medical School) was announced as a member but resigned before the first meeting.

Note – the Article 31 Group

The latest opinion of the European Commission’s advisers on radiation protection – the "Article 31 Group of Experts"- has just been published. It is the Proceedings of a Seminar ⁽⁷⁾ held last year, so it predates the Parliament’s resolution. The Seminar was a partial (and very self congratulatory) review of the epidemiological literature on radiation risk. It included no reviews of the post-Chernobyl infant leukaemia ⁽¹⁾ nor of the then available work on minisatellite mutations ⁽⁸⁾. There have been many criticisms of the way the epidemiology has been interpreted, but the critics were not invited to the Seminar.

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References

1 Busby, C. Scott Cato, M. 2000 Increases in Leukaemia in Infants in Wales and Scotland Following Chernobyl: Evidence for Errors in Statutory Risk Estimates. Energy and Environment Vol. 11 2000, No. 2 127-139

2 Weinberg H. Sh, Korol A.B, Kiezhner V.M, Avavivi A, Fahima T, Eviatar Nevo, Shapiro S, Rennert G, Piatak O, Stepanova E.I, and Skarskaja E (2001), Very high mutation rate in offspring of Chernobyl accident liquidators Proc Roy. Soc. London D, 266: 1001-1005

3 May 3rd 2001. 11. Chernobyl B5-0321, 0322, 0323, 0324 and 0325/2001European Parliament resolution on the problem of nuclear safety fifteen years after the Chernobyl accident, and its health consequences. Minutes of 03/05/2001 – Provisional Edition

4 The Precautionary Principle is part of Agenda 21 adopted at UNCED in Rio 1992. It is inscribed in the EU's Maastricht Treaty 1992 and Amsterdam Treaty 1997.

5 Council Directive 96/29/EURATOM – the Basic Safety Standards Directive

6 Decision of the Secretaries of State on Justification for the Manufacture of MOX Fuel, DEFRA and DH, October 2001 para. 75

7 Radiation protection 25. Low dose ionising radiation and cancer risk. Proceedings of a scientific seminar held in Luxembourg on 9 November 2000 Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, 2001. Downloadable from http://www.europa.eu.int/comm/environment/radprot/125/rp-125-en.pdf

8 e.g. Dubrova, Y. E. Nesterov, V. N. Jeffreys, A. J. 1997 Further evidence for elevated human minisatellite mutation rate in Belarus eight years after the Chernobyl accident. Mutation Research 381 pp 267 – 278 (1997)

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What's wrong with the International Commission on Radiological Protection

ICRP's scientific model has the fundamental flaw of treating internal radiation as if it affected us in the same way as external exposure. This is because it is an averaging model. For external radiation averaging doses across tissues is valid since the radiation tracks are spread randomly through our bodies, but ICRP goes on to assume that radiation inside the body – from, for example, an inhaled particle of plutonium – is also spread randomly. This is simply wrong – the tracks from the decay of plutonium can only travel through a few cells. The dose to the cells within range is large, the dose to the rest of the body is zero. Radiation risks at both high and low dose, and from both internal and external exposure, are estimated from studies of disease in the survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs. The people who have been designated as the "exposed" group were in the open when the bomb dropped, so their exposure was a single large acute dose of externally delivered gamma rays. The "control" group (providing the base line of "expected" disease rates) is made up of people who were elsewhere at the time of the blast or were shielded. But both groups lived in the bombed cities, and were therefore exposed to ingesting, inhaling and absorbing fallout. For this reason the studies are silent on internal radiation and the very different types of exposure involved – chronic low dose rate internal alpha and beta emitters. Other studies which are supposed to inform on risk are mostly of external x-rays. A couple of small studies of internal radiation are included, but these are of natural isotopes, not the man-made pollutants the nuclear industry is now spreading around the globe. Crucially they do not include exposure to radioactive particles which are now common in the environment. Many papers in the scientific literature show increased disease in populations exposed to radioactive fallout from weapons tests and Chernobyl, and in nuclear industry workers and their children. All this evidence strongly suggests that internal contamination is between 100 and 2000 times more dangerous than ICRP's risk factors assume. Detailed information can be seen on the LLRC website, www.llrc.org.

A senior UN official said on Tuesday, January 22, that Bosnian authorities circumvented the law in handing over to the United States on January 18 six Algerian men suspected of terrorist activities.

Madeleine Rees, representative of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights for Bosnia, said there was no legal basis for the action. The US embassy in Sarajevo defended the move, saying that Bosnia had decided to deport the men, five of whom had been stripped of their citizenship in November, and the United States had agreed to accept them. The suspects were arrested in October for plotting to attack US facilities in Bosnia and Herzegovina. American intelligence reportedly intercepted phone calls one of them had made to a senior member of Osama bin Laden's network.

Bosnia’s Supreme Court last week ordered the men released due to insufficient evidence. Despite instructions by Bosnia's Human Rights Chamber that authorities prevent four of the suspects from being taken out of the country by force, all six were seized and taken into US custody.

Srdjan Dizdarevic, head of the Bosnian branch of the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights, said: "This is one of the worst breaches of human rights I've seen in my career. There was no basis for such a move." UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, without mentioning any specific cases, warned on January 18 that governments must not violate human rights in their "war on terrorism". He told the UN Security Council, "In the long term, we shall find that human rights, along with democracy and social justice, are one of the best prophylactics against terrorism."

According to reports, the six Algerian men will be transferred to the US Naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where 158 captives from Afghanistan are already being detained.

The new President of Bulgaria took office on Tuesday, January 22. In his inauguration speech on Saturday, Georgi Parvanov listed EU and NATO membership as the key priorities of his term and pledged his commitment to ensuring security during the process of change, and continuity in the pursuit of the country's political objectives and goals.

Other priorities include enhancing regional stability and co-operation, improving Bulgaria's relations with Russia, Ukraine and other former Soviet republics, and working with international organisations.

Parvanov said his efforts would focus on strengthening national security. He promised to work for the protection of Bulgarian citizens throughout the world. He vowed to follow a pragmatic, balanced and multidirectional policy without losing sight of the national strategic goals of NATO and EU memberships. Later, he intends to propose amendments to the constitution to provide for the alignment of national legislation with that of the EU.

During the campaign Parvanov said he would be a social president, which analysts believe contributed to his victory. He asserted that fighting poverty and unemployment would be a top domestic policy priority. "Poverty does not generate democracy," Parvanov said. He also promised to join the government's efforts to combat crime and corruption. As president, he vowed to contribute to an environment that would invite foreign investment and stimulate growth.

Greek Prime Minister Costas Simitis, who attended the inauguration, stressed that Greece would strongly support Bulgaria's candidacy for NATO and EU membership.

Swedish Ambassador to Bulgaria Sten Ask noted that Parvanov's first official visit would be to Brussels, a reflection, he said, of the new president's strong will to achieve his ambition – to see Bulgaria a member of NATO and the EU – before his mandate ends in 2007.

The appointment of former International Monetary Fund (IMF) chief Michel Camdessus to oversee the UN’s "Financing for Development" initiative has drawn criticism.

"Camdessus is an unrepentant free marketeer," said Arjun Karki, who represents Asian non-governmental organisations (NGOs) at the ongoing preparatory meeting for the International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD). "All over the world, more and more people have actually turned poor due to policies dictated by the IMF and World Bank. How could the Secretary-General appoint a person who as IMF chief has been responsible for the current mess, including the one now in Argentina?"

"But neither are we questioning Camdessus' expertise," Arjun Karki said. "But that expertise doesn't mean anything to me if it can't be used for the betterment of a poor country like mine." Nepal, he added, spends almost 40 percent of its earnings on debt servicing.

Alongside Michel Camdessus, South African Finance Minister Trevor Manuel has been chosen to oversee the FfD process, which encompasses a number of key issues including debt relief and aid levels. Fred Eckhard, the chief spokesman for UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, defended the appointment of Michel Camdessus, saying his stature and expertise were unquestionable.

"While the number of countries failing is going up, institutions like the IMF continue their same old macroeconomic policies," Gemma Adaba, UN representative of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, said. "Unless there's a paradigm shift, we will be in a bind. But I don't see that happening any time soon."

She said that people like Camdessus like to talk about poverty alleviation and increased spending on education and health, yet they continue to demand strict adherence to conditions that clearly are at odds with these stated goals. "He is not a fortunate choice for developing countries. His appointment doesn't send a signal to developing countries (from the UN), that 'we have come to a moment where we want to change'."

Michel Camdessus was supported in his bid to head the IMF by some developing countries, because of his role in debt reschedulings. In the last year or so of his tenure at the agency, he took to publicly reminding the rich nations of their unfulfilled promises to increase aid to poor ones and urged them to open their markets to exports from poor countries. Not doing so, he argued, was tantamount to "giving with one hand but taking away with the other".

"People have the right to change,'' said Sonia Correa of Ibase, a human rights group from Brazil. ''Personally, I would rather have someone like Joseph Stiglitz", who is the former World Bank chief economist who in the late 1990s criticised the IMF and last year received the Nobel Prize for economics.

Preparatory talks for the FfD conference began at the United Nations last Monday and are due to conclude on Friday. The conference is scheduled for March in Monterrey, Mexico.