Published: Wednesday, 23rd September, 2009 1:12pm

Beware the nuclear shower

by From the Editors chair

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A few days away from the office and all hell breaks loose. Typical.

No, I don't mean the rest of the staff finished the coffee supplies and forgot to fill the void. Well, actually I do. Can you imagine it? First day back at the sweatshop and there is no caffeine injection at hand. I felt like a cold turkey, or something like that.

What I really mean was the doomsday scenario. The nuclear holocaust at Hunterston which would envelope us in atomic abomination. We're doomed, screamed the local politicians.

Oh no! Some Hunterston insider has flushed the shower water down the plughole and it's seeped into the ocean.

Speaking of seeping, the body called SEPA (the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency) did send a warning letter to British Energy, the operators of Hunterston B to say that if they allowed the dirty water to seep again they would be dragged into the court.

One of the first emails I opened on my return was from SNP MSP Kenneth Gibson suggesting that it would be the story of the week. Well, it was only because we had gone big on the Wee Cumbrae 'Peace Island' revelations the week before.

However, Kenneth whose party is anti-nuclear said such things as we should be worried because of "so many incidents" at Hunterston. Unless he is counting fire alarms I don't think that criticism stacks up.

Local Labour MP Katy Clark who is also anti-nuclear said people only found out about it from the media and that British Energy should work more closely with SEPA in future. In fact, it was British Energy who alerted SEPA.

MSP Ross Finnie of the anti-nuclear Lib-Dems reacted by going on about coal-fired power stations not being the answer.

The trade unions have come out and stated that anyone attending the public meetings held by British Energy - there was one in Largs this month - would have heard about the discharges.

In reality what we are talking about is the water from the showers used by the employees! Not only was it revealed as low level you would be more likely to receive more radiation from changing a light bulb.

Having read the SEPA warning letter it actually states that the incident was not reported to the fiscal because it was not "major, persistent or deliberate" and that there had been no similar contraventions in recent years.

Under the strict rules SEPA had to do what they did but reading between the lines of hysteria it was literally a raindrop in a pond.

Thank goodness that Hunterston will continue to pump hundreds of millions of pounds into the local economy until the year 2016 and, barring real disaster, up to 2020.