Environmental & Discharge Monitoring
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AWE is authorised by the Environment Agency to make low level discharges of some radioactive material from its Aldermaston and Burghfield sites.
These discharges are closely controlled and can take place only through designated water discharge systems or gas discharge outlets. The amounts of radioactivity which can be released are also strictly controlled in terms of quarterly and annual discharge limits that appear in the Environment Agency site authorisations.
A thorough review of the Radioactive Substances Act discharge authorisations for the AWE sites was carried out by the Environment Agency in 2005/2006, and new authorisations for the site were issued at the beginning of 2007. Copies of the information submitted by AWE in support of its proposals can be found in Regulatory Permissions in our Publications section together with unclassified copies of the current Authorisations.
The Environment Agency conducted a public consultation on these proposals in 2006, and set out its conclusions and the revised authorisations in its Decision Document. The Agency’s consultation and Decision Document can both be viewed on the Environment Agency’s website. Between them, these documents fully describe the factors that influenced the regulator, the Environment Agency, as it drew up the current authorisations for the Aldermaston and Burghfield sites.
In our Discharges & Monitoring Information, we provide details of the water and atmospheric discharges from Aldermaston & Burghfield. We also publish the results of the environmental monitoring we carry out both inside and outside the Aldermaston and Burghfield sites at locations we have agreed with the Environment Agency.
The purpose of this environmental monitoring is to show that there is no build up of radioactive material in the locality of the Aldermaston & Burghfield sites, and that the very low levels that are measured do not represent any significant risk to the public or the environment. Over 3,000 samples are collected each year from 150 locations, and we carry out more than 7,000 measurements on these samples.