Thread by @cianciaran

For what you're about to read, I am truly sorry.

That we're even in this situation is utterly ludicrous.
But the ramifications of inaction are unimaginable.

We *need* your support.

🧵THREAD 👇

The Severn Estuary is a designated Marine Protected Area, as it is a highly valuable wildlife area, designated for birds and marine life, and important for fish-rearing.

Thousands of people live around the upper Estuary and use its shores and waters for recreation.

🧵1/11

Yet 100,000 tonnes of mud from near Hinkley nuclear plants was dumped in the Severn Estuary at Cardiff Grounds in 2018.

This happened despite a massive petition, hearings and a Senedd debate.

🧵2/11

Welsh Ministers claimed it had passed all international requirements, but we established in Court it lacked an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA).

🧵3/11

The EIA was needed to establish what contaminants (nuclear?) are in the mud, and where they go when dispersed in the water.

They don’t disappear in the sea, but deposit on beaches, move onshore in spray and winds, or concentrate in the Estuary’s marine life.

🧵4/11

Fine particles also stay suspended in the water making it difficult for marine life.

The Welsh regulator, @NatResWales (NRW) completely misjudged the basic drift of deposited mud.

🧵 5/11

'Upstream towards the Wentloog and Newport mud banks' was NRW's dispersal prediction.

In fact, the dispersing mud drifted downstream to Barry Island and other popular beaches.

🧵6/11

500 000 tonnes of Hinkley mud are now to be dumped at Portishead.

This dumping was licensed by @The_MMO – the English Marine Management Organisation – on the basis of EDF’s skimped EIA that brushed over the key issues of *what* contaminants, and where they *go*.

🧵7/11

@The_MMO believes the strong tidal currents quickly spread dispersing mud throughout the upper Estuary.

But, while dumped at Portishead, it soon reaches the Newport and Chepstow mudflats, as well as the Avon, Usk, Wye and Rhymney estuaries.

🧵 8/11

☢️Because of permitted discharges and unpermitted leaks from the Hinkley A and B stations last century, the mud is *known* to be contaminated.

🧵9/11

Nuclear microparticles, which would have passed through cooling-pond filters, are undetected by nuclear spectrometry.

Such particles are seriously damaging (carcinogenic) if they get into marine life, birds and humans.

🧵10/11

Help us.

Help us prevent more dumping of radioactive and chemically-contaminated sediment.
Help us stop EDF with a judicial review.
Help us fund that legal action.

Please, donate what you can.

For your Severn. For your future.

11/11

crowdjustice.com/case/save-the-…

@threadreaderapp Unroll please