DAVID ROSS, Highland Correspondent August 08 2005

THE likelihood of a terror attack on stockpiles of nuclear waste is being ignored by the government's advisory body despite the London bombings and the 9/11 atrocity, two senior scientists warn today.
One has resigned in protest from the Committee on Radioactive Waste Management, accusing it of endangering public safety around storage facilities such as Dounreay or Faslane by ignoring scientific expertise.
Professor David Ball, professor of risk management at Middlesex University, and John Large, a leading independent nuclear consultant, say the committee has been turning a blind eye to the threat, and that the only research commissioned is naive and "DIY-like".
The professor, who quit in June, said: "If a plane was crashed into some nuclear storage site, vast eras of land could become uninhabitable. Yet we were not supposed to think about that when we were considering the options of above or below ground storage/disposal."
In April Dr Keith Baverstock, former head of radiation protection at the World Health Organisation and the committee's only health expert, was sacked after he attacked it as dysfunctional and amateurish.
The latest critical comments emerge on the day the first man accused of the failed July 21 attacks in London is to appear in court.
Next year, the committee will advise the government what to do with the waste from decades of military and nuclear power activities. This consists of around 2000 cubic metres of high-level radioactive waste and 75,000 at intermediate-level. It is stored at nuclear facilities around the UK, such as Dounreay. Professor Ball said: "I personally put it to the chairman on at least three occasions that terrorism was an issue, that had to be considered in selecting options and three times he said it is not our job.
"When the committee had its first meeting, two years had already elapsed since 9/11, time enough to learn the full importance of the terrorist threat.
"The July 7 attack should sound a wake-up call to those responsible for deciding what to do with Britain's nuclear waste. But they have been playing around with it in a very amateurish fashion and all the time the British public are exposed to the higher risk."
Mr Large said he had done a lot of work on terrorism and understood the professor's concerns. Of the committee's specification for research on terror, he said: "They were allowing five days. That's barely enough time to even do a proper Google internet search."
He said it was "was very naive and clumsy . . . a bit like a poorly rendered DIY job." He added that he was asked to look at "ludicrous propositions" like disposing of the waste in outer space or in the ice-cap "rather than taking the golden opportunity to do some fundamental work on how we build the threat of terrorism into the safety case for the nuclear industry".
David Alston, chairman of Highland Council's community planning committee, said: "The potential threat from terrorism makes an interim and secure solution much more urgent."
Gordon MacKerron, the committee chairman, said protecting the waste had been a key issue since 2003 and security had been widely discussed, including with councils and at public meetings in Faslane and Dounreay.
"A panel of expert scientists and regulators have now been specifically charged with as-sessing . . . protection against security threats."

http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/44513.html