Sellafield Ltd has responsibility for managing the Sellafield nuclear licensed site on the West Cumbrian coast. There is a history of over 60 years of industrial activity, at certain points in time this activity has affected the quality of land on parts of the site.  Sellafield Ltd strives to understand, control and manage the legacy of ground contamination to ensure protection of the workforce, the public and the environment. The purpose of this website is to explain the issues being tackled and to outline the current work undertaken with the aim of stimulating interest and feedback.

Website Structure

Pages on this website give a background to the Sellafield site, its setting, its history, the current understanding of the land quality, the management approach and the Contaminated Land and Groundwater programme of work.  As far as possible they are written in non-technical language but links are provided to relevant reports for those interested in greater detail on particular topics.

Recent Developments

The major programme of land quality characterisation and assessment beneath the Separation Area of the site (where most of the contamination sources are located) was successfully completed in 2010. The main findings of the investigation were:

• much of the land above the groundwater table is uncontaminated or contains low activities of man made radionuclides
• known leaks and spills have not spread in a horizontal direction but more mobile radiological particles move vertically into groundwater
• the highest observed levels of radioactivity are in and around the two facilities associated with 99% of the radioactivity lost to ground
• observations of radioactivity were also made in and around some areas previously known to be associated with historical leaks or identified to have had the potential for a leak
• highly elevated radioactive soil contamination was only found in one previously unknown area, which was adjacent to a historical disposal site 
• strontium-90, carbon-14 and uranium isotopes have reached the groundwater table in some contamination source areas but are less mobile
• caesium-137 and plutonium isotopes have not generally reached the groundwater
• only localised elevated concentrations of chemo-toxic substances have been detected in soil and groundwater

The investigation has led to a considerable improvement in the interpretation of the geology, hydrogeology and land quality of the Sellafield site which confirms much of the previous understanding and gives confidence in the current management arrangements for the historical contamination. The overall conclusion of the Risk Assessment is risks to off-site potentially exposed groups are small and within levels considered to be acceptable from the operation of a nuclear facility.

Although more can always be known about the ground conditions at Sellafield site, enough information is now available to allow the next steps to be taken in the development of site strategy and the assessment of options for the future management of land contamination. 

A summary of the work may be found in the Document Library in the report 'Findings of the Investigation of the Sellafield Contaminated Land and Groundwater Management Project and the Next Steps for the Land Quality Programme'

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Groundwater Annual Report 2011

This report covers the results of analyses of groundwater samples collected over the period April 2010 through March 2011.

The document may be found in the Document Library section.

Other sources of information on environmental quality at Sellafield can be found in the Annual Environment Monitoring Reports.