wansea East AM, Mike Hedges asks for further testing of Mud to be dumped in Bristol Channel near Cardiff.

Swansea East AM, Mike Hedges asks for further testing of Mud to be dumped in Bristol Channel near Cardiff.

Speaking after the Senedd Debate, Mike Hedges said…. I have been contacted by many constituents expressing concerns about the dumping of mud from the Hinkley C construction site. We have had a lot of conflicting opinions about whether or not the mud is radioactive, and if the right tests were used. I have therefore asked for the testing undertaken to undergo peer review by other scientists so that we can establish a correct picture. Failure of EDF to make the mud available for independent testing is very disappointing

Mike Hedges AM – I’ll be very brief. I don’t know if the mud is safe. It has been tested, and we’ve had the results of that testing. What I do know is that the public are not assured that it is safe.418

EDF offered me a briefing three times last week. Each time I asked that the mud be made available to bona fide academics to re-test. Each time that request was ignored. I wish once again, in public, to request that EDF make that mud available to bona fide academics. Science is a wonderful thing. If two people test the same sample, they’ll come out with the same results within the margin of error. Scientists don’t make up results. It would destroy their credibility as scientists if they did make up results and those results were so out of sync with everybody else who is producing results. So, what we want is to make people believe that it’s safe. Have a peer review. Everything is peer reviewed. Why can this not be? I think I’ll ask again, and hope that EDF will make that mud available to bona fide academics to peer review it. If the results produced by Cefas are correct, and I have no reason to think they’re not, then exactly the same results will be produced by every other scientist who tests it. So that, I think, might give more reassurance to the public than they have at the moment.