A British court Tuesday ordered a company which managed a nuclear power plant to pay 400,000 pounds after it was convicted of allowing radioactive waste to leak into the ground over a 14-year period.
Magnox Electric Ltd was fined 250,000 pounds (350,000 dollars, 280,000 euros) and ordered to pay 150,000 pounds in legal costs for breaching laws on the disposal of radioactive waste at Bradwell plant in Essex, southeast England.
The firm, convicted of allowing waste to leak out of a decontamination unit into the ground between 1990 and 2004, said it was "deeply embarrassed" that it had failed to identify the problem but insisted it posed no health risk.
It was the second time in eight years that Magnox has been fined for breaching laws on nuclear waste displosal and plant maintenance.
In 2001 the firm was fined 100,000 pounds plus costs for offences at Bradwell and at the Hinkley Point plant in Somerset, western England.
Magnox no longer runs Bradwell, which was shut in 2002 and is currently being decommissioned.
The Environment Agency regulator welcomed the penalties imposed on Magnox, and said the radioactive waste had seeped into soil under the plant but would not spread outside the site.
It would be left to decay for 100 years, and then the soil would be cleared, he said.
Magnox said it was "deeply embarrassed" by its failure to identify the problem with the sump, a type of well for waste, although it claimed it had inherited the fault from the plant's previous owner.
Its lawyer Martyn Bowyer told the court: "There is no significant risk either to workers on the site or, more importantly, to the general public."
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