GOVERNMENT plans for disposing of nuclear waste have been thrown into turmoil by the resignation of a senior adviser, who has accused a key committee of endangering public safety by ignoring scientific expertise.

David Ball, Professor of Risk Management at Middlesex University, has left the panel that advises ministers on the issue in protest at its “open antagonism” to the views of nuclear specialists.

The Committee on Radioactive Waste Management (CoRWM) had become obsessed with public consultation at the expense of expert advice, Professor Ball told The Times.

It had spent a year considering far-fetched disposal options that were dismissed years ago by scientists, such as firing spent fuel into the Sun or shipping it to Antarctica, while hazardous waste languished in tanks that were vulnerable to an accident or terrorist attack.

That combination of inertia and a cavalier attitude to scientific risk management had jeopardised severely the committee’s ability to decide on the safest and most acceptable way to store 470,000 cubic metres of waste — enough to fill the Albert Hall five times.

Professor Ball said: “The committee has lost all credibility as far as I am concerned, and it should be wound up to save the taxpayer the expense. Its approach to this serious issue has been appalling. We don’t have all the time in the world to resolve it. We are all standing around with nuclear waste kept in less than ideal ways, and we are at unnecessary risk because of it. There is a real risk of a terrorist strike on nuclear waste, and the consequences could be scary stuff, as it is not being stored optimally.”

Professor Ball is the second scientist to leave CoRWM in acrimonious circumstances. Keith Baverstock, a former head of radiation protection at the World Health Organisation and the panel’s only health expert, was sacked in April by Elliott Morley, the Environment Minister, after attacking the committee as dysfunctional and amateurish. Similar criticisms have been made by the House of Lords Science Committee and the Royal Society, which have questioned whether CoRWM is making proper use of scientific advice.

Further controversy has surrounded alleged conflicts of interest held by four of the eleven remaining members, who are paid consultants for companies that have won contracts from the committee. CoRWM, which is chaired by Professor Gordon MacKerron, an economist at the University of Sussex, was established in 2003 to review Britain’s options for disposing of nuclear waste. It will report to ministers in July next year with a recommended solution that is both workable and most acceptable to the public.

In April the committee announced a shortlist of four options, after narrowing down the choices from fifteen during eighteen months of consultations. All involve either burying waste deep underground or storing it in specialised facilities on the surface. Many independent experts, however, have been dismayed that it took the panel so long to rule out many options that have already been examined and rejected by scientists all over the world.

Professor Ball said in his resignation letter that the options on the shortlist were, “to borrow from John Cleese, the bleeding obvious”. He said that proper use of technical expertise would have allowed CoWRM to have narrowed the list to six options within weeks.

A year was wasted in trials of a public consultation technique that had to be abandoned because of its flaws, Professor Ball said. An even deeper problem, however, was the attitude of many committee members to science, which they saw as secondary in importance to public opinion.

Professor MacKerron said: “We do not lack scientific expertise: over half of our members are scientists and many members have long experience and knowledge of the nuclear industry and nuclear policy.

“CoRWM is not a conventional scientific ‘expert’ committee. It is an oversight committee, charged with considering all potentially serious long-term options.”

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