THE DOUNREAY nuclear complex is facing legal action for failing to store radioactive waste safely after an incident in which a worker was contaminated with plutonium.

The government's Nuclear Installations Inspectorate(NII)hasservedtwo improvement notices on the plant's operator, the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA), obliging it to remedy the problem. Inspectors are also considering sending a report to the procurator fiscal.

A worker was found to have accidentally inhaled plutonium while decommissioninganoldfuel-processing laboratoryonJanuary 12 last year. Subsequentinvestigationsuncovered half a dozen contaminated lead bricks left on a shelf nearby.

According to one of the notices issued by the NII, the bricks were stored "withoutadequate levels of containment". They also lacked "adequate means of physicalprotection"and"anyidentification by means of marking or labelling".

The other legal notice alleges that inadequate safety records were kept. Dounreay has been given until April 6 to comply with both notices and could be fined if it fails to do so.

According to Dounreay's spokesman, Colin Punler, the plan had been to reuse the bricks but the project for which they were intended had been shelved. "We have very good procedures for dealing with items with significant amounts of radioactivity," he said.

"But this revealed gaps in the way we dealt with items with small amounts of radioactivity. We are now fixing those gaps and confident of complying with the requirements laid down by the regulator."

News of the latest legal action comes after it was confirmed that Dounreay is to be prosecuted for allowing hundreds of thousands of radioactive particles to leak into the sea and on to local beaches before 1984. The UKAEA has been cited to appear in court in Wick on February 6.

Meanwhile,theSundayHerald revealed last week that decommissioning work at Dounreay was threatened with delaysandjob losses because of a government financial crisis. The plant could suffer major cuts in its budget for 2007-08 because of losses made by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, the state agency that funds Dounreay.