The Department of the Environment has ordered an internal investigation into why the public was not informed of planning approval for a major wasteprocessingplant near Londonderry.
In February, prosecutors accused the director of Mayak, Russia's main wasteprocessingplant in the Ural Mountains, of allowing tons of radioactive nuclear waste to flow into a nearby river.
"I just can't stand this mess, " he remarked early this year when the state-owned Power Reactor and Nuclear Fuel Development Corp. failed to prevent a serious accident at a nuclear waste-processing plant near Tokyo.
When fully operational the plant would be capable of processing all domestic and non-hazardous commercial waste generated in the counties of Neath Port Talbot and Bridgend.