We are anxious to find a solution to technetium-99 which meets Norway's concerns

Michael Meacher, UK environment minister

"I think they are right to be concerned about this problem," Mr Meacher told BBC Radio 4's Today programme from Bergen, where he is attending a two-day conference on North Sea pollution.

He said he was looking at ways of stopping emissions of a particular radioactive nuclide, technetium-99, that is of concern to the Norwegians.

Review process

Ocean currents carry small traces of radioactivity from Sellafield's waste pipe on the Irish Sea coast across to Scandinavia, and it has been detected in shellfish and seaweed in Norway.

Mr Meacher joined a protest about over-fishing

The risk to human health from Sellafield discharges was "minimal", he stressed.

He said a "formal decision" was about to be made on technetium-99, following the completion of a review of technology that "might make it possible" to remove it from the Sellafield's discharge.

Overfishing problem

The Bergen summit is being attended by nine countries that border the North Sea.

On Wednesday - the first day of talks - the Norwegian Government said it was taking legal advice on how to stop British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL) discharging radioactive waste into the sea.

Mr Meacher was lobbied at the conference by peaceful demonstrators calling for the complete closure of Sellafield.

He was also confronted by a protest about overfishing in the North Sea.

The ministers are warning that large areas of the sea will need to be closed off to fishing within two years if the alarming decline in stocks is to be reversed.