from Sunday Herald, 28 April 2013
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has been stopped from
test-firing shells made of depleted uranium (DU) in Scotland by public
opposition, campaigners say.
Defence ministers have told MPs that a planned weapons testing programme will use alternatives to DU. The toxic and radioactive metal, used to harden armour-piercing tank shells, has been blamed for cancers, birth defects and other illnesses suffered by soldiers and civilians after the Iraq war.
The MoD had been expected to begin test-firing DU shells, known as CHARM 3, at the Dundrennan military range near Kirkcudbright later this year. Over the last three decades, army tanks have fired more than 6,700 shells into the Solway Firth from the range, containing nearly 30 tonnes of DU.
Some shells were misfired and ended up contaminating parts of the range in breach of agreed safety limits. High levels of DU, a byproduct of the nuclear industry, were discovered in earthworms on the site.
The armed forces minister, Andrew Robathan MP, has now said that the CHARM 3 charge “can be tested by firing variants that do not contain DU”. Another defence minister, Philip Dunne MP, has told the House of Commons that the planned CHARM3 testing programme “does not involve the firing of depleted uranium.”
Rachel Thompson from the Campaign Against Depleted Uranium hailed the MoD’s shift as a “major victory” reflecting worldwide concern about DU weapons. “This U-turn is linked to increased parliamentary and public opposition to an environmentally dubious and potentially illegal practice,” she said.
“We call upon the MoD to state clearly and unequivocally that they will never test-fire DU in Scotland again. If these weapons are unacceptable in Scotland then they were unacceptable in Iraq.”
Aileen McLeod, the Scottish Nationalist MSP for the South of Scotland, welcomed the MoD’s climbdown. “This is the clearest statement to date that there are in fact no plans to test fire DU shells at all during the current, planned life extension programme of the munitions,” she said.
“Although this is a big step forward, the campaign must continue until there is a clear guarantee that there will be no more test firing of DU shells in Scotland at any point in the future.”
Katy Clark, the Labour MP for North Ayrshire and Arran, accused the MoD of being “very slippy” on the issue of DU test-firing. “It has been difficult to get a straight answer from them,” she said.
“It looks like they have been shifting their position as more questions are asked. It is important there is scrutiny of the government and that they are honest with the public about what is being done in our name particularly given the potential health concerns.”
The Sunday Herald revealed last month that the MoD has tried to evade an international ban on dumping radioactive waste at sea by defining the DU shells fired into the Solway Firth as “placements”. The MoD was criticised for using “semantic trickery” to justify radioactive waste dumping.
Since then, the MOD has told the Green MP, Caroline Lucas, that it has “no plans to recover depleted uranium rounds from the Solway Firth”. According to campaigners, the MoD has “a long history of spinning DU issues to distract attention from their intrinsic public unacceptability.”
The MoD, however, rejected campaigners’ claims, and insisted its position had not changed. It was understood to have “no plans” to test fire DU rounds at Dundrennan.
An MoD spokesman said: “The propellant charge life extension programme has never required the firing of depleted uranium itself, a situation which is entirely unconnected to campaigns against test firing.”
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