40 radiation leaks from Scottish military bases

from Scotland on Sunday, 30 August 1998

Radiation has accidentally leaked into the Firth of the Clyde and the Forth from military nuclear bases 40 times over the past 18 years, the government has revealed.

Most of the leaks have come from the Trident submarine base at Faslane on Gareloch. According to the Ministry of Defence, there have been 33 occasions since 1980 when radioactive liquids have been "unintentionally released" from the base into the loch.

Over the same period there have been seven spillages of radioactivity from the Rosyth naval dockyard in Fife. Most of the leakages came from old tanks of radioactive cooling water for submarine reactors known as Primary Effluent Tanks or PETs.