from Sunday Herald, 11 March 2001
The number of depleted uranium (DU) shells that have misfired and caused radioactive contamination at a military range in south west Scotland is four times greater than previously admitted, the Sunday Herald can reveal.
The revelation will reignite fears about risks to the health of people who live around the Dundrennan army range near Kirkcudbright, and put the Ministry of Defence under renewed pressure to cancel its plans to test more DU shells over the next few months. Misfired shells can create clouds of toxic uranium dust, which is dangerous because it can be inhaled.
"I am aghast at this business. I find it alarming that the military think they can get away with it," said John Large, an independent nuclear consultant who advises the government. "It is so primitive that they haven't thought this through."
He pointed out that no nuclear company would get authorisation to dump DU on land. "It these shells hit hard rocks, the DU will get red-hot and oxidise in the air. If the wind if blowing in the wrong direction, that can cause a potential respiratory problem for people living nearby."
Two weeks ago defence officials said that up to two dozen DU shells had misfired at Dundrennan since 1982, hitting the ground instead of plunging into the sea. Although the Ministry of Defence (MoD) insisted that any contamination had been cleaned up, scientific surveys unearthed by the Sunday Herald disclosed that many of the misfired shells had not been located.
But now the defence minister, John Spellar, has admitted that altogether there have been 93 occasions on which DU shells have misfired and caused contamination. Some fell short of their target and others broke into pieces in the air.
"A total of 14 projectiles struck the ground prior to reaching the target. Ten such strikes are believed to have occurred in various locations prior to April 1995. Since this time there was one strike in 1997, one in 1999 and two in 2000. All strikes since April 1995 have been close to the India target and have been managed appropriately," he said.
"In addition it is believed that, between 1983 and 1993, there were some 79 occasions on which rounds partially broke up during firing. They were all at the Raeberry firing point, which is 180 metres from the cliff edge. In all cases, though some fragments hit the ground, the majority of the mass proceeded out to sea."
Spellar also stated that the MoD-sponsored Defence Evaluation and Research Agency was now conducting a new survey of Dundrennan "to find any previously undetected fragments on the range". A new analysis suggested that the total number of DU shells tested at the range over the last two decades was 6,400 instead of 6,900.
Spellar's admissions came in a letter to the local SNP MP, Alasdair Morgan, who has been demanding to know the truth about misfired shells. "The contamination is potentially four times greater than we knew and that is very worrying," said Morgan yesterday.
He pointed out that people could walk across the range when it wasn't being used, and called on the MoD to be more honest about had gone wrong there. "It could be either a cock-up or a conspiracy, but one does sense a deliberate desire on the DU story not to give us the whole truth."
The MoD also failed last week to find any of the 90 DU samples it had lost at the bottom of the Solway Firth in February. Divers from the nuclear submarine base at Faslane on the Clyde spent two days searching the seabed for them in murky conditions, but found nothing.
The samples had been put there last year in an attempt to find out how fast the DU would corrode in seawater. But the Sunday Herald reported two weeks ago that a hefty rig containing most of the samples had been badly damaged by storms and the DU had disappeared. The search for the missing DU will begin again in May.
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