from Sunday Herald, 28 March 2010
There is a “medium high risk” that land underneath a housing estate in Motherwell is contaminated with radioactivity and toxic metals, according to an expert report for North Lanarkshire Council.
The report reinforces residents’ fears that their health is being harmed by pollution from a wartime munitions factory that used to be on the site near Watling Street.
Earlier this month, the Sunday Herald revealed evidence that a clean-up of the site in the 1990s had left patches of contamination. The council has launched an investigation to check the safety of the area.
The first stage of the investigation was an assessment by consultants, WSP Environmental (WSPE), in Edinburgh. Its report, a copy of which has been passed to the Sunday Herald, suggests that there could be major problems.
“The site represents a medium-high risk with respect to contaminated land liability issues,” the report concludes. “A radiological risk may exist”, it says, from the disposal of caesium-137 and cobalt-60 from the manufacture of x-ray and radiation therapy machines in the past.
“Historical remedial completion reports of the wider Watling Street site have also indicated that not all made ground was removed prior to residential redevelopment,” the report adds.
“Any potential contamination in remnant made ground beneath the subject site may present a risk to current site users, and migration of contamination from the landfill site to the subject site is plausible.”
Contaminated ash and slag from the site was dumped as landfill on an area next to the housing estate in the 1990s. “There is considered to be potential for site-derived contamination to have impacted local groundwater,” the WSPE report says.
Local residents complain of severe headaches, nausea and diarrhoea, which they blame on contamination. They have teamed up with lawyers and experts to pursue legal action against North Lanarkshire Council.
One of the lawyers involved is Des Collins, who recently won a major court case against Corby Council on contamination at a former steelworks. He said he was concerned about the report’s findings.
Intrusive investigations could cause buried contamination to leak out, so it was vital that the council took this on board, he argued. “In my view, at this stage, the residents’ reaction is fully justified and it is therefore very important that the council addresses these concerns in a fully transparent manner.”
The WSPE report recommends sampling soil and groundwater in communal areas, play areas and front gardens. If contamination is found, it suggests deeper investigations in people’s private gardens.
North Lanarkshire Council denied that it had been complacent about the contamination risks. It had previously blamed a local leafleting campaign for causing “alarm and distress” and insisted that the site was “fit for purpose”.
The WSPE report was “extremely precautionary”, said the council’s pollution control manager, Charles Penman, on Friday. “It does not say there is actual contamination on this site. It simply concludes that, given the site’s history, the possibility of contamination exists.”
Previous tests had shown that the levels of contamination were “within acceptable parameters”, he stated. “The report was commissioned in response to the concerns of our residents,” he added.
“Its conclusions, to anyone who has read it properly, are very clear. Highlighting specific phrases without setting them in context, with the sole aim of stirring up more concerns, is highly irresponsible and unfair to residents of the area.”
Monitoring of the site had begun on 22 March, Penman said. “Results so far show no contamination. Further testing has still to be done. We will keep residents and the wider public informed of progress.”
The WSPE report can be downloaded here (9.5MB pdf).
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