from Sunday Herald, 29 July 2012
A dozen sites across Scotland suspected of being contaminated by radioactive waste from past military or industrial activities have been named by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa).
One is the Ministry of Defence firing range at Dundrennan on the Solway Firth, where depleted uranium tanks shells have been tested. Others are former air force, army and naval bases around the country where radium used to make dials glow in the dark has been dumped, as at Dalgety Bay in Fife.
There are also former radium factories in Wishaw and Balloch, as well as beaches contaminated by the Dounreay nuclear plant in Caithness. There have been reports about the sites before, but this is the first time that Sepa has identified them all as potentially contaminated.
Sepa had been insisting on keeping the list of sites secret for fear of causing “unnecessary alarm or distress to local residents”. But it has now released it following appeals under freedom of information legislation.
The list was compiled to help determine whether “further work is need” to protect the public, according to Sepa’s radioactive specialist, Paul Dale. Some historic activities “may have resulted in the presence of radioactive contamination which needs to be assessed,” he said.
“To date the only site where further actions have been required has been Dalgety Bay.” There, the public has been barred from a section of the foreshore since last October and the harvesting of shellfish has been prohibited since May.
Sites suspected of radioactive contamination
Ministry of Defence firing range, Dundrennan, Kirkcudbright, Dumfries and Galloway
Former Defence Aviation Repair Agency, Almondbank, Perth and Kinross
Royal Artillery Range, RAF Benbecula, Western Isles
Former air base, RAF Edzell, Angus
Former air base, RAF Kinloss, Forres, Morayshire
Former air base, RAF Machrihanish, Mull of Kintyre
Royal Marines base, RM Condor, Arbroath, Angus
Former army luminising depot, Forthside, Stirling
Former radium plant, Gowkthrapple, Wishaw, North Lanarkshire
Boatyard on site of an old radium works, Balloch, Dunbartonshire
Former military aircraft base, Dalgety Bay, Fife
Beaches near the Dounreay nuclear complex, Caithness
source: Scottish Environment Protection Agency
The list as it was released by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency can be downloaded here (12KB Word document).
This story was followed up by the Press and Journal.
And the London government still extols the virtues of nuclear weapons , nuclear power, "safe" nuclear waste sites! Appalling .
Posted by: Gill Griffin | 31 July 2012 at 06:49 PM