Action urged over beach radiation - The Press Association

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Action urged over beach radiation

(UKPA) – 29 minutes ago 

Officials are facing calls for urgent action following reports that their own scientists are reluctant to analyse radioactive contamination at a Scottish beach because of health fears.

Highly radioactive material was discovered last week at a beach in Dalgety Bay, Fife, prompting the closure of parts of the foreshore.

The object, a lump of metal, was 10 times more contaminated than any found before at the beach and gave environmental experts "cause for concern".

Scottish Environmental Protection Agency scientists working at the site have found more than 80 additional particles in recent days - 17 on Friday, 33 on Saturday and 33 on Sunday - although none are as large as the earlier discovery.

It is believed the contamination originates from the residue of radium-coated instrument panels from military aircraft which were incinerated and land-filled in the area at the end of the Second World War.

Radioactive material was first detected at Dalgety Bay in 1990 and it is thought the beach is polluted by at least 100 particles every year.

It has emerged that Ministry of Defence (MoD) experts raised concerns two and a half years ago about handling samples recovered from the beach.

Their worries, reported in the Sunday Herald, are contained in minutes of a March 2009 meeting of the Dalgety Bay Risk Assessment Group, which involved scientists from Sepa and the MoD.

The document states that Ron Brown, reportedly the MoD's principal scientist at their Hampshire laboratory, told the committee that "MoD analysts are not particularly keen to work with these samples due to concerns over dose rates from high-activity samples".

Mid Scotland and Fife MSP Annabelle Ewing, of the SNP, said: "The MoD has consistently played down the possibility of health effects on members of the public from this contamination, but the department's own scientists do not seem to share that confidence."

Copyright © 2011 The Press Association. All rights reserved.

16 Oct, 2011

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