MILITARY LOW LEVEL NUCLEAR WASTE POSES THREAT

A further illustration of the casual attitude the British military adopted towards the disposal of harmful waste has come to light in Scotland

Hazardous particles of radium-226 from a WW 2 airfield have been found near homes in Dalgety Bay, Fife. The radioactive waste is from luminous aircraft instrument dials large quantities of which were disposed of after the second world war.

The waste is similar to material dumped in the Irish sea in the mid 1950s at the Holyhead Deep and north of the Isle of Man in the Beaufort Dyke.

Following the latest find officials working for the Defence Estates organisation will have to remove the contaminated sections of soil and take away for storage at a nuclear facility. They will probably join Britain's increasing mound of nuclear detritus at Drigg in Cumbria

Scotland environmental agency, SEPA, and the Ministry of Defence will have to continue to monitor the site as any undiscovered radium-226 could pose a threat. The radioactive particles could cause serious skin burns if inadvertently handled.

J B Moffatt Director of Information Celtic League

29/06/08