I AM pleased the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has finally allowed the publication of a public health report on the contaminated site around the beach at Dalgety Bay in Fife ("Radiation particles on beach are risk to public, says report", The Herald, May 20).
That it suppressed a report for six months which confirmed the radioactive particles found on the beach do pose a potential public health risk, with urgent remediation action required, is disgraceful.
The Nuclear Free Local Authorities Scotland Forum (NFLA) finds that, across the nuclear industry, there is still an endemic lack of openness and transparency. In providing advice and assistance to Fife Council to ensure that public health and safety is at the core of the response to dealing with the radium contamination, the NFLA has been staggered by the attitude of the Ministry of Defence. As the health report points out, radium contamination was found at Dalgety Bay as long ago as 1990, and then only due to a routine survey carried out by the owners of the nearby Rosyth site.
Nearly a quarter of a century later we are only starting to get to the end of a process of full remediation of the site due, in the main, to the MoD's reluctance to engage. The key concern now has to be what other sites are similarly contaminated in Scotland and across the UK, and what is actually being done by the MoD to deal with them. Previous reports suggest as many as 25 sites are of concern, which is bad enough, but are there others? How many other local communities risk the worry over radiation exposure, damage to the local environment and the challenge in dealing with a Government department in the MoD that has stalled at every stage of the cleaning up of the Dalgety Bay site? The MoD needs to start working now with local councils, environmental and public health agencies to assess all such sites and to deal with them in an effective fashion.
Councillor Bill Butler
Convener of Nuclear Free Local Authorities Scotland Forum,
c/o NFLA Scotland Secretariat, Glasgow City Chambers, George Square, Glasgow.
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