An investigation has been launched after the discovery of radioactive pollution outside the Dounreay nuclear complex in Caithness.
Alpha radiation was detected in a sample of sludge from a drain upstream of the site on July 10 and reported to a sub-committee of the local stakeholder group on Wednesday evening. It was confirmed on Friday by DSRL, the private consortium that is cleaning up Dounreay.
According to the Government watchdog, the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa), a "small quantity of radioactivity" had been found by DSRL.
"The sample was taken from a manhole within a foul drain system, upstream of the Dounreay site," said a Sepa spokeswoman. "Following the initial notification DSRL has been undertaking subsequent analysis work to determine the source of the radioactivity.
"Sepa is in regular contact with DSRL, and it will continue to update us."
DSRL confirmed the manhole was part of an off-site drainage system which pre-dated the site and was now redundant.
"Samples of sludge were taken from the manhole that indicated elevated levels of alpha activity," said a company spokeswoman.
"We have agreed with Sepa we will obtain further samples and subject them to detailed analysis to confirm the level and source of the radioactivity.
"The results are expected mid-August."
The spokeswoman declined to say whether the pollution included plutonium, a radioactive heavy metal that emits alpha particles and has been made at Dounreay.
She said: "Although we are investigating the possibility the activity in the manhole may have come from sludges produced at the Shebster water treatment plant upstream of the manhole.
"DSRL will report on the findings once all the analysis has been complete."
The current clean-up bill for Dounreay, where failed fast breeder reactors were developed for 40 years until 1994, is £1.6 billion.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article