I NOTE your report on the recent transfer of a cargo of highly enriched uranium by air from Wick Airport to the Savannah River nuclear site in South Carolina as part of a deal reached at an Obama/Cameron nuclear summit earlier this year ("Nuclear flights runway fear", The Herald, October 1) .
It has emerged that the runway at Wick Airport is not long enough for the US Air Force C17 Globemaster aircraft being used and the flights are having to land at RAF Lossiemouth, so the risks of accident are being increased considerably
Highlands Against Nuclear Transport (Hant) has, since 2013, been campaigning to stop transfer of all nuclear materials from the Dounreay site to Sellafield by sea and rail and now to the US by air. We maintain that storing the materials under constant monitoring and security at Dounreay is the safest solution, given a National Audit Office report which concluded that parts of the Sellafield site "pose significant risks to people and the environment”. One official review published in The Lancet concluded that, at worst, an explosive release at Sellafield could kill two million Britons in an area from Liverpool to Glasgow.
We have been accused of scaremongering but our concerns have been shared by Friends of the Earth Scotland and other environmental groups as well as Dr Paul Monaghan (MP for Caithness, Sutherland & Easter Ross) and by John Finnie (MSP, Highlands & Islands).
The scares are being created by the nuclear industry, which continues to undertake risky and unnecessary transports of nuclear materials.
Tor Justad,
Chairperson, Highlands Against Nuclear Transport, 17 Ord Terrace, Strathpeffer, Ross-shire.
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