‘They were nuclear cowboys playing with people's lives'
Whistleblower tells of ‘laughable’ safety record at Dounreay
Kenny Farquharson and Mark Macaskill
Times Online - March 06, 2005 - HERBIE LYALL opens a dog-eared paperback and points to a passage highlighted with a yellow marker pen. The book is about the nuclear industry and the passage is about Karen Silkwood, the nuclear worker from Okalahoma who blew the whistle on dangerous practices in her industry. In 1974 Silkwood was killed in a mysterious car crash that sparked conspiracy theories and a Hollywood film, Silkwood, starring Meryl Streep.
Lyall raises his eyebrows and gives a meaningful look. His point is that the nuclear industry can be a powerful enemy — even when its methods fall some way short of arranging car crashes.
It is hard to tell who would play Lyall in a movie. In another age Mickey Rooney perhaps or Edward G Robinson. The 72-year-old Scot is short and muscular and in rude health for his age. Recently he climbed Ben Nevis and when he was barely 60 he cycled from Land’s End to John o’ Groats.
He looks like the kind of man who would not shy away from a confrontation. Which is probably just as well because Lyall has a fight on his hands. He has become the UK nuclear industry’s most high-profile whistleblower. There have been many campaigners who have claimed to know exactly what goes on inside top-secret atom plants, but never one with such extensive first-hand experience.
After 29 years working in the Dounreay nuclear research facility on the Pentland Firth between 1960 and 1989, Lyall has decided to go public with the catalogue of corner-cutting, complacency and management failure that he witnessed there as a safety inspector.
He knows he is sticking his neck out. Originally Lyall had intended his account of shoddy practice to be published after his death. But recently he became convinced that it needed to be made public sooner so lessons could be learnt.
“There have been so many lies told to con the public about Dounreay that I feel I must put the record straight,” he said, sitting at a small table in the kitchen of his former shepherd’s cottage 15 miles from Dounreay.
Lyall knows all about Dounreay. He even helped to build it. In the mid-1950s as a young man fresh out of National Service and looking for work he landed a job in its construction. Then in 1960 he took up his post at the plant as a health physics surveyor.
This made him one of Dounreay’s radiation policemen. The job of the health physics department was to check the local environment inside and outside the plant — air, soil, earth and sand — and also to regulate how long employees were allowed to be exposed to radiation. For example, Lyall would tell a scientist that if he wanted to work on a particular fuel rod he could do so only for, say, seven minutes. Lyall would also advise on what protection was needed when items were being transported.
It was a responsible job and in the early years of the plant, as work was carried out on testing various types of nuclear reactor, the managers and scientists at Dounreay observed safety protocol. By the 1970s, however, things Lyall says things had changed. “Complacency set in and restrictions that the surveyors were putting on the management weren’t flexible enough,” he recalled.
“We were entering the era of the cowboys. A trend set in whereby management — especially people with an eye for promotion — discovered it was better not to consult the surveyor if they wanted to get things done. That was when things started to go wrong at Dounreay.”
Lyall’s account of failings at Dounreay could not have come at a more useful time. A new report to be published next month on cancer clusters around nuclear installations will reveal worrying findings.
The study, carried out by the Committee on Medical Aspects of Radiation in the Environment (Comare) compared leukaemia cases within a 15- mile radius of civil nuclear plants like Dounreay and nuclear military bases such as Faslane between the mid-1980s and 2000.
Professor Alex Elliott, chairman of the Comare Dounreay working group and a clinical physician at Glasgow University, said: “It will say there is evidence of increased leukaemia near the plant. There’s another (cluster) near Sellafield, which is the one which kicked off the whole business. But the jury is still out on the cause. This is an extremely comprehensive study using all the data over a 16-year period. We felt it necessary to conduct the research because our remit is to advise ministers and we can only do that if we have all the data.”
While scientists say there is still no direct evidence that radioactive emissions caused outbreaks of cancer in nearby communities, the study will fuel concern that generations have been exposed to potentially lethal doses over many years.
Lyall’s description of events at the plant could prove to be crucial as pressure increases on politicians for answers to the latest concerns. In the picture that he paints, safety at Dounreay was eventually regarded by some managers as an obstacle, not a safeguard. He says he and his health physics department colleagues became increasingly resented: “We would sometimes be told to f*** off if we insisted on regulations being followed. Our role was just to advise. We could not enforce. It became very frustrating.”
The attitude of senior staff, he claims, resulted in acts of recklessness that were almost suicidal. In one incident two men ignored his advice and removed a faulty probe from a reprocessor without adequate protection. Both men later died of cancer while still in their forties “These two gentlemen were not only my colleagues but personal friends,” said Lyall. “I can’t say if the dose they got from this probe contributed to their deaths. But I have my own thoughts. This example is only the tip of the iceberg.”
Other disturbing practices included the routine disposal of high-level radioactive liquid waste down drains intended for low-level waste.
Lyall says managers would simply send it for disposal minus the paperwork. One instance, noted by Lyall in 1988, involved the disposal of 40 litres of highly radioactive glycol oil. Waste liquid went into effluent pits which were then flushed into the open sea — sometimes on an incoming tide.
The sampling machinery for testing the effluent before it could be released was a rusting hulk that had not worked for years, according to Lyall.
Workers were forced to use a tin can or a wellington boot to get samples for analysis. “It would have been laughable if it was not so serious,” he said.
Drums containing waste were so poorly labelled that after they had been dumped in radioactive pits it was often impossible to identify what they contained.
Lyall says that some management decisions left him open-mouthed in astonishment. A pit used for years as a dump for highly radioactive waste was turned into a temporary storage area for non-hazardous materials, which carried an inevitable risk of becoming contaminated.
Lyall even had a ring-side seat at the most dramatic incident at Dounreay. He was on duty on the night in 1977 when there was an explosion in a deep shaft that had been used to dump radioactive waste since 1959. The blast had blown the concrete plug out of the shaft like a cork from a bottle.
Lyall says he regularly complained to management and through the trade union officials about safety breaches, but action was rarely taken. On one occasion, when he refused to carry out a dangerous procedure that went against rules laid down by the government, he was charged with refusing to obey an order.
Lyall’s portrait of a culture of complacency helps to explain why Dounreay’s environmental record over the years has been so poor.
The UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA), Dounreay’s operator, has already admitted that hundreds of thousands of radioactive metal fragments have been flushed into the sea. Each the size of a grain of sand, they were often the debris left from the milling of fuel rods. They include fragments of plutonium, uranium, cobalt-60, caesium-137 and strontium-90.
Some have ended up two miles west of Dounreay on Sandside Bay, one of the most beautiful beaches in the far north of Scotland.
Since 1997, 51 radioactive metal particles have been found on Sandside beach. In that time the beach has not been closed but locals and tourists have been warned away by signs telling of the dangers.
The question posed by Lyall is whether the warnings should have been issued 13 years earlier. He says he was a member of a survey team that found a highly radioactive particle on Sandside beach in 1984 — a find that should have led to immediate public warnings about the safety of the beach.
UKAEA has denied any knowledge of this find.
The potential dangers are extremely serious. “Hot” particles, if lodged in the body, can bombard living cells with radiation, triggering cancers. The owner of Sandside beach, Geoffrey Minter, used to walk his dogs there every day from when he bought the Sandside estate in 1990.
Every day, that is, until his spaniel and retriever both died of massive tumours. Now Minter is another doughty opponent of UKAEA and has already scored a number of legal victories against the authority in his fight to force it to clean up the beach.
In 1998, eight years after he retired, Lyall decided to act on the worries that had been nagging at him and raised his concerns with UKAEA managers. They gave him a hearing and acted on some of his observations, but dismissed others.
In 2000 he approached the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency (Sepa), which regulates Dounreay. In 2003 Sepa held an internal inquiry into its handling of Dounreay that highlighted a range of failings and led to a number of management changes. Last month Sepa submitted a report on Sandside to the procurator fiscal — an apparent sign of a tougher approach to Dounreay.
Sepa now seems contrite about its past record of scrutiny of Dounreay. “Our management team is aware of concerns about what has happened, or not happened, in the past and has taken significant steps in recent years to ensure there is robust regulation of Dounreay to protect the environment,” said a spokesman. “The publication of an independent report into our regulation of the site in 2003 led to a range of actions that were necessary to address previous failings.”
Anti-nuclear campaigners such as Lorraine Mann, from Scotland Against Nuclear Dumping, see Lyall’s testimony and the impending report about leukaemia clusters as a watershed in the long-running Dounreay saga.
“Clearly there has been a cover up,” she said. “The level of complacency has been absolutely astonishing. Blatant lies have been told and someone needs to take this away from UKAEA’s influence.”
Trade unions, too, believe that the time has come for some clarity and honesty from the Dounreay management so that risks to workers past and present can be fully appreciated.
“We’re always concerned that employers put pressure on employees to take short cuts,” said John Rowse, T&G national secretary for the nuclear industry. “In the past there was a culture of denial in the industry.”
However, the real pressure on UKAEA is likely to be felt in the House of Commons. Iain Duncan Smith, the former Conservative leader who recently put down a series of parliamentary questions about contamination at Dounreay, has demanded a ministerial inquiry.
He became involved through Minter of Sandside, who is an old family friend. “These are sensational allegations and raise grave and far-reaching questions about the management of the Dounreay plant over the past 30 years,” said Duncan Smith yesterday.
“If this has been going on at Dounreay, what has been happening at other nuclear establishments in the UK?” For its part, UKAEA concedes that safety standards at Dounreay were far less stringent in the past than they are today. Sandy McWhirter, Dounreay project manager, said that some practices from the past “could be considered reckless if not culpable today”.
“By today’s standards some things could look a bit silly — but then again stacking up coal bings behind primary schools is something we did until the Aberfan disaster,” he said.
McWhirter describes Lyall’s criticisms as “one man’s perception of what was adequate” in the way of safety. Lyall, he said, is “a very enthusiastic fellow who had seen various things going on and in many cases had misinterpreted them”.
Lyall is not going to be fobbed off as some kind of naive and deluded enthusiast. He was a man who took pride in his work and will not see his dedication slighted.
“I could have gone for promotion but I didn’t,” he said, over a coffee and some egg sandwiches made by his wife. “If I’d gone over to that side it would have suited them fine. But I was a rebel. I decided to carry on doing my job and do it to the best of my ability.
“This contamination is a legacy being left for my children’s children. It is an absolute disaster. They are talking about prosecuting these people — they deserve execution, not prosecution. This was people’s lives they were playing with. They were acting like nuclear cowboys.”
Early 1950s: Ministers decide to build new reactors to more efficiently use scarce metal uranium resource and its by-product, plutonium. Dounreay, in Caithness, is chosen as the ideal site due to its remote coastal location and the availability of sea water to cool the turbine.
1955: The United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) begins construction of the nuclear power plant in Dounreay.
1958: First reactor, the material test reactor, is switched on.
1959: Second reactor, the fast reactor, is switched on. The Scottish Office authorises 200ft shaft for the disposal of intermediate level waste.
1966: Ministers announce prototype fast nuclear reactor, hailed as the “system of the next century” to be built. It is switched on in 1974.
1977: The disposal shaft containing cocktail of nuclear detritus explodes. First fast reactor shut down, having been plagued by leaks.
1983: First radioactive particles found on Dounreay foreshore.
1984: UKAEA announces the discovery of a radioactive particle on Sandside beach. It measured 100 times more radioactive than any so far detected. No public announcement was made.
1988: Cecil Parkinson, the secretary of state for energy, announces end of fast reactor programme and closure of Dounreay.
1994: The prototype fast reactor is closed.
1996: All reprocessing work ceases after a leak is discovered in the main dissolver.
1997: A one-mile fishing exclusion zone imposed amid fears radioactive particles could enter human food chain.
1998: An audit by Sepa and the Health and Safety executive criticises safety procedures and a lack of investment in training.
1999: Five particles found.
2000: UKAEA fined £100,000 after three workers found to have suffered plutonium overdoses. Six radioactive particles found.
2001: Brian Wilson, the energy minister, announces no further reprocessing at Dounreay, enabling full decommission of the site. Three particles detected.
2002: UKAEA admits to The Sunday Times that “several hundreds of thousands of particles” have leaked into the environment since the 1970s. Five particles are found.
2003: UKAEA admits ground water pollution from the shaft. Sepa officials serve an enforcement notice demanding Dounreay monitors wildlife amid concerns rabbits could spread radioactive contamination. Twenty-three “hot” particles found.
2004: Sepa submits dossier to procurator fiscal outlining how and why radioactive particles have been released into the environment. Five particles found.
2005: Fiscal’s decision whether or not to prosecute UKAEA not yet made. It is expected to be 2036 before the site is cleaned of all nuclear material and can be redeveloped.
[and end - 2005 Times Newspapers Ltd - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/4yxeo]
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Kenny Farquharson and Mark Macaskill
Times Online - March 06, 2005 - HERBIE LYALL opens a dog-eared paperback and points to a passage highlighted with a yellow marker pen. The book is about the nuclear industry and the passage is about Karen Silkwood, the nuclear worker from Okalahoma who blew the whistle on dangerous practices in her industry. In 1974 Silkwood was killed in a mysterious car crash that sparked conspiracy theories and a Hollywood film, Silkwood, starring Meryl Streep.
Lyall raises his eyebrows and gives a meaningful look. His point is that the nuclear industry can be a powerful enemy — even when its methods fall some way short of arranging car crashes.
It is hard to tell who would play Lyall in a movie. In another age Mickey Rooney perhaps or Edward G Robinson. The 72-year-old Scot is short and muscular and in rude health for his age. Recently he climbed Ben Nevis and when he was barely 60 he cycled from Land’s End to John o’ Groats.
He looks like the kind of man who would not shy away from a confrontation. Which is probably just as well because Lyall has a fight on his hands. He has become the UK nuclear industry’s most high-profile whistleblower. There have been many campaigners who have claimed to know exactly what goes on inside top-secret atom plants, but never one with such extensive first-hand experience.
After 29 years working in the Dounreay nuclear research facility on the Pentland Firth between 1960 and 1989, Lyall has decided to go public with the catalogue of corner-cutting, complacency and management failure that he witnessed there as a safety inspector.
He knows he is sticking his neck out. Originally Lyall had intended his account of shoddy practice to be published after his death. But recently he became convinced that it needed to be made public sooner so lessons could be learnt.
“There have been so many lies told to con the public about Dounreay that I feel I must put the record straight,” he said, sitting at a small table in the kitchen of his former shepherd’s cottage 15 miles from Dounreay.
Lyall knows all about Dounreay. He even helped to build it. In the mid-1950s as a young man fresh out of National Service and looking for work he landed a job in its construction. Then in 1960 he took up his post at the plant as a health physics surveyor.
This made him one of Dounreay’s radiation policemen. The job of the health physics department was to check the local environment inside and outside the plant — air, soil, earth and sand — and also to regulate how long employees were allowed to be exposed to radiation. For example, Lyall would tell a scientist that if he wanted to work on a particular fuel rod he could do so only for, say, seven minutes. Lyall would also advise on what protection was needed when items were being transported.
It was a responsible job and in the early years of the plant, as work was carried out on testing various types of nuclear reactor, the managers and scientists at Dounreay observed safety protocol. By the 1970s, however, things Lyall says things had changed. “Complacency set in and restrictions that the surveyors were putting on the management weren’t flexible enough,” he recalled.
“We were entering the era of the cowboys. A trend set in whereby management — especially people with an eye for promotion — discovered it was better not to consult the surveyor if they wanted to get things done. That was when things started to go wrong at Dounreay.”
Lyall’s account of failings at Dounreay could not have come at a more useful time. A new report to be published next month on cancer clusters around nuclear installations will reveal worrying findings.
The study, carried out by the Committee on Medical Aspects of Radiation in the Environment (Comare) compared leukaemia cases within a 15- mile radius of civil nuclear plants like Dounreay and nuclear military bases such as Faslane between the mid-1980s and 2000.
Professor Alex Elliott, chairman of the Comare Dounreay working group and a clinical physician at Glasgow University, said: “It will say there is evidence of increased leukaemia near the plant. There’s another (cluster) near Sellafield, which is the one which kicked off the whole business. But the jury is still out on the cause. This is an extremely comprehensive study using all the data over a 16-year period. We felt it necessary to conduct the research because our remit is to advise ministers and we can only do that if we have all the data.”
While scientists say there is still no direct evidence that radioactive emissions caused outbreaks of cancer in nearby communities, the study will fuel concern that generations have been exposed to potentially lethal doses over many years.
Lyall’s description of events at the plant could prove to be crucial as pressure increases on politicians for answers to the latest concerns. In the picture that he paints, safety at Dounreay was eventually regarded by some managers as an obstacle, not a safeguard. He says he and his health physics department colleagues became increasingly resented: “We would sometimes be told to f*** off if we insisted on regulations being followed. Our role was just to advise. We could not enforce. It became very frustrating.”
The attitude of senior staff, he claims, resulted in acts of recklessness that were almost suicidal. In one incident two men ignored his advice and removed a faulty probe from a reprocessor without adequate protection. Both men later died of cancer while still in their forties “These two gentlemen were not only my colleagues but personal friends,” said Lyall. “I can’t say if the dose they got from this probe contributed to their deaths. But I have my own thoughts. This example is only the tip of the iceberg.”
Other disturbing practices included the routine disposal of high-level radioactive liquid waste down drains intended for low-level waste.
Lyall says managers would simply send it for disposal minus the paperwork. One instance, noted by Lyall in 1988, involved the disposal of 40 litres of highly radioactive glycol oil. Waste liquid went into effluent pits which were then flushed into the open sea — sometimes on an incoming tide.
The sampling machinery for testing the effluent before it could be released was a rusting hulk that had not worked for years, according to Lyall.
Workers were forced to use a tin can or a wellington boot to get samples for analysis. “It would have been laughable if it was not so serious,” he said.
Drums containing waste were so poorly labelled that after they had been dumped in radioactive pits it was often impossible to identify what they contained.
Lyall says that some management decisions left him open-mouthed in astonishment. A pit used for years as a dump for highly radioactive waste was turned into a temporary storage area for non-hazardous materials, which carried an inevitable risk of becoming contaminated.
Lyall even had a ring-side seat at the most dramatic incident at Dounreay. He was on duty on the night in 1977 when there was an explosion in a deep shaft that had been used to dump radioactive waste since 1959. The blast had blown the concrete plug out of the shaft like a cork from a bottle.
Lyall says he regularly complained to management and through the trade union officials about safety breaches, but action was rarely taken. On one occasion, when he refused to carry out a dangerous procedure that went against rules laid down by the government, he was charged with refusing to obey an order.
Lyall’s portrait of a culture of complacency helps to explain why Dounreay’s environmental record over the years has been so poor.
The UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA), Dounreay’s operator, has already admitted that hundreds of thousands of radioactive metal fragments have been flushed into the sea. Each the size of a grain of sand, they were often the debris left from the milling of fuel rods. They include fragments of plutonium, uranium, cobalt-60, caesium-137 and strontium-90.
Some have ended up two miles west of Dounreay on Sandside Bay, one of the most beautiful beaches in the far north of Scotland.
Since 1997, 51 radioactive metal particles have been found on Sandside beach. In that time the beach has not been closed but locals and tourists have been warned away by signs telling of the dangers.
The question posed by Lyall is whether the warnings should have been issued 13 years earlier. He says he was a member of a survey team that found a highly radioactive particle on Sandside beach in 1984 — a find that should have led to immediate public warnings about the safety of the beach.
UKAEA has denied any knowledge of this find.
The potential dangers are extremely serious. “Hot” particles, if lodged in the body, can bombard living cells with radiation, triggering cancers. The owner of Sandside beach, Geoffrey Minter, used to walk his dogs there every day from when he bought the Sandside estate in 1990.
Every day, that is, until his spaniel and retriever both died of massive tumours. Now Minter is another doughty opponent of UKAEA and has already scored a number of legal victories against the authority in his fight to force it to clean up the beach.
In 1998, eight years after he retired, Lyall decided to act on the worries that had been nagging at him and raised his concerns with UKAEA managers. They gave him a hearing and acted on some of his observations, but dismissed others.
In 2000 he approached the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency (Sepa), which regulates Dounreay. In 2003 Sepa held an internal inquiry into its handling of Dounreay that highlighted a range of failings and led to a number of management changes. Last month Sepa submitted a report on Sandside to the procurator fiscal — an apparent sign of a tougher approach to Dounreay.
Sepa now seems contrite about its past record of scrutiny of Dounreay. “Our management team is aware of concerns about what has happened, or not happened, in the past and has taken significant steps in recent years to ensure there is robust regulation of Dounreay to protect the environment,” said a spokesman. “The publication of an independent report into our regulation of the site in 2003 led to a range of actions that were necessary to address previous failings.”
Anti-nuclear campaigners such as Lorraine Mann, from Scotland Against Nuclear Dumping, see Lyall’s testimony and the impending report about leukaemia clusters as a watershed in the long-running Dounreay saga.
“Clearly there has been a cover up,” she said. “The level of complacency has been absolutely astonishing. Blatant lies have been told and someone needs to take this away from UKAEA’s influence.”
Trade unions, too, believe that the time has come for some clarity and honesty from the Dounreay management so that risks to workers past and present can be fully appreciated.
“We’re always concerned that employers put pressure on employees to take short cuts,” said John Rowse, T&G national secretary for the nuclear industry. “In the past there was a culture of denial in the industry.”
However, the real pressure on UKAEA is likely to be felt in the House of Commons. Iain Duncan Smith, the former Conservative leader who recently put down a series of parliamentary questions about contamination at Dounreay, has demanded a ministerial inquiry.
He became involved through Minter of Sandside, who is an old family friend. “These are sensational allegations and raise grave and far-reaching questions about the management of the Dounreay plant over the past 30 years,” said Duncan Smith yesterday.
“If this has been going on at Dounreay, what has been happening at other nuclear establishments in the UK?” For its part, UKAEA concedes that safety standards at Dounreay were far less stringent in the past than they are today. Sandy McWhirter, Dounreay project manager, said that some practices from the past “could be considered reckless if not culpable today”.
“By today’s standards some things could look a bit silly — but then again stacking up coal bings behind primary schools is something we did until the Aberfan disaster,” he said.
McWhirter describes Lyall’s criticisms as “one man’s perception of what was adequate” in the way of safety. Lyall, he said, is “a very enthusiastic fellow who had seen various things going on and in many cases had misinterpreted them”.
Lyall is not going to be fobbed off as some kind of naive and deluded enthusiast. He was a man who took pride in his work and will not see his dedication slighted.
“I could have gone for promotion but I didn’t,” he said, over a coffee and some egg sandwiches made by his wife. “If I’d gone over to that side it would have suited them fine. But I was a rebel. I decided to carry on doing my job and do it to the best of my ability.
“This contamination is a legacy being left for my children’s children. It is an absolute disaster. They are talking about prosecuting these people — they deserve execution, not prosecution. This was people’s lives they were playing with. They were acting like nuclear cowboys.”
Early 1950s: Ministers decide to build new reactors to more efficiently use scarce metal uranium resource and its by-product, plutonium. Dounreay, in Caithness, is chosen as the ideal site due to its remote coastal location and the availability of sea water to cool the turbine.
1955: The United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) begins construction of the nuclear power plant in Dounreay.
1958: First reactor, the material test reactor, is switched on.
1959: Second reactor, the fast reactor, is switched on. The Scottish Office authorises 200ft shaft for the disposal of intermediate level waste.
1966: Ministers announce prototype fast nuclear reactor, hailed as the “system of the next century” to be built. It is switched on in 1974.
1977: The disposal shaft containing cocktail of nuclear detritus explodes. First fast reactor shut down, having been plagued by leaks.
1983: First radioactive particles found on Dounreay foreshore.
1984: UKAEA announces the discovery of a radioactive particle on Sandside beach. It measured 100 times more radioactive than any so far detected. No public announcement was made.
1988: Cecil Parkinson, the secretary of state for energy, announces end of fast reactor programme and closure of Dounreay.
1994: The prototype fast reactor is closed.
1996: All reprocessing work ceases after a leak is discovered in the main dissolver.
1997: A one-mile fishing exclusion zone imposed amid fears radioactive particles could enter human food chain.
1998: An audit by Sepa and the Health and Safety executive criticises safety procedures and a lack of investment in training.
1999: Five particles found.
2000: UKAEA fined £100,000 after three workers found to have suffered plutonium overdoses. Six radioactive particles found.
2001: Brian Wilson, the energy minister, announces no further reprocessing at Dounreay, enabling full decommission of the site. Three particles detected.
2002: UKAEA admits to The Sunday Times that “several hundreds of thousands of particles” have leaked into the environment since the 1970s. Five particles are found.
2003: UKAEA admits ground water pollution from the shaft. Sepa officials serve an enforcement notice demanding Dounreay monitors wildlife amid concerns rabbits could spread radioactive contamination. Twenty-three “hot” particles found.
2004: Sepa submits dossier to procurator fiscal outlining how and why radioactive particles have been released into the environment. Five particles found.
2005: Fiscal’s decision whether or not to prosecute UKAEA not yet made. It is expected to be 2036 before the site is cleaned of all nuclear material and can be redeveloped.
[and end - 2005 Times Newspapers Ltd - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/4yxeo]
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any copyrighted work in this message is distributed by the Foreign Press
Foundation under fair use, without profit or payment, to those who have
expressed a prior interest in receiving the information.
Url.: http://liimirror.warwick.ac.uk/uscode/17/107.html
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