The Scotsman, 1 gennaio 2001
Warnings on dumping of nuclear waste were ignored
http://www.thescotsman.co.uk/index.cfm?id=36103
Gerard Burke

BRITAIN dumped up to 60 tonnes of highly radioactive waste into the Atlantic Ocean despite warnings that the containers would burst open because of the pressure at the bottom of the sea.

Secret files made public at the National Archives of Scotland today reveal that scientists warned that the pollution generated by the leaking consignment from Rosyth Naval Dockyard in Fife, would be spread by the currents surrounding Britain’s shores.

After taking advice from various government departments, Scottish Office officials ignored the warnings, claiming the amount was less than that routinely discharged by active nuclear submarines. The decision was today criticised by environmental campaigners who said the impact of such pollution was only now being realised.

At the time officials at the Ministry of Agriculture Fisheries and Food, pointed out 1970 was designated a Year of Conservation and that Harold Wilson’s Labour government could be damaged if news of the dumping operation leaked out before the general election of June that year.

The three containers of radioactive resin beads left over from the refit of nuclear submarines at Rosyth were included in a batch of more than 2,000 other barrels of nuclear waste to be dumped in 1970.

It was part of a batch of 1,675 tonnes of nuclear waste from various military sites around Britain and the Atomic Energy Authority’s research facility at Harwell. All had been packaged in specially strengthened steel drums lined with concrete that scientists believed would keep the contents secure for hundreds of years.

However, three tanks each containing ten cubic feet of tiny radioactive beads from Rosyth were causing concern.

The records show the tanks were only able to withstand up to 1,000 fathoms. But the dump site, a deep trench in the Atlantic, was 1,500 fathoms deep.

The resin beads had been used in an ion exchange plant on board one of the country’s nuclear submarines which purified the water used to cool the reactor which powered the craft. The beads were contaminated with large amounts of the deadly Cobalt 60 isotope and smaller amounts of Manganese 54.

When the submarines they had been used in were being refitted, the beads were pumped out into the tanks at the dockyard into containers. By the time scientists realised they could not keep the waste secure in deep water it was too late to attempt to transfer the beads to secure containers.

Officials at the Ministry of Defence, however, said that nuclear submarines on the course of a normal mission would discharge even more of the resin beads into the ocean than the quantity to be shipped from Rosyth.

The tanks were eventually shipped from Rosyth to Newhaven, and dumped in a deep trench in the Atlantic off the Scottish coast. The records note they were due to leave Rosyth on 26 June, 1970.

The tanks were carried in special cradles on the deck of the MV Topaz, which had been leased from William Robertson Ltd, a shipping company in Glasgow and thrown into the sea above the trench.

Britain dumped more than 2,000 containers, holding 1,675 tonnes of radioactive waste, during 1970. The trench in the Atlantic was the country’s usual dumping ground and similar operations to dispose of nuclear waste had also been approved in 1965, 1966 and 1968.

News of the decision to dump the resin beads despite concerns about their containers provoked anger from environmental campaigners.

Pete Roche, nuclear spokesman for Greenpeace, said: "It is totally irresponsible to dump waste like this at sea and even worse to do it in containers they knew were going to burst.

"We are only now beginning to realise that, far from being a desert, the ecosystem of the deep ocean is as fragile and diverse as the rainforests. Who knows what damage this could have done, what unknown species may have been decimated by this.

"Organisms at this depth have a much longer life cycle than those nearer the surface so the consequences of any impact on their environment are magnified."