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Dept for Environment Food and Rural Affairs

Answer

Andrew George: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what efforts her Department has made to monitor the (a) condition and (b) safety of the radioactive waste dumped approximately 250 miles out of Land's End during the 1960s and 1970s. [27192] Mr. Meacher: I have been asked to reply. Results obtained under the OECD's Co-ordinated Research and Environmental Surveillance Programme (CRESP) related to sea disposal of radioactive wastes have demonstrated that the radiological impacts on human and oceanic populations emanating from the north-east Atlantic dumpsites are exceedingly small compared to the natural background levels, and are likely to remain so. This view was reiterated in the OSPAR Convention's Quality Status Report 2000, copies of which are available in the Library of the House. CRESP reported that the peak critical group individual dose as a result of sea dumping of solid radioactive waste would be 0.00002 millisieverts per annum, compared with 2 millisieverts per annum derived from natural radionuclides. The critical group is the hypothetical group of individuals who are calculated to be most exposed to the source of radioactivity being assessed--in this case coastal consumers of very large quantities of fish, crustaceans and molluscs (approximately 220 kg/year of fish, 37 kg/year of crustaceans and 37 kg/year of molluscs). The peak doses were calculated to occur approximately 200 years after dumping, by which time some of the activity would have leached from the disposal site and dispersed through the ocean. The Government fund extensive environmental monitoring of the waters around the UK, and this has not detected any adverse effects which could be attributed to radioactivity from Atlantic disposal sites. The monitoring shows that doses to critical groups from man-made sources of radioactivity are very small, and considerably less than doses due to natural background levels of radioactivity. In view of this, we have no plans to undertake any direct monitoring of the north Atlantic disposal sites.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

27192; 379 c974-5W;379 c970W

Session

2001-02

Subjects

Coastal areas Cornwall Health hazards Radioactive waste Monitoring Radioactivity Safety Seas and oceans Atlantic Ocean Lands End

Contains statistics

Yes

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk