Radioactive Water
Tenacious journalism by Rob Edwards at The Ferret have exposed a shocking state of affairs at the Royal Navy’s armaments depot at Coulport on Loch Long where radioactive water from the base that holds the UK’s nuclear bombs was allowed to leak into the sea after old pipes repeatedly burst.
Read here: Loch polluted by radioactive waste from nuclear bomb plant.
The exposé has been made by a completely independent media outlet, reveals the secretive nature of the UK military, and some of the dire consequences of having nuclear weapons located in Scotland.
The revelations were published on The Ferret but also in the Guardian: Exclusive: Polluted water was released into loch near Glasgow because Royal Navy failed to maintain 1,500 water pipes, says watchdog.
The report by Rob Edwards and Severin Carrell notes: “Files compiled by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa), a government pollution watchdog, suggest that up to half the components at the base were beyond their design life when the leaks occurred.
Sepa said the flooding at Coulport was caused by “shortfalls in maintenance”, resulting in the release of “unnecessary radioactive waste” in the form of low levels of tritium, which is used in nuclear warheads.”
“In one report in 2022, the agency blamed the leaks on the navy’s repeated failure to maintain the equipment in the area devoted to storing the warheads, and said plans to replace 1,500 old pipes at risk of bursting were “sub-optimal”.
The leaks are revealed in a cache of confidential inspection reports and emails given to the investigative website the Ferret and shared with the Guardian, which Sepa and the Ministry of Defence fought to keep secret.”
The scandal reveals – once again – how ineffective SEPA is as a regulator, and how blase the MOD is in its treatment of public safety and environmental justice. The lack of transparency would not be tolerated in any other part of the UK. Here, secrecy and flagrant disregard for pubic safety are commonplace. That SEPA, whose jobs is literally to regulate environmental safety in Scotland suppressed this information for six years. They are not fit for purpose.
It will be interesting to see the Scottish Government and the UK government’s response to this. It will likely be nothing at all, but it’s worth considering both the media aspect of this, the regulatory aspect of this, and the constitutional aspect. Here we have nuclear weapons, situated in Scotland, over which we have no control, contaminating our lochs, and our media are largely silent on it. We have a regulatory body – SEPA – who rather than do their job and report this, conspire to suppress this situation.
It’s a shocking state of affairs, but run-of-the-mill for the British military in Scotland. We still have copies of our map ‘Scotland the Dump’ available from us for only £5. (A2 420×594) Pay £5 (including p&p) Pay by Paypal here.
Thanks Mike, worth the discussion. Quelle surprise – houdvethunkit. Scandaldland strikes again. Is there anything in the UK that actually works any longer? If what we’ve discovered is true and how likely is that, (if tritium has escaped, what else has that we’re not being told about?) ,then tritium escaping into Loch Long is the least of our problems. In fact, it would be the best thing if it every atom of tritium escaped into the Loch, and our/your thermonuclear bombs couldn’t be recharged and continue to function. It is a weak beta emitter and the amounts diluted in the waters will mean that it’s nearly as harmless as any radioactive pollution ever could be. It’s likely Aberdonians and crofters get more radioactive damage from radon from the stones and rocks than Loch Long fishermen will suffer. Just be thankful that for once it’s not human turds. But of course, it’s not the actual damage that’s the issue, it’s as we already understand, like Sellafield, like the Palace of Westminster itself, like UK society and its capitalist economy, its politics, its cohesion, its environment – just another symptom of a systematic and continued disintegration of the state itself that has lost control. .
The Valiant class submarines, which carry our so-called deterrent, are also beyond their design life. Do they leak? It’s a secret.