From Sir John Knill
Your article on Dounreay and the radiation risk to wave engineers oversimplifies the views of the Radioactive Waste Management Advisory Committee by stating that the radioactive metallic particles which have recently been found within the Dounreay site “originated from an explosion in a waste shaft in 1977” (This Week, 12 August).
The RWMAC was asked to report on the origin of the particles found on the beach outside the Dounreay site. It appeared to the committee that the 1977 explosion was the most likely mechanism that could have transported enough particles onto the cliffs to create a “reservoir” which then supplied the beach for the past dozen years.
The committee did not address the contamination within the site, which has been more fully identified since the report’s publication, as this could not so readily feed particles onto the beach. However, the report does detail a number of processes within the site, other than the explosion, which could have released particles in the past, including spillage during transportation.
The report states that “very occasional small spills of material while en route to the shaft, or accidental spillage around the top of the shaft while emplacement was under way” might have occurred. It now appears that these did take place, so there is probably more than one source of the particles found within, and outside, the Dounreay site.
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