§ Mr. Peter Bruinvelsasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will publish the results of the environmental monitoring undertaken by his Department following the recent incident at Sellafield; and if he will make a statement.
§ Mr. MacGregorImmediately on being notified of the incident, scientists in my Department initiated a special monitoring programme covering both marine and agricultural sectors. A report on their findings has now been completed and I have placed copies in the Library of the House.
228WThe monitoring programme showed that the level of contamination arising from the incident through the marine routes back to man which are significant in the case of routine discharges gives no cause for concern. In particular:
- (a) Monitoring results for fish were consistent with what might have been expected before the incident.. any additional exposure from consumption of fish being negligible;
- (b) for shellfish only mussels taken relatively close to the pipeline have shown significantly higher levels of radioactivity than normal and the highest level recorded soon after the incident has not been repeated. Even with these levels and based on consumption of 20 g d-1 of mussels maintained for a year, the additional dose has been calculated to be 1.7 per cent. of the ICRP limit. The radiological consequences of the incident in respect of all shellfish consumption are therefore considered to be negligible;
- (c) Measurements of beta activity on fishing gear did not differ significantly from those recorded before the incident and the dose to local fishermen from this route remains a very small percentage of the ICRP limit;
- (d) In most locations gamma dose rates from the beach were not significantly higher than would be expected and even where higher levels were found closes remained a very small percentage of the ICRP limit.
It is expected that the increases which were found in activity relevant to these routes will decline back to levels indistinguishable from the normal range in a matter of weeks.
Exposure through agricultural routes has been found to be insignificant.
One aspect of the localised hot-spot contamination associated with shoreline debris remains of concern. This is that in the unlikely event of people handling heavily contaminated debris, they could receive a skin contact dose. For this reason it is considered prudent that the public should continue to avoid unnecessary use of the beaches and, in particular, to refrain from handling debris. No trend has been identified from successive surveys of beachline stranded material undertaken since the incident which would enable a prediction to be made of when all advice on restricting the use of the beaches could be withdrawn.