§ Mr. FlynnTo ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what has been Her Majesty's Government's contribution to date to the EC project Marina on the radiation effects of nuclear waste disposal in coastal waters, in each year since Marina was established; what have been the main findings of the project; and what are the comparative concentrations of radioactivity in waters surrounding the United Kingdom with the waters bordering the shores of each other EC country with a coastline.
§ Mr. CurryStaff from this Department provided data, advice and written contributions to technical reports and scientific papers between the start of the project in 1985 and its completion in 1989.
The project, which studies sources of radioactivity in north European waters, concluded that environmental monitoring data in the EC from nuclear site operators, governments and other resources was entirely adequate for demonstrating compliance with dose limits, that maximum individual doses from controlled sources were all within the dose limits recommended by the International Commission on Radiological Protection, and that population exposure rates due to discharges from civil nuclear sites were a factor of 1,000 less than those due to natural radioactivity.
22WThe range of concentration of caesium 137 activity in the Irish sea and the Baltic sea are similar, with concentrations off Scotland, in the North sea and in the English channel successively lower. Concentrations along the Atlantic coast and in the Mediterranean are at background levels.