§ Viscount Hanworthasked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether the beaches near Dounreay were closed immediately after the explosion from the nuclear waste pit; and to what extent the public and young children are likely to have been affected.
§ The Minister of State, Scottish Office (Lord Fraser of Carmyllie)The beaches near Dounreay were not closed to the public immediately after the explosion in the intermediate level waste disposal shaft in 1977. In their joint report of May 1995 (a copy of which has been placed in the Library) the Committee on Medical Aspects of Radiation in the Environment (COMARE) and the Radioactive Waste Management Advisory Committee (RWMAC) indicate that the 1977 explosion was the probable source of radioactive metallic particles58WA found in the vicinity of the Dounreay Nuclear Establishment, though investigations by the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) and Her Majesty's Industrial Pollution Inspectorate (HMIPI) are continuing. Since 1977, as a result of monitoring, only one radioactive metallic particle has been found on the public beach at Sandside Bay in 1984 and a number of radioactive metallic particles on the Dounreay site and the Dounreay foreshore, to which the public does not have ready access. COMARE concluded in the recent joint report that the chance of an individual member of the public encountering the particles was extremely small. Because of the very low probability of encountering such particles, COMARE was of the opinion, based on the evidence currently available, that while the most active particles could cause acute effects, the metallic particles are most unlikely to explain the observed excess of childhood leukaemia in the Dounreay area.