HC Deb 23 November 1995 vol 267 c266W
Mr. Llew Smith

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will list all coastal or sea disposal sites used for the dumping of(a) surplus chemical weapons, (b) chemical weapons recovered from enemy forces, (c) surplus conventional explosives, (d) toxic wastes and (e) radioactive waste since 1965; and what quantity of the waste materials of each category is dumped at each site. [1581]

Mr. Soames

Complete records of MoD sea dumping operations undertaken are no longer available. Accordingly, it is not possible to identify the total tonnages or precise nature of defence-related materials or waste products disposed of by this means. Records show that sea dumping of chemical weapons ended in 1957. Beaufort's dyke was the Departments's main conventional munitions disposal site in the north channel, where over 1 million tonnes of munitions were dumped between 1945 and 1973. An emergency MoD disposal took place in 1976 involving two cases of heavily corroded 40mm shells. Hurd Deep, situated in the English channel some 50 miles south of Prawle Point near Plymouth was also a conventional weapon dump site but no complete record appears to have survived of dumping operations at this site after the immediate post-war period until its use was discontinued in 1973. Between 1973 and 1985, up to 2,000 tonnes of conventional munitions were disposed of annually at the deep water dump site situated approximately 400 miles south-west of Lands End, off the continental shelf. From 1985 until October 1992, when the sea dumping of munitions was terminated, the annual disposals were as follows: 904 tonnes; 1,882 tonnes, 1,565 tonnes; 3,244 tonnes; 1,544 tonnes; 1,775 tonnes; 1,093 tonnes and 8,764 tonnes. There are a number of other explosive dumping grounds charted in British waters but these were not routinely used. Details of the UK's sea disposal programme for low and intermediate level radioactive wastes, including wastes generated by MoD establishments, are contained in a report commissioned by the Department of the Environment, "Report of the Independent Review of Disposal of Radioactive Waste in the Northeast Atlantic", published in November 1984.