RADIOACTIVE particles are still being found at a Scottish bay a year after clean up efforts ended, the environment watchdog has said.
The issue at Dalgety Bay, in Fife, originates from radium contamination left behind after the disposal of military equipment from the Second World War.
Removal of radioactive materials from beaches in the town – thought to be Scotland’s worst area of radioactive pollution – began in November 2020, some 30 years after they were first discovered.
The Ministry of Defence announced last autumn that a multi-million pound radiation clean-up was completed, and after some delays, the fences around the bay were taken down.
However, the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) has said that radioactive materials are still being found.
SEPA did emphasise that the particles were to be “expected” and said there was never a guarantee that 100% of the radiation could be removed.
“[The particles] are within the expected range of activity in terms of radioactivity,” the SEPA spokesperson told the South West Fife area committee.
“The remediation itself, because of the tidal environment, we couldn’t guarantee that all the contamination was taken away.”
She added: “There’s still some [radioactive particles] in the marine environment and we were expecting some to come back in and be deposited on the shore.”
Private contractor Balfour Beatty has handled the clean-up of Dalgety Bay’s formerly radioactive foreshore on behalf of defence chiefs since remediation began in, and they have been leading monitoring and verification efforts over the past year.
The spokesperson for SEPA said that it was always expected that radioactive particles would wash back into the shore with the tide during the first year.
“The verification monitoring is proving that point. The first year we were expecting more particles to wash up, and hopefully that will decline,” she said.
“At the moment, we haven’t quite looked at the trends, but that’s something we’ll do at the end of year two just to see that it’s as expected.”
Local councillors were told that Balfour Beatty is currently handling verification and monitoring of radiation levels, but SEPA will eventually take over these tasks once they deem the paperwork and processes are completed. When that happens, SEPA will take over the responsibility for monitoring and will decide how often monitoring should be done.
Councillors were also told that signage will remain in place for one more year.
Another update will come back to the area committee in six months time.
