BBC News report on the Radium contamination at RAF Kinloss

This BBC Scotland news report on the radium contamiantion at RAF Kinloss which highlights the need to ensure records are kept to ensure future questions about contamination can be answered.
 

The report was in part supported by the work of Milcon Research and Consulting

Radium contamination at RAF Kinloss

The recent  BBC report on radium contamination at RAF Kinloss was supported in part by research from Milcon Research and Consulting

In the report the MOD says "The MoD is committed to assessing land quality across the entire defence estate" this does nothing to address the issue of land that is no longer in MOD ownership. eg Dalgety Bay etc.

MOD is also quoted in the report as saying “This robust, proactive programme mirrors industry best practice,” whilst MOD is a member of Safegrounds  which promotes “Good practice guidance for the management of contaminated land on nuclear and defence sites”.  

I believe that MODs’ compliance with Safe Grounds “best practice” should be subject to independent audit and verification.

BBC Radio 4 - Face the Facts Radioactive Legacy

Milcon Research and Consulting is  a key contributor to the recently broadcast  BBC programme on  radium contaminated land. The contribution from Milcon Research and Consulting was based on information in the public domain and responses to FOI requests.




BBC reports :-
"A pretty town on the Fife coast remains under threat of an unwelcome distinction. A corner of Dalgety Bay could still become the first place in Britain to be branded as radioactive contaminated land if the Ministry of Defence does not follow through on a plan to deal with radioactive particles washing up on its shore. The MOD's accused of causing the contamination in the first place: aircraft containing potentially hazardous radium were smashed up and buried after the Second World War. The MOD's investigating the scale of the problem and ways it might be put right, but has not promised a full and final clean-up of the bay. That's despite calls for it to do so from the local MP and former Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, and a recent discovery of particles far more radioactive than those previously found. Yet Face the Facts reveals how the MOD has cleaned up other sites deemed far less radioactive; how it's sold off contaminated land for development with radium undetected; how a lack of records means it does not know where similar sites might be and how a confidential government report we've seen from the 1950s warned of the danger of radium dumps being forgotten or, in the case of privately-owned land, deliberately concealed."
Presenter: John Waite
Producer: Jon Douglas

Link to the programme web site

Related Milcon R&C blog posts


Dalgety Bay


Hilsea Lines


Pulham


Chatham 


Failure to provide accurate information in response to FOI requests