UK subs spring a leak - April 27, 2009
Channel 4 News has a good expose up today about repeated accidents involving radioactive material at the Faslane naval base in Scotland. According to documents obtained by Channel 4, radioactive coolant spilled into Gare Loch in Argyll and Bute three times over the past six years.
The incidents appear to have involved only low-level radioactive waste. In 2004, radioactive effluent "was discharged" from the nuclear submarine, HMS Trafalgar; in 2007, somebody left the wrong valve open on the HMS Superb; and in February of last year, a barge being used to handle radioactive effluent accidentally overflowed during servicing of HMS Torbay. In the latter two cases, the leaks released trace amounts of tritium that was probably too diluted to be much of a health risk. You can try to read a very badly reproduced copy of an internal MOD review of the incidents here.
Nevertheless, the incidents have infuriated the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency and other onlookers who are calling for tighter oversight at the base.
Image: Royal Navy
