Moray showdown on nuclear waste trips
Register for free to read more of the latest local news. It's easy and will only take a moment.
ANTI-NUCLEAR campaigners are holding a meeting this week to highlight the issue of planes landing at RAF Lossiemouth carrying radioactive material.
Three flights loaded with highly enriched uranium, which can be used on a nuclear warhead, have already touched down in Moray.
And campaigners anticipate that another dozen planes belonging to the American military will also use RAF Lossiemouth over the coming months.
The uranium has been stored for several years at the former Dounreay nuclear plant on the north coast of Scotland.
One of the speakers at Tuesday’s meeting will be Tor Justad, chairman of Highlands Against Nuclear Transport, who has monitored the goings on at Dounreay for the past four decades.
He said: "Any movement of nuclear material is creating a completely unnecessary risk.
"When we talk about the dangers of a nuclear accident we are not entering into the realms of fantasy. We are firmly fixed in reality – there have been several near misses over the years."
Mr Justad pointed to the events of October 2014, when a ship caught fire while transporting radioactive material stored at Dounreay back to a nuclear facility in Belgium.
Although its cargo remained secure, the MV Parida drifted at sea for 12 hours before a tow rope could be attached.
Mr Justad says the uranium now travelling through Moray was originally developed in Belarus.
It was transported to Dounreay several years ago due to political trouble in the Eastern European state, and fears within the UK and US governments that it could potentially fall into the hands of terrorists or criminals.
However, Barack Obama and David Cameron agreed last year that 1500lbs of the weapons-grade material should be sent on to America.
Despite a subsequent announcement that £8million would be spent on upgrading Wick Airport, its runway has been deemed 1000ft too short for a Boeing-C17 to take off safely when fully loaded with fuel.
Therefore, the US military planes are instead flying from Wick to Lossiemouth to refuel before crossing back over the Atlantic.
The agreement to transport the uranium ties in with UK government plans to clear all radioactive materials from the vast majority of the Dounreay site by the year 2029.
Although it was decommissioned as long ago as 1996, several different types of radioactive materials are currently kept under guard there.
These, says Mr Justad, can broadly be classed in three different categories, the first of which is the uranium.
Next are the radioactive by-products created at Dounreay during the years it was operational.
Referred to in the industry as ‘exotics’, these are now being regularly transported from Dounreay to an underground bunker at Sellafield in Cumbria, which is another former nuclear site.
Although details remain difficult to come by due to questions of security, campaigners estimate that one train a week is heading south carrying nuclear material.
The final category are radioactive materials created by reactors in several other countries across Western Europe.
These continue to be stored at Dounreay on a commercial basis, but are now gradually being returned to their host sites.
Mr Justad said: "Any sort of nuclear incident would be disastrous for tourism and agriculture in Northern Scotland, and probably sound the death knell for the fishing industry.
"If a thousandth of the money that was once poured into supporting the nuclear industry had been invested in research into renewables, then we would be much further along today.
"Sadly, it’s years too late to address that issue, but we can at least act responsibly now. All the material should be kept at Dounreay."
The MSP John Finnie is also due to speak at this week’s meeting in Moray.
Talking in advance yesterday, he said: "My position and that of the Green Party is that nuclear materials should not be moved.
"No matter how unlikely the risk, the catastrophic consequences of something happening trump everything else."
The meeting will be held on Tuesday in East Whins House at the Findhorn Foundation, starting 7.30pm.
