Radioactive particles found on Scottish beach despite major £15 million clean up

Radioactive particles are still being found at a Fife town year after clean up efforts ended, it has been revealed.

The Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) said it was to be “expected” that some particles would wash up on shore in Dalgety Bay. The update was given to councillors at the South West Fife area committee held this week.

The Ministry of Defence announced in autumn last year the multi-million pound radiation clean-up was completed. And after some delays, fences around the bay were finally taken down, giving locals access to the beach for the first time in many years.

Dalgety Bay radiation clean-up has concluded (Pic: Lisa Ferguson)

Dalgety Bay had subsequently been declared "absolutely safe" at the time on the back of completion of the £15 million clean-up.

The 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.

Private contractor Balfour Beatty handled the clean-up of Dalgety Bay's foreshore on behalf of defence chiefs, and has been leading monitoring and verification efforts over the past year.

A Sepa spokesperson told councillors there was never a guarantee that 100 per cent of the radiation could be removed.

“The particles are within the expected range of activity in terms of radioactivity,” she said.

“The remediation itself, because of the tidal environment, we couldn’t guarantee that all the contamination was taken away.”

The spokesperson added: "There are still some radioactive particles in the marine environment and we were expecting some to come back in and be deposited on the shore.

"The verification monitoring is proving that point. The first year we were expecting more particles to wash up, and hopefully that will decline.

“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.”

Councillors were told Balfour Beatty was handling verification and monitoring of radiation levels.

However, Sepa will eventually take over these tasks once paperwork and processes are completed. When that happens, Sepa will take over the responsibility for monitoring and will decide how often the checks should be done.

Councillors were also told that signage would remain in place for one more year. Another update will come back to the area committee in six months’ time.

The area was once home to Donibristle military airfield, where a large number of planes were dismantled after the end of World War Two and the debris burned and buried.

Radium was used to coat instrument panels so they could be seen in the dark, but it is radioactive and toxic to human health, with a half life of 1,600 years.

Some particles found before the clean-up had been so highly radioactive they could be deadly if they got inside the body and “hot” enough to cause radiation burns on bare skin.

Much of the beach had been closed off since the radioactive material was found in the 1990s.