Radioactive particles found on Fife beach after major clean up

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

The Ministry of Defence announced last Autumn that 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.

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% of the radiation could be removed.

“The particles are within the expected range of activity in terms of radioactivity,” she added. “The remediation itself, because of the tidal environment, we couldn’t guarantee that all the contamination was taken away.”

She 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,” 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.”

Councillors were told that Balfour Beatty is currently handling verification and monitoring of radiation levels, but 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 it 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.