Filed for The Guardian, 01 August 1993
Uranium contamination in excess of safety limits has been caused by a series of misfired shells on two military testing ranges in England and Scotland, according to internal Ministry of Defence reports.
But official monitoring has been “insufficiently comprehensive” to determine whether there is a hazard to the environment around the firing range at Kircudbright on the Solway Firth. And at the other range - Eskmeals in Cumbria - serious contamination has been discovered outside the controlled area.
MoD monitoring reports, all marked confidential, were placed in the House of Commons library last week in response to questions from MPs. They appear to contradict the Ministry’s repeated assurances over recent months that there has been no problem with the use of uranium-tipped shells.
Depleted uranium was used in shells fired during the Gulf War and has been linked to a mysterious illness suffered by thousands of veterans known as Desert Storm syndrome. Local communities around Kirkcudbright and Eskmeals, where thousands of uranium rounds have been test-fired since 1982, have expressed health fears.
Depleted uranium is mildly radioactive and a known cause of cancer. It is a chemically toxic heavy metal which concentrates in the bone and can damage the immune system. It is used to tip armour-piercing shells because it is very hard and cheaply available as a waste product from the nuclear industry.
Surveys carried out by the Aldermaston Atomic Weapons Establishment in 1989 and 1990 at the Kirkcudbright firing range found levels of uranium in grass and soil “well above acceptable limits” after a “malfunction” at a firing point. An area covering several square metres had to be cleaned up.
Aldermaston also discovered widespread contamination of grass, soil and rabbit droppings at Kirkcudbright due to another misfiring in 1985. As recently as March this year concern was being expressed within the MoD’s Test and Evaluation Establishment at Farnborough about the “discrepancies” caused by a series of misfirings at Kirkcudbright last year.
“The main conclusion drawn is that the sampling programme at present is insufficiently comprehensive to fully determine the effect of depleted uranium firing on the local environment around Kirkcudbright,” reported Aldermaston in 1987.
Another Aldermaston survey covering Eskmeals in 1990 revealed that levels of contamination found outside the controlled area near buildings were “of some concern since they are in some cases above the level at which it would be prudent to consider remedial action.”
Labour MEP for the South of Scotland, Alex Smith, was outraged that the MoD had only released these documents after Parliament had gone into recess for the summer. “They reveal that there has been particular contamination at Kirkudbright and Eskmeals which flies in the face of previous assurances given by the Ministry,” he said.
A spokesman for the Ministry of Defence declined to comment on the contents of the documents but pointed out that the MoD had recently begun a full environmental impact assessment of its activities at Kirkcudbright and Eskmeals.
He admitted that there had been occasional misfirings but stressed that strict guidelines ensured that there was no risk to soldiers or the public. “There is no evidence at all to suggest that there is any reason to be concerned in any way,” he said.