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<p>Dumping of radioactive waste (before being banned under the London Convention of
1972 for highly contaminated and in 1993 for low contaminated waste) was subject to
approval by the MAFF Approval Committee, whose procedures included careful checks
on the containment and transport of the waste. Both the Hurd Deep and Atlantic Deep
sites have been subject to monitoring.</p><p> </p><p><strong>Hurd Deep:</strong></p><p>
</p><p>From 1946 to 1993, the UK disposed of amounts of both civilian and radioactive
waste at sea, in accordance with national policy and legislation, and with later international
agreements regulating such disposals. These disposals were seen at the time as routine
and uncontroversial.</p><p> </p><p>The total estimated activities in curies (TBq)
for these dumpings were: Alpha activity, 400 curies (14.8 TBq); Beta-Gamma activity,
1,200 curies (44.4 TBq). The very low active waste (mainly sludges) dumped into the
Hurd Deep was packed in approved light metal drums to permit rapid dispersion of the
contents. The UK regularly monitors the Channel Island States and report the results
in the annually produced RIFE (Radioactivity in Food and the Environment) report series.
These reports can be found here:</p><p><a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/radioactivity-in-food-and-the-environment-rife-reports"
target="_blank">https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/radioactivity-in-food-and-the-environment-rife-reports</a></p><p>
</p><p>In addition, Cefas and the Food Standards Agency have jointly published a peer
reviewed paper (MARINE RADIOACTIVITY IN THE CHANNEL ISLANDS, 1990 – 2009) which looked
further at time trends over around 20 years. UK monitoring shows that there is no
evidence for significant releases of radioactivity from the Hurd Deep site and the
effects of discharges from local sources have continued to be of negligible radiological
significance.</p><p> </p><p><strong>North Atlantic Dump site:</strong></p><p> </p><p>The
Nuclear Energy Agency’s (NEA) surveillance of the North-East Atlantic dump site used
by OECD/NEA member countries (including the UK) started in 1977 and ended in 1995.
In 1985, the OECD/NEA Co-ordinated Research and Environmental Surveillance Programme
(CRESP) delivered a report on the dump site. The report concluded that the North-East
Atlantic dump site posed negligible human radiological risk although the report noted
that in the absence of baseline data on the benthic biology, it was difficult to draw
firm conclusions about the environmental impacts. A new report on the dump site conducted
by CRESP in 1996 reached the same conclusions.</p><p> </p><p>A summary of the “Historic
Dumping of Low-Level Radioactive Waste in the North-East Atlantic” was recently compiled
by the Radioactive Substances Committee of OSPAR. OSPAR’s document can be found here:</p><p><a
href="https://www.ospar.org/site/assets/files/1173/factsheet_historic_dumping_final.pdf"
target="_blank">https://www.ospar.org/site/assets/files/1173/factsheet_historic_dumping_final.pdf</a></p><p>
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