Submarines search for radioactive material dumped off the Scottish coast
in the 1980s
full story:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/may/25/pollution.conservation
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/may/25/pollution.conservatio\
n>

snips…(bolding mine)

Although the UKAEA kept no precise accounts for building and running
Dounreay, it is known to have cost several billion pounds.

“We built the first fast breeder reactor to generate electricity
for a national grid”.
For 40 years, test reactors �" part of Britain’s fast
breeder reactor construction programme �" operated there but the
technology turned out to be messy. Fast breeders use liquid metal
coolants and their contaminated remnants still await removal. “At
the time, engineers were only interested in building reactors. No one
thought how we might dismantle them,”

The UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA), owners of Dounreay, was
eventually fined 140,000 pounds at Wick Sheriff Court last year for
‘very grave errors’ that led to the beach’s
contamination. The authority’s safety director, Dr John Crofts,
admitted the release represented “an unacceptable legacy.”

Two kilometres of beach outside the Dounreay nuclear plant have been
closed since 1983, and fishing banned, when it was found old fuel rod
fragments were being accidentally pumped into the sea.



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