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Thursday, 12 November 2009 12:09 | Last Updated on Thursday, 12 November 2009 13:54 | Written by Administrator

THREE sites on the Clyde have been secretly earmarked by the MoD as possible dumps for radioactive waste from scrapped nuclear submarines – but Argyll and Bute MP Alan Reid is having none of it.
Decommissioned nuclear submarines are currently berthed at Rosyth and Devonport to allow the nuclear fuel to ‘cool off’ – but both sites are close to being full. A national repository for spent nuclear fuel will be opened in 2040, but a number of nuclear vessels are due to be laid up before then.
A study for the Ministry of Defence, carried out by government agency the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, has identified 12 UK sites it considers capable of storing the waste until 2040 – including five in Scotland.
Neither the MoD nor the authority would confirm reports in a Sunday newspaper that the Scottish sites are Coulport, Faslane and Hunterston on the Clyde, Rosyth in Fife and Dounreay in Caithness. A spokesman for the MoD said: “It would be inappropriate to release details of these sites at this time.”
However, the MoD has written to the MPs in whose constituencies the sites lie warning that targeted sites are within their shires, but without specifying where.
Argyll and Bute MP Alan Reid received such a letter and has tabled a Parliamentary Question to Defence Minister Bob Ainsworth asking him to name the sites on the secret list.
Mr Reid said: “Every community in Argyll and Bute is now worried that a site near them is on the secret list of sites being considered as a nuclear dump. The government must publish the list of sites. Publishing the list would set some people’s minds at rest.
“Coulport, Ardyne Point and Machrihanish have been considered in the recent past as possible sites for storing the radioactive waste from old submarines. I opposed all three vigorously when they were proposed and I will equally vigorously oppose any future proposals to use any site in Argyll and Bute for breaking up nuclear submarines or dumping the radioactive waste.”
Since Britain launched its first nuclear-powered submarine, HMS Dreadnought, in 1960, 15 of the vessels have been decommissioned.
Seven are currently moored at Rosyth, with the remaining eight at the Devonport naval base in Plymouth.
Storage space at the dockyards is limited, however, and a further 12 nuclear submarines are due to be retired before 2040.
Each vessel has a contaminated reactor compartment about the size of two double-decker buses.

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