Winter storms will have increased sea to land transfer of radioactivity, advises report
Tim Deere-Jones, marine radioactivity consultant, has advised in a News Briefing released 29th January 2014 that: “This winter’s extreme weather will have had a major influence on the behaviour and fate of the radioactive wastes discharged to sea from UK nuclear sites.
Radioactive material discharged to UK coastal waters from nuclear power stations, nuclear fuel factories and re-processors, military sites and industrial sites will have been re-mobilised, made available for re-transport through the marine environment, and transferred across surf lines to contaminate coastal zone environments. As a result UK island, peninsular and coastal zone terrestrial populations will have been exposed to additional doses of radioactivity.
In the absence of any official monitoring or study of the mechanisms or magnitude of this phenomenon, the doses received by those populations will remain un-quantified and the facts of the case un-recorded.
However there is good reason to suspect that, in some cases, those doses will be of some significance to the health and well being of island, peninsular and coastal zone populations. Independent research has proved conclusively that sea to land transfer does occur and that marine radioactivity can have a significant impact on terrestrial food diets as a result of sea to land transfer mechanisms.
Since it is shown that the sea to land transfer of radioactivity can have such a detectable impact on terrestrial foodstuffs up to 10 miles inland and up to 200kms distant from the point source of discharge, it must be highly likely that the mechanism is also leading to doses by inhalation and skin contact.
Source: News Briefing published by Tim Deere-Jones, 29th January 2014. Full text of the News Briefing.
Note: Tim Deere-Jones has over 30 years experience as a freelance marine pollution consultant for campaigning Green Groups, Citizens Groups and NGOs in UK, Ireland, Europe, the USA and Australasia. He has represented the Nuclear Free Local Authorities of UK and Northern Ireland, Greenpeace International, Greenpeace Australia and others on marine radioactivity issues since the 1980s.
