Suspected Postwar Radioactive Contamination
Post WW2, Kinloss was used as one of the sites to break-up the excess of aircraft that the RAF now had, and recover what ever was recyclable. The site was chosen due to its remote location, and hence easy access to potential landfill sites which would be undisturbed by the majority of the public. The aircraft broken up included various components which had carried chemical weapons (including Sulphur mustard), and were all painted with florescent paint containing radium to allow the planes to be more easily operated at night. On removal, these contaminated items were buried in landfill sites either on the base or close to it.
In 2004, with the development of a new water pipeline, a land quality assessment warned that sulphur mustard chemical weapons may be present within landfill and waste areas accessible to the public. The report stated that RAF Kinloss authorities believed there was a potential for chemical weapons agents and radiological contamination to be present in the ground:
| “ | Any personnel involved in the ground investigation have the potential to be at risk from these contaminants. There are a number of anomalies present on the investigation area the have not been investigated, and in some areas it was not possible to conduct the geophysical survey due to heavy gorse cover | ” |
However, no trace of chemical weapons agents was found during the land quality assessment, although material contaminated with radium was removed from land near the base in 2004.
After the 2004 documents became public in May 2012, it emerged that the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) was investigating radioactive contamination at the site linked to the use of "glow in the dark paint" in WW2 aircraft. Moray MP Angus Robertson and Dunfermline and West Fife MP Thomas Docherty are both making representations to the Defence Secretary, Philip Hammond.
Read more about this topic: RAF Kinloss
Famous quotes containing the words suspected and/or postwar:
“Every old woman with a wrinkled face, a furr’d brow, a hairy lip, a gobber tooth, a squint eye, a squeaking voice, or a scolding tongue ... a dog or cat by her side, is not only suspected but pronounced for a witch.”
—John Gaule (fl. 1640–1660)
“Fashions change, and with the new psychoanalytical perspective of the postwar period [WWII], child rearing became enshrined as the special responsibility of mothers ... any shortcoming in adult life was now seen as rooted in the failure of mothering during childhood.”
—Sylvia Ann Hewitt (20th century)