A greenpeace spokesperson says radioactivity "isn't a threat to health" and
they "don't want to alarm people".
I think that greenpeace spokesperson is going to be looking for a job, soon!
-----Original Message-----
From: Sandy Perle [mailto:sandyfl@EARTHLINK.NET]
Sent: Wednesday, 25 June 2003 4:25 AM
To: nuclear news list
Subject: ANALYSIS - EC may force British nuclear reactor shutdowns
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Nuclear waste found in UK salmon -Greenpeace
<snip>
"We don't want to alarm people. This isn't a threat to health but it
shouldn't be there," said Jean McSorley, a spokeswoman for
Greenpeace, which commissioned the research.
David Santillo, senior scientist at Greenpeace, said the finding was
significant because the salmon was farmed in Scotland, several
hundred miles north of Sellafield, and would often have been fed fish
from the south Atlantic and Pacific oceans, not from the Irish Sea.
Previous research has found traces of technetium-99 in lobsters and
other shellfish in the North and Irish seas.
"We were surprised to find it, to be honest. But it's certainly
there," Santillo said. "It's getting there via a pathway that we
don't fully understand at this point."
Santillo said the isotope could only have come from Sellafield. "This
(Sellafield) is the only source of T-99 in that part of the world."
Technetium-99 produced at Sellafield is stored in tanks and regularly
dumped in the Irish Sea, said a spokeswoman for the Department for
the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
Sellafield is allowed to release 90 terabecquerels (TBq) of
technetium-99 into the Irish Sea a year but will have to cut this to
10 TBq by 2006.
Britain's food watchdog, the Food Standards Agency (FSA), said it was
not worried by the report.
"Even at the maximum concentrations found by Greenpeace, a person
would have to eat 700 portions of salmon a day for a year to reach
the annual permitted European Union radiation dose," said the FSA's
director of food safety, Dr Andrew Wadge
"This means consumers have no need to be alarmed. Low levels of
technetium-99 are found routinely in lobster, shellfish and other
fish from waters around Sellafield.
"We have been conducting our own survey into levels in salmon and our
initial results show there is no cause for concern."
Earlier this month Ireland launched a fresh bid to force Britain to
shut down Sellafield by taking its concerns about pollution from the
plant to an international arbitration tribunal in the Hague.
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