A Place to Stand

     One interesting thing about the Dalgety Bay radiation fraud is that, with the exception of the BBC, who push it relentlessly despite, or possibly because, they know SEPA's history of fraud here, the rest of the media are giving it minimal coverage.

    Unfortunately this also means they have the excuse to censor any factual reporting on the subject too. Thus, this letter I sent a few days ago to all and sundry appears to have gone unpublished.

It seems SEPA are now threatening to permanently close off the beach at Dalgety Bay in their empire building campaign to ramp up false fears about radioactivity. SEPA have previously been caught telling at least 2 major lies on the subject.
Firstly claiming, on the BBC, to have made studies of the radioactive materials and chemically proven them to be made of paint. Repeated FoI searches have proven that no such finding of paint particles has ever been made.
Secondly to have found "radium and its daughter elements" in the beach rock. In fact the "daughter element" that radium breaks down into is radon - a gas not a rock. The scientific illiteracy required to make such a silly claim is obvious.
The aforementioned FoI enquiries have brought to light the fact that their consultants did, years ago, tell them that "the highest reading recorded at Dalgety Bay was still less than 2/3rds that found in a typical Aberdeen street".

Everywhere has natural radiation. A square mile of earth at Dalgety Bay will contain 3 tonnes of uranium and 6 tonnes of thorium and 1 gram of natural radium because that is what every average square mile on the planet contains. By comparison the possible presence of less than a gram of water soluble paint, only a small fraction of which was actually radium, from the figures on the dials of a few aircraft 66 years ago is immeasurably small. Indeed SEPA have, despite their claims, been wholly unable to find any trace of it.

Beyond that there is no evidence whatsoever that radiation, up to well beyond the higher rates found in Aberdeenshire, causes any harm whatsoever, indeed the balance of scientific evidence strongly supports the view that such levels are beneficial to health. Though the sort of ignorant bureaucrats who do not know the "daughter element" of radium is a gas, have long pushed the theory radiation, even well below the naturally occurring level, being dangerous no honest scientist anywhere in the world agrees.

It is disgraceful that the local people are being frightened and may be permanently deprived of their beach to promote what anybody scientifically literate in SEPA must know to be a false, though newsworthy, scare.

Refs - Dalgety radiation less than 2/3rds background in Aberdeen http://a-place-to-stand.blogspot.com/2009/05/dalgety-bay-my-reply.html

- Radioactives in soil http://a-place-to-stand.blogspot.com/2009/05/radium-at-dalgety-bay-guest-article-on.html

- scientific illiteracy undenied by SEPA http://www.dunfermlinepress.com/news/roundup/articles/2009/06/11/388386

- SEPA threaten publicly funded legal action "reserve its position" if anybody says anything untrue about them http://a-place-to-stand.blogspot.com/2009/02/sepas-reaction.html so clearly they accept I haven't.
 
    The problem is that if the Armed Forces refuse to be browbeaten into paying Danegeld out of our limited Defence budget for what they must also know to be a deliberate fraud SEPA may well have painted themselves into the corner of having to permanently close off this beach and subject the entire area to "eco-scare blight". Indeed SEPA seem to be driving full tilt for that scenario.

"SEPA believes that the Ministry of Defence is responsible for the radioactive material present at Dalgety Bay, and as such Defence Infrastructure Organisation (DIO) is the responsible party in terms of remediation. SEPA will continue to work constructively and co-operatively with DIO, but as the regulator SEPA has a specific role under the Radioactive Contaminated Land Regulations (RCL) to assess the fitness of the proposals of the responsible party for the protection of the environment and human health."
If this does not happen, SEPA intends to designate the area as RCL by the end of March 2012.

  This is an effect of Scotland having a newspaper industry that is so very far from the perceived role of the press - to report what the powerful and particularly those in government are doing against our interests - and a broadcast media whose "news" exists purely to promote state propaganda, even when they specifically know it to be dishonest.

    This has happened before. After Chernobyl government inspectors inspected sheep farms and found a background radiation level comparable to what might be expected in an Aberdeen street. This was announced to be caused by Chernobyl and the farms were forbidden to sell the mutton until such time as the radiation decreased. Fairly quickly the radiation did decrease at Chernobyl because highly radioactive isotopes do burn out quickly - that is why they are highly radioactive thus in Chernobyl today radiation levels are "less than those of being in an aircraft flying at 30,000 ft". But the sheep farm radiation did not decline this steeply proving it simply could not be from Chernobyl and must be background radiation that has been there for many millions of years. But it is the nature of government that they do not admit error so some of these farmers are still being deprived.

   As with Fukushima, Chernobyl, Three Mile Island and virtually every other instance we find the anti-nuclear scare campaign has been orders of magnitude more damaging than any radiation release.

   To put the silence, implying consent, by the Scottish traditional media in its place, the always sensible online Register is, as always, sensible.

Radiation TERROR on Scottish beach! Except it's quite safe

...Well no, absolutely not: the so-called "contamination" which has been found at Dalgety Bay is insignificant as beach pollution goes. You would create a similar "hazard" by throwing a few thousand completely legal luminous watches into the sea there. You could keep the most radioactive "particle" yet found in your home forever in complete safety. ...

UPDATE Steuart Campbell has made this obvious point I had not thought of. 

What I wonder is what happened to all the radioactive dials of other WW2 aircraft. Surely Dalgety Bay was not the repository of all the UK's redundant aircraft.

Labels: Dalgety Bay, Hormesis, Scottish politics

// posted by neil craig @ 2:52 pm 2 comments

  This is a short version of my latest article, this time summarising the position of Dalgety Bay and taking a few sideswipes at the BBC & some at the no threshold radiation scare) on Brian Monteith's ThinkScotland site. Please put any comments on there.
-------------------------


Radiation scare stories? Aberdeen's more dangerous than Dalgety Bay
THE Scottish Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA) promised to blight the little town of Dalgety Bay by designating part of their beach as "radioactive waste" by the end of March.
I first ran across this scare story in Feb 2009 when the BBC morning programme gave SEPA a slot. (1)
In its influence on British public life the fact that the BBC daily promote new scare stories on the environment, health or how some part of the welfare state is about to collapse is probably the most damaging to the fabric of the nation.
They do censor and propagandise on political party lines. Otherwise the Green party couldn't get 40 times more coverage per vote (virtually all supportive) than UKIP do (unsupportively). They do lie, censor and proagandise to support hatred of whichever country we are preparing to bomb. Otherwise they could not have censored reporting of the dissection, while still alive of 1,800 people by our "police" in Kosovo (formerly the NATO armed KLA) while giving so much coverage to the "indictment" of Gadaffi for things literally not 1% as evil. But I suspect that, over the long term, the "eco" scare stories do more damage to the average citizen.
Have any of these thousands of scare stories subsequently been proven fully true? I am open to an example....

The report on Dalgety Bay was one such. The story on that programme was that certain aircraft were decommissioned there after the war; that they had dials painted with radium paint; and that this radium has contaminated the beach to a dangerous extent.
Listening to SEPA's spokesman speak it became clear that the amount of radiation they had detected was extraordinarily low and that they avoided the fact that low level radiation occurs naturally everywhere. Since it was a phone in I phoned in and suggested that this could indeed be simply the natural radiation. The SEPA spokesman replied that since they had chemically proven that these radioactive particles consisted of paint this had to be the cause and thereby won the debate.
However the claim to have proven that such microscopic particles of radiation consisted of paint seemed to me to be pushing the limits of science. Radioactives in tiny quantities can be detected by the radiation but molecular quantities of paint are a different matter. I wrote to SEPA asking for the published evidence of this.
They replied saying (A) that they had no duty to answer such questions and (B) threatening legal action if I persisted. I persisted, pointing out that, under the Freedom of Information Act they did indeed have such a duty. Across a period of over a year and repetitions of the query I was directed to many documents. Though SEPA never admitted the claim was a lie (and still don't) it became clear that no they had, in fact, never found the radioactive paint particles claimed.
Over the years the experts they hired had reached conclusions. The most spectacular being that "the highest reading recorded at Dalgety Bay was still less than 2/3rds that found in a typical Aberdeen street"....

So there is no actual threat and no evidence of dangerous radioactivity introduced by Man.
There is a vast amount of scaremongering about radiation. We all live with radiation every day. World average human radiation dosage is about 2.4 mSv per year but this varies from place to place. Aberdeen being about 50% above average. By comparison Kerala in India has a background rate of about 175 mSv without any visible harmful effect, indeed quite the opposite....
The science writer Steuart Campbell also wrote a guest blog (4) in which he pointed out that within the top foot of an average square mile of land there is 9 tonnes of naturally occurring uranium and thorium and because of the breakdown of these, 1 gram of radium. He also pointed out that these radium dials existed on all the 100s of thousands of wartime night bombers.
My findings about SEPA's claims were reported by the Dunfermline, Dundee and Aberdeen Press (5) but not by papers from Glasgow or Edinburgh, who presumably consider Dalgety too remote to be worth questioning coverage. Obviously the BBC refused to broadcast anything balancing their earlier reports despite knowing they were, at least in part, false....
According to one report SEPA paid for "the highest reading recorded at Dalgety Bay was still less than 2/3rds that found in a typical Aberdeen street." There should be a thorough, independent and public investigation into the entire expensive organisation....
I also asked them under further FoI's how many aircraft were destroyed, how much paint there was on each of them and what weight of radium that would amount to but it turned out they not only had no slightest idea but they had not even asked the MoD for such specific and very basic information.
Nonetheless, on their behalf I have an estimate, assuming not more than 20 planes were broken up and knowing what proportion of paint is pigment. Since the paint is water soluble is probable that most of it would be long gone after 60 years but the original amount of radium could not reasonably have been more than 1/4 of a gram - i.e. 1/4 of the naturally occurring radium and 1/36 billionth of all the radioactive material. (6)
SEPA have to date chosen not to dispute this estimate...
SEPA are now threatening that, within a few days, if the MoD does not come up with an expensive plan to remove the "radium" they will declare the land "radioactive contamination". There is allegedly no requirement for them to produce any evidence of this, nor any appeal against this decision....

The main broadcaster has not merely been complicit in maintaining a story they know to be, at least in part, false but have been, in recent months, the most enthusiastic promoter of SEPA's story....

The good news is that in March SEPA backed off from their promise to designate the land as radioactive waste. Not permanently - because the situation is "more complicated than initially believed". They and the MoD will put off their confrontation until then....



(1) Blog on the day about the programme http://a-place-to-stand.blogspot.com/2009/02/scotlands-secret-radioactive-sites.html

(2) SEPA's own Assessments http://a-place-to-stand.blogspot.com/2009/05/dalgety-bay-my-reply.html

(3) LNT disproven. "Impacts of low dose radiation" http://www.healthcanal.com/public-health-safety/24865-New-Take-Impacts-Low-Dose-Radiation.html

(4) Steurt Campbell's article on the science http://a-place-to-stand.blogspot.com/2009/05/radium-at-dalgety-bay-guest-article-on.html

(5) Dundee Courier article http://a-place-to-stand.blogspot.com/2009/05/dundee-courier-does-article-on-dalgety.html , P and J letter http://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/Article.aspx/1234845, Dunfermline Press article http://www.dunfermlinepress.com/news/roundup/articles/2009/06/11/388386#comments

(6) New ban http://news.stv.tv/uk/98998-ban-on-gathering-seafood-from-beach-where-radioactive-particles-found/

I also have an article to come on SEPA's response to my last FoI

Labels: Dalgety Bay, Scottish politics, ThinkScotland

// posted by neil craig @ 2:44 pm 1 comments

  Newspaper letter sent out a few days ago. That the entirely false Dalgety Bay radiation scare is promoted by SEPA and the BBC, is scandalous. The rest of the media are not willing to allow serious reporting of the facts either:

Sir,

       Once again we see the Dalgety Bay scare story being hawked around by the most scaremongering, and least reliable, parts of the media (that would be the BBC & Guardian). 

 

       The facts are that not only is there zero evidence of any harm whatsoever.

   

      Worse SEPA (nor indeed anybody else) have even attempted to deny that the very maximum radium that could have been put on that site 65 years ago was 0.25 grams, one quarter of what is there naturally and 36 billion times less than the 9 tonnes of uranium and thorium in a normal square mile of soil)

 

      Which is why SEPA have known but kept silent that the radiation at Dalgety Bay, all perfectly natural, is over 1/3rd lower than found, equally naturally, in any Aberdeen street.

 

      Rather worse that, though SEPA have publicly claimed to have found "the daughter elements of radium" as part of their collection of rocks there is only 1 such element, Radon gas, which, being an unreactive gas, could not possibly be a rock.

 

      This scare may have provided years of gainful employment to government "environmental officers" but it has cost the taxpayer many millions of £s and by planning blight, cost homeowners in Dalgety Bay at least as much. All for a scare which any honest scientist knows to be false.

 

      If it were not the Ruhr, over which a thousand times as many, with miniscule amounts of radium containing paints, were destroyed, would have been uninhabited ever since.

 

Neil Craig

 

Ref - the theoretical maximum exposure http://a-place-to-stand.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/dalgety-bay-what-is-theoretical-maximum.html
a range of articles on the subject, none disputed by SEPA http://a-place-to-stand.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Dalgety%20Bay

Labels: BBC, Dalgety Bay, Scottish politics

// posted by neil craig @ 2:16 pm 3 comments

Restrictions have been placed on gathering seafood and bait from a beach affected by radioactive particles.
Warning signs are already in place at Dalgety Bay in Fife saying seafood should not be collected but new restrictions have been issued making it an offence, the Food Standards Agency in Scotland said.
The is "a precautionary measure" following recent surveys detecting radioactive items on the beach, the food watchdog said.
It added that the restrictions will be reviewed in light of further evidence or any action taken "to remediate the contamination".
Although there is no commercial fishing or shellfish industry in the area, individuals are known to collect shellfish, it said.

   If one part of the bureaucracy cannot get its way bring in another. This woll doubtless then be used as "evidence" that there must be a problem because the Food Standards Agency, Scotland also say there is. An ionfinite circle of mutual support held in mid air by itself. The phrase "
a precautionary measure" rather suggests no evidence but we will see.

  This prompts another FoI

Dear Food Standards Agency in Scotland,
                                                                 I note that you have decided to ban fishing in Dalgety Bay, purely on the basis of the alleged finding of radioactive "radium" there. This raises a number of questions of fact and of principle which I must ask you, under the FoI Act, or any other pertinent regulation, to answer.

1 - What evidence, from the FSA's knowledge, do you have of "radium" being found on the beach? If none write "none".

2 - What background readings of radiation has the FSA made at this beach and at others nearby, as a control, and have you found the radiation level higher at Dalgety Bay? Of none and no write "none and no".

3 - Does the FSA accepts SEPA's evidence that the radiation at Dalgety Bay is "less than 2/3rds background in Aberdeen" and that this also makes it as low as 1% of the radiation level in various places around the world from which the FSA does not ban imports? If yes answer "yes".

4 - Does the FSA dispute evidence that the maximum theoretical level of radium from these dials, had all of it been deposited on the beach and none of it washed or blown away over the last 60 years, would not exceed 25% of naturally occurring radium there or 1/35,000,000,000th of the total naturally occuring background radioactives there? If you do not dispute it answer "no".

5 - If the answers are as I suggest then it is obviously impossible to honestly claim there is a real radiation threat to food there, let alone one which, if the rules are applied honestly, would not involve closing down all fishing from Aberdeenshire and points north let alone prohibiting any food imports from much of the world. If that is not currently being done the only possible reason for doing this is to deliberately promote a fraudulent scare story. Is there another credible option? If no answer "no". If there is please give it.

6 - If the answer to 5 is no is there any specific ruling applying to Dalgety Bay but not the rest of the country that prevents this action from representing the very highest standard of honesty the FSA Scotland aspire to or that would make any ruling on any food matter by you infinitely more trustworthy than this. If none and no answer "none and no".

  As you will see I have gone to some pains to make it possible for you to answer this easily and clearly, rather than saying , falsely, that its all on our website, as SEPA have repeatedly donethough if any of the answers are different from those suggested please give reasons. Perhaps this will make it easier to provide an answer before the absolute legal limit of 20 working days.

Labels: Dalgety Bay, Hormesis, Scottish politics

// posted by neil craig @ 1:32 pm 0 comments

SEPA's representative Mr Tilly said on a Radio Scotland phone in show about an alleged radioactive waste threat at Dalgety Bay that radioactive particles had been scientifically tested & proven to be made of paint. This was in response to my phoning in & suggesting it could be naturally occurring radioactivity.

Afterwards I emailed them that say (Feb 2nd) to ask:

"This morning your representative on the BBC Radio phone in stated that radioactive particles found at Dalgety Bay had, beyond dispute, been identified, presumably by chemical or spectroscopic means, as consisting of paint. Can you please confirm where these results have been publicly published & how many of the particles, in numbers & as a proportion of total particles found, have been so positively identified. I would also be interested to know by how many mSv or portions thereof, the radiation level at Dalgety Bay has been pushed up by these particles & what it does measure compared to the adjoining stretches of coast."

When I received no reply I emailed twice more mentioning the FoI & formally asking under the Act.

Eventually I got a phone call on Feb 7th saying that a reply had been sent to me & that it must have gone missing in the net. I doubt this but asked them to send it again. It said:

"Good morning

Various reports on Dalgety Bay have been published on the the radioactive substances pages of the SEPA website. There has also been press releases on the news pages. In case you have problems finding them here's the links: http://www.sepa.org.uk/about_us/news/dalgety_bay_monitoring_%e2%80%93_final.aspx ;
http://www.sepa.org.uk/radioactive_substances/rs_publications/dalgety_bay_reports.aspx"

However the report makes no mention whatsoever of either what background radiation readings at that & adjoining beaches are & even more important what actual scientific tests they made which so unquestionably proved that the sub-microscopic particles in question consisted of paint as to make him willing to say such a thing on national radio.

While I absolutely accept that the claim to have scientifically tested & proven represents the absolute pinnacle of honesty to which SEPA & their bosses aspire I must insist on some evidence that it is, in any way, truthful.

I received a further reply on Feb 10th which said absolutely nothing about either question.

On the 12th, after I had published this on my blog (all relevant articles are on http://a-place-to-stand.blogspot.com/search?q=dalgety+bay I received this a letter advising me that SEPA have no duty to answer such questions:

"Neither SEPA nor its officers are under a duty to deny allegations made in your blog. The absence of a response to the specific points raised does not indicate that SEPA accepts the allegations made"

The relevant part of my reply was:

"the paint deposited there contained much less radium than occurred naturally & that since it was water soluble & the Scottish coast has experienced a significant amount of water over the last 60 years, it would be impossible for there to be any significant radioactivity beyond the background. SEPA have also specifically refused to answer an FoI request for figures of background radiation asserting they have no duty to obey this law."

Since then SEPA have refused to answer emails. I have obviously had no advice from them how to make an internal appeal on the decision that they have no duty to answer FoI requests about the scientific tests proving paint which they have publicly asserted were done.

I did appeal to the head of the Scottish civil service on 15th Feb at scottish.ministers@scotland.gsi.gov.uk
but they do not answer emails either.

I believe that if the readings of background radiation at Dalgety & adjoining bays exists & they certainly must if there been even a rudimentary scientific investigation & the scientific proof that these submicroscopic particles are paint (though radium paint should be water soluble) & it certainly must if SEPA are in the remotest degree honest then there can be no national security or other reason for preventing the public knowing about it.

I await your response.

Neil Craig
Refs On the radio programme & my request for further information http://a-place-to-stand.blogspot.com/2009/02/scotlands-secret-radioactive-sites.html
SEPA email reply from Byron http://a-place-to-stand.blogspot.com/2009/02/sepa-deliberately-lied-on-bbc-about.html
Further technical information including the paint being soluble http://a-place-to-stand.blogspot.com/2009/02/dalgety-bay.htmlFurther response from SEPA declining to dispute the factual accuracy of everything I said http://a-place-to-stand.blogspot.com/2009/02/sepas-reaction.html http://a-place-to-stand.blogspot.com/2009/02/scottish-governmentcivil-service.html

Q: How quickly will I receive a response?

You must be informed in writing whether the public authority holds the information requested and if so, have the information communicated to you, promptly, but not later than 20 working days after they receive the request. In some circumstances a request may be refused. If this is the case, generally a Refusal Notice should have been issued to you. This should state the exemption providing the basis for refusal within the Freedom of Information Act and why it applies to the information you requested. This notice must also be communicated to you within the 20 working day time period.

// posted by neil craig @ 12:29 pm 2 comments

  On May 17th I sent this FoI to the Food Standards Agency in Scotland in their ban of fishingm & received this today, so at least they deserve some credit for not waiting till the last legal moment, or beyond. My questions are in normal, their answers in bold and my comments in bold italics.



1 - What evidence, from the FSA's knowledge, do you have of "radium" being found on the beach? If none write "none".

     Radium contamination was first detected in 1990 as part of the routine environmental monitoring report. Subsequent surveys bring the total number of radioactive particles and items recovered to date to over 2,000. ... results are available on SEPA's website.
 
     This is false. Radium has not provably been detected. All that has been detected is radiation, some clumped in what are described as "particles". SEPA have repeatedly refused to produce any actual evidence of radium in response to FoIs asking that precise question, indeed this refusal to do so or admit the lack is now subject to an appeal..
2 - What background readings of radiation has the FSA made at this beach and at others nearby, as a control, and have you found the radiation level higher at Dalgety Bay? Of none and no write "none and no".

None. The FSA does not directly undertake monitoring...

    SEPA does not undertake such monitoring either. So it is accepted that there is no evidence whatsoever that the Dalgety Bay radiation exceeds that of neighbouring beaches in intensity or particularity/clumpiness.

3 - Does the FSA accept SEPA's evidence that the radiation at Dalgety Bay is "less than 2/3rds background in Aberdeen" and that this also makes it as low as 1% of the radiation level in various places around the world from which the FSA does not ban imports? If yes answer "Yes".

    The issue of concern does not apply to the levels of background radiation but to the possibility that highly radioactive particles could enter the food chain. Although the answer to the question is Yes

    Since he has admitted is no evidence that the "particles" are more common than on neighbouring beaches let alone as common as across Aberdeen. On the question of whether being in particles is more "dangerous" than normal background radiation see answer to #5.
4 - Does the FSA dispute evidence that the maximum theoretical level of radium from these dials, had all of it been deposited on the beach and none of it washed or blown away over the last 60 years, would not exceed 25% of naturally occurring radium there or 1/35,000,000,000th of the total naturally occurring background radioactives there? If you do not dispute it answer "no".

Yes. A "theoretical level" is simply a theory not evidence. It is evident from the heterogeneity, of the items discovered, the uneven distribution of deposits and historical accounts that the contamination derives not just from luminised dials, but as a result of debris from repair, reluminising work, and disposal of luminised items carried out on-site.


    The maximum amount is based on the historical accounts and unlike by the FSA, has not been disputed by SEPA in any way, even under the legal pressure of FoIs. He is misusing the English language here using "theoretical" as if it meant "drawn from theory" when in fact it clearly means "an absolute maximum, from the known facts above which the radium level could not go, though in non-theoretical conditions it is likely much of it will have been lost over the last 60 years". The distribution cannot be said to be uneven since, as acknowledged, there has not been a search elsewhere. I am not sure in what way the particles/clumps discovered can be said to be particularly heterogeneous. While one would expect any painting to be purely of the aircraft dials in question claims that the radiation comes from other "luminised items" rather than just dials have not been made in previous FOIs. It would seem to require some evidence that Dalgety Bay airfield was also a radium watch factory or laboratory for refining pitchblende to obtain natural radium. This is an extraordinary new claim for which no evidence has been produced and goes against all common sense.

5 - If the answers are as I suggest then it is obviously impossible to honestly claim there is a real radiation threat to food there, let alone one which, if the rules are applied honestly, would not  Is there another credible option? If no answer "no". If there is please give it.

Yes, the contamination has arisen from local historical activities and is confined to the Dalgety Bay area. Additionally the contaminate is particulate and some particles are small enough to be ingested by seafood such as winkles and mussels. If these were subsequently consumed they could cause direct damage to the human gut and an increased risk of cancer. Laboratory studies have shown that some particles would be soluble in the human gut which would increase the potential dose.
  Again this is untrue. No evidence has been produced of "contamination" as opposed to natural radiation, indeed it is accepted that Dalgety is less "contaminated" by radiation than other places. There is no evidence of the claimed "historical activities" that, alone, could have increased any theoretical radioactives by more
 than a 35 billionth. Nor has any evidence been produced that it is "confined to the Dalgety Bay area" since neither SEPA nor the FSA have looked.

  That being the case and they have not been" closing down all fishing from Aberdeenshire and points north let alone prohibiting any food imports from much of the world" then it is proven that "only possible reason for doing this is to deliberately promote a fraudulent scare story" by a wholly corrupt and parasitic organisation..

  "Laboratory studies have shown that some particles would be soluble in the human gut which would increase the potential dose" is a particularly interesting remark for 2 reasons. Firstly, since the paint was water soluble virtually all, not merely "some" of the "particles" should be water soluble - if they aren't natural particles. Even more importantly it is an acknowledgement that they know all the stuff said in answer to #3 about this radiation being dangerous in a way background radiation isn't is because it is "particles". This is the "hot particle theory and is accepted by wikipedia and apparently even by the FSA when it suits them, as false.

  Calling things "particles" is clearly disingenuous if you don't mention size. Everything is a particle but, by the laws of geometry, the larger a particle proportionately the less surface area it has, to contact  anything outside so for equal amounts of radioactives and background radiation, it would be better for it to be in particles and anybody using particularlity rather than background radiation as the measure of danger is lying. The FSA has done so but has also achieved the remarkable feat of claiming the precise opposite as well in the same letter.
6 - If the answer to 5 is no is there any specific ruling applying to Dalgety Bay but not the rest of the country that prevents this action from representing the very highest standard of honesty the FSA Scotland aspire to or that would make any ruling on any food matter by you infinitely more trustworthy than this. If none and no answer "none and no".

  The FSA has a statutory responsibility to protect consumers through ensuring food safety and has taken a precautionary approach, based on the best available evidence, in order to discharge the responsibility.

   That appears to be "none" and "no" then. Note the use of the term "precautionary approach".  This is basically a way of saying "we don't need no stinkin evidence" & relegates the entire organisation into the realm of unscientific quackery. Of course if they were honest non-scientific quacks, who actually believed a word of their own scare story they would also be banning imports of food from the "various places around the world from which the FSA does not ban imports" but are up to 100 times more radioactive.

 
My Reply
Dear Dr Will Munro,
                                Thank you for the FSA's reply. I am including my blog comments for you to comment on should you feel you can enhance the FSA's credibility in any way by doing so.
 
      Your answers bring up obvious further questions which I would be obliged for a reply to under the Act..
 
1 - What evidence do you have for your claim that some of the 0.25g which might have been spread over the area 60 years ago, has been detected by chemical or other means? If you have none your first answer is untrue and must be corrected.
 
3 - What is your evidence that the hot particle theory, on which your claim that only the particularity of the materials, not the overall level is important depends, is correct?
 
4 - What is your evidence for the claimed, but previously unknown, other radium contamination not linked to dial paint?  What is your evidence that the distribution of "particles" is different from that at Dalgety in neighbouring beaches which both SEPA and yourselves admit you have not similarly examined? In both cases, if none answer none and provide a new answer.
 
5 - See 4 above. If  no control sample has been attempted on neighbouring beaches how can it be possible to say that the radiation is only at Dalgety? The alternative being that it is natural and occurs elsewhere.
 
Also what is your evidence that the opposite ofv the hot particle theory is true and that radiation reduced to undetectable particles in solution, comparable to background radiation, is the more dangerous?
 
6 -The evidence free, anti-scientific "precautionary approach" would require the banning of any imported food that might come from an area of up to 100 times more radiation than Dalgety, or even from Aberdeen. Indeed technically it would require you to ban selling haggis on the grounds that it might attract flying saucers - a hypothesis for which there is no evidence, but then that is the point of this principle. Will this principle be applied without prejudice?
 
I accept your agreement on #2.

Labels: Dalgety Bay, Hormesis, Scottish politics

// posted by neil craig @ 3:33 pm 8 comments

I was myself interested in what radium paint is. Apparently, it consisted of a radium salt (radium chloride), zinc sulphide and a glue binder. The zinc sulphide emits light when struck by the radionuclides. It seems that the radium involved was Ra-226 that emits alpha particles, which, as you probably know, cannot penetrate skin, or even a sheet of paper (some sources say that gamma rays are also emitted but I can't confirm that).

According to Sumner, Wheldon and Watson (Radiation Risks), a layer of normal soil one foot deep and one mile square would produce, inter alia, 1 g of Ra. So some Ra at Dalgety Bay would be natural.

According to http://www.webelements.com/radium/, radium decomposes in water! Surely RaCl2 would do so.

Doesn't that mean that the radium on Dalgety Beach must all have dissolved by now? Or does it mean that the Cl2 has dissolved, leaving just the Ra?

// posted by neil craig @ 11:00 am 8 comments

Good morning

Various reports on Dalgety Bay have been published on the the radioactive substances pages of the SEPA website. There has also been press releases on the news pages. In case you have problems finding them here's the links: http://www.sepa.org.uk/about_us/news/dalgety_bay_monitoring_%e2%80%93_final.aspx ;
http://www.sepa.org.uk/radioactive_substances/rs_publications/dalgety_bay_reports.aspx

Having had a look at your Dalgety Bay Risk Assessment Report on http://www.sepa.org.uk/scotlands_environment/data_and_reports/radioactive_substances/dalgety_bay_reports.aspx (pdf) I note that the nearest to a reference to the alleged proof by scientific testing & finding of paint forming these particles was in section 7:1 saying "The radium contamination at Dalgety bay is believed to have originated from historic MOD operations", going on to explain what type of paint was used at the time. "Belief" is clearly at variance with the claim by the SEPA representative on the radio that it had been proven by scientific tests.

I note also that contrary to the stated word of the SEPA representative that the fact that what was alleged to be radium radiation had been detected & that this proved it was artificial "
Radium-226 is a decay product of the natural uranium-238 decay chain. It is present in all rocks and soils in variable amounts."
http://www.doh.wa.gov/ehp/rp/factsheets/factsheets-htm/fs29ra226.htm

While I would not, under any circumstances wish to suggest that what the gentleman said represented anything other than the very highest standard of honesty to which the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency aspires it must be obvious that the evidence you have so far presented points to both the claim that paint had been found & that the material could only be of artificial, rather than natural in origin because of the presence of radium being in no way whatsoever truthful.

If you wish to maintain that you have evidence of such chemical proof that the particles were paint I must ask you to provide it by return. If not, the assumption must be that notwithstanding it being as honest as you aspire to the claim is in no way truthful. Equally if you wish to claim that the government factsheet is wrong & the material does not occur naturally the same applies

If so journalistic integrity would require the BBC to prominently acknowledge the inaccuracy on air, presumably at the end of Monday's programme.

// posted by neil craig @ 1:31 pm 21 comments

   Having promised/threatened to declare Dalgety Bay beach to be radioactive waste by March if the MoD did not pay them an unspecified and unspecifiable amount of danegeld the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) have started to back down. 

In November last year, SEPA set deadlines for MOD to provide a credible remediation plan for the area to prevent the need to designate Dalgety Bay as radioactive contaminated land, the first such designation in the UK. However, work carried out for SEPA over the winter months showed that the situation at the beach was more complicated than initially believed, and therefore a comprehensive investigation is required, before remediation options can be identified.

Dr James Gemmill, SEPA's Radioactive Substances Unit Manager, said:
"We are satisfied that real progress is being made and, as a result, we will not be designating the beach at this time.

But the threat remains if they can get away with it

by the end of May 2013, SEPA will be in full possession of technical issues;...... At that stage we will expect action to follow urgently.

"We would prefer that the contamination at Dalgety Bay is dealt with on a voluntary basis so we can avoid the need for designation. However, SEPA can still designate the area at any time, depending on circumstances. This would be done if SEPA considers that work undertaken by MOD is inadequate, or further relevant information comes to light, or if there is no voluntary remediation following these investigations."

  Meanwhile the Scottish Information Commissioner has told me that I have to make a further appeal for SEPA to specifically answer the FoIs (which they are legally required to answer within 20 working days & don't) before determining whether they should start enforcing the law. So here goes.

Dear SEPA,
                    Regarding my various FoIs  here & numerously here about the evidence that Dalgety Bay is a "radiation hazard", going back to 12th Feb 2009 when you asserted that neither SEPA nor its officers are under a duty to answer such questions and threatened legal action if I investigated. While this was clearly contrary to law it is the road you have followed ever since. I have now been asked to appeal this refusal and once again ask you to provide the specific information requested. Not merely to say it is somewhere on our website, particularly when this is not true.

    I particularly wish factual responses to these 3 major previously asked questions:

1 - SEPA have claimed & continuously maintained for over 3 years, that particles of radioactivity could not possibly be natural because they had been scientifically proven to be made of paint. Obviously if SEPA is not wholly, completely and totally corrupt there must be specific unequivocal tested evidence for this yet for that period you have refused to produce it. Please produce the specific scientific proof.

2 - SEPA have publicly claimed to have found the "daughter elements" of radium yet have refused to provide evidence. Obviously if SEPA is not wholly, completely and totally corrupt there must be specific unequivocal tested evidence for this yet for that period you have refused to produce it. Please produce the specific scientific proof.


   This is particularly disgraceful since the scientific community say that the sole daughter element of radium
is radon; that radon is an inert gas that thus could not possibly be found as part of rock; and that in any case the amount of it produced at any one time would be orders of magnitude less than that of radium (it is undisputed that the amount of manmade radium there cannot be more than 0.26 of a gram or 1/4 of what is naturally there,  in this 1.5 million tons of soil). If SEPA have found the plural daughter elements then much of physics must be discounted and it is disgraceful that you should keep this amazing discovery from humanity.
 
3 - SEPA have claimed and maintained you have provably found radium. Obviously if SEPA is not wholly, completely and totally corrupt there must be specific unequivocal tested evidence for this since then you have refused to produce it. Please produce the specific scientific proof.
 
Since it would be unwise to let your refusal to answer FoI's slow the investigation I am also asking these new questions under the FoI or other appropriate Acts.
 
4 - What was the specific scientifically proven finding or findings since 30th November which has led you to say "work carried out for SEPA over the winter months showed that the situation at the beach was more complicated than initially believed" . This reverses your promise/threat, briefed to the MP Gordon Brown that SEPA , within 3 months "Scottish Environment Protection Agency still says that, unless the Ministry of Defence can give assurances, it will designate the land as radioactive".


5 - It has been acknowledged that SEPA have made no effort to use any close beach as a control to determine whether the radiation detected is in any measurable way excessive and thus, possibly, introduced by man. Obviously this is basic to making any scientific evaluation of the existence of any radiation beyond ordinary background. I now wish to know what efforts, if any, has SEPA made to use a beach near Dounraey as a similar control? Obviously this is basic to making any scientific evaluation of the existence of any radiation beyond ordinary background.

6 - The entire thesis that radiation close to (or at) normal background is in any way harmful depends entirely on the Linear Non-Threshold Theory of radiation danger (LNT). I would like to know what scientific evidence, not hearsay or assertion, SEPA have used to make you accept this theory as true? I ask this because, as far as i can determine, there is no actual evidential proof of this theory at or even close to, the levels involved. Indeed that the evidence that there is points in the opposite direction - to the theory known as hormesis, that at low levels radiation is beneficial to health. The laboratory evidence of hormesis at the cellular level in plants and cultures goes back nearly a century and seems unchallenged. Obviously theories without evidential support, such as astrology and homoeopathy are not scientific and if SEPA is a scientific organisation cannot be promoting the radiation scare without clear proof of harm.

Labels: Dalgety Bay, Hormesis, Scottish politics

// posted by neil craig @ 1:56 pm 1 comments

This is a letter I sent out, slightly edited,to the Scottish Press and the BBC. If it goes according to precedent something critical may be published by the east coast press but not the central Scotland Press (this despite the fact that Dalgety bay is only a few miles across the Forth from Edinburgh but presumably not within those paper's catchment area. The Scottish press, which has to pay some regard to its customers, do not seem particularly interested in SEPA's lies.

   However this Dalgety bay radiation story was the main item on the Scottish bit at the end of the BBC news last night. This despite the fact that the BBC know, with absolute certainty, that SEPA have lied about it. Once again we see that there is nobody at the BBC who is a journalist rather than a state propaganda flack and that they are all willing to tell any lie and censor any fact to promote the state's agenda. SEPA are, once again producing a scare story about radioactivity found at Dalgety Beach. This is a spurious story which has been disproven several times - the level of radiation is easily consistent with natural background radiation. Indeed an expert hired by SEPA assured them that the level of radiation here is 1/3rd of that naturally found in any street in Aberdeen.

SEPA have previously been caught telling at least 2 major lies on the subje
ct. Firstly claiming, on the BBC, to have made studies of the radioactive materials and chemically proven them to be made of paint. Repeated FoI searches have proven that no such finding of paint particles has ever been made. SEPA have also claimed to have found the "radium and its daughter elements" in the beach rock. In fact the "daughter element" that radium breaks down into is radon - a gas not a rock. The scientific illiteracy required to make such a silly claim is obvious. Since SEPA have promised to use public money to sue those who criticise them I will not specify exactly what degree of illiteracy would be required by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency but it seems inconsistent with SEPA being capable of being anything but a propaganda organisation using false scare stories to get more money from the public.

Their recent revival of this scare is that they have found a "piece of metal" that is "highly radioactive." As with most anti-radiation scare stories, no actual figures are given although it is claimed that this particular piece of metallic slag was 10 times more radioactive than the previous particles (which would make it a whole 3 times more radioactive than Aberdeen granite. 10 times more than normal natural background is insignificant and not particularly unlikely for something containing heavy metals. Certainly soluble paint containing minute quantities of radium on cardboard dials which may, or may not, have been present in immeasurably small quantities 66 years ago, seems unrelated to a piece of metallic slag. A reasonable assumption is that had this come ashore anywhere else, except Dounreay, it would never have been commented on. But since we are paying these people to pop round to Dalgety with their Geiger counters every few months they feel it necessary to make a big scare out of a perfectly natural occurrence. Set a geiger counter at a low enough setting and it will show anything is radioactive. Bananas for example give off 1 mSv, sharing a bed gives you 0.5 mSv, which puts the 3 mSv occasionally found in the Fukushima zone in perspective.

This beach probably contains around 3 tonnes of uranium and 6 tonnes of thorium because that is what any square mile of land contains. It is perfectly natural and a fraction of a gram of soluble paint 66 years years ago is of no importance.

The BBC, in particular, choose to promote this because it fits their own Luddite anti-nuclear agenda. The same tactic is seen of hyping "discoveries" at Dounreay of "hot spots" where the "heat" of the hotspots is never named. Even under the official theory one would have to eat Dounreay beach down to a level of several inches to have any chance of receiving significant damaging radiation (or one could choose several tons of bananas).

I say even under the official theory because that theory, that there is no level of radioactivity which is not dangerous is scientifically unjustifiable. There never has been any scientific evidence that it is true. It was simply invented by bureaucrats because it was easy to measure. On the contrary the evidence is undisputed that for plants, laboratory cultures and small animals (with whom experiments are possible) that low level radiation is beneficial to health. For humans (where experiment is not possible) there is still strong statistical evidence for the beneficial effects (known as hormesis) in that the health of populations in places with high background radiation are routinely better than those where it doesn't exist.

If SEPA are unaware of this they are unfitted by incompetence to be paid out of the public purse. If they are aware of it they are ethically unfitted.

DALGETY BAY - DISSECTING SEPA's RADIATION LIE

21/8 Dounraey natural radioactivity found shock

12/6 SEPA say no money spent on investigating Dalgety Bay

10/6 Dunfermline Press article

29/5 Letter in the press & Journal

27/5 Guest article on the science

22/5 Dundee Courier article

19/5 Unpublished newspaper letter

15/5 My reply to SEPA

14/5 SEPA's response to FoI enquiry - they break the law by not answering

1/4 appeal to the Scottish Information Commissioner over SEPA's ignoring Freedom of Information Law

24/3 Putting in FoI appeal

2/2 Radio Scotland programme - I phone in & SEPA representative deliberately lies

7/2 SEPA lied

10/2 SEPA's reply

11/2 how SEPA lied - see the science

12/2 SEPA's reaction

25/2 Deliberate Scottish government complicity

  Since SEPA has previously threatened to sue me, using public money, if I say anything untrue about them I will am sending them, and the Scottish civil service and government and the BBC, copies of this and ask them if they wish to claim thatI have said anything whatsoever about SEPA's dishonest claims here. Or if they wish to suggest that these claims, maintained for so long, represent anything other than the very higherst standard of scinetific and ethicl behaviour SEPA aspire to. Or, since the Scottish government are using our taxes to fund this fraudulent scare story, it represents other thjan thestandard of honesty to be expected from them. Or, bearing in mind that the BBC already know, apparently beyond any possible dispute, that this is a fraud they are promoting, whether this represents other than the highest standard of honesty to which any BBC employee aspires.

   I al;so ask them if they dispute, in any way, that,this scare depend on the facts about radium paint having been found are true (the FoIs prove they are a lie) and that the LNT theory is correct. If even 1 leg of this 2 legged stool exists SEPA, the BBC and the Scottish government must know of scientific evidence supporting the LNT theory that low levels of radiation are harmful. In which case they will be able to supply such evidence that 1 leg of their alleged case actually exists.

Labels: Dalgety Bay, Media, nuclear

// posted by neil craig @ 12:06 pm 2 comments

This morning your representative on the BBC Radio phone in stated that radioactive particles found at Dalgety Bay had, beyond dispute, been identified, presumably by chemical or spectroscopic means, as consisting of paint. Can you please confirm where these results have been publicly published & how many of the particles, in numbers & as a proportion of total particles found, have been so positively identified

The Dalgety Bay Report on your website you referred me to, you may be astonished to find, appears unaltered from when SEPA previously directed me to it. Then I pointed out that at no stage did it mention the scientific tests which, if SEPA is in any way honest, have been done to prove the microscopic radioactive particles consisted of paint

Acknowledged. Any idea when my other query in Feb will get a specific answer?

Labels: Dalgety Bay, Fear, nuclear

// posted by neil craig @ 11:22 am 1 comments