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

I have done some investigation of this case since, a couple of years ago, I was answered on a BBC phone in show when I suggested that it could be natural radiation by the SEPA spokesman stating that they had done chemical analysis and found that the radioactive particles were paint. Several Freedom of Information inquiries later it emerged that they had simply made this up. The BBC are aware of these FoI's but, in a demonstration of the highest standard of honesty ever to be expected from the BBC, are still pushing this deliberate lie.

The radiation is natural background. Here is a letter sent to various papers and, with the normal bias to be expected in the British media, not yet published:

Sir,

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.

Neil Craig

200 Woodlands Rd.

Glasgow

G3 6LN

0141 332 7785

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.

From the linked report:

"A 1 MBq Ra-226 benchmark source will produce a surface absorbed dose in a 1 hour exposure of ~6 kGy over an area of 1 cm2. This is very likely to produce transient erythema and pigmentation and possibly superficial transient AEN. The same source will also deliver ~ 5.5 Gy over 1 cm2 at a depth of 70 μm, largely from beta radiation. This will produce a transient ulceration of the skin in about 10-50% of those exposed. The tissue damage resulting from the Ra-226 radiation exposure will thus be dominated by beta radiation, even taking into account alpha dose to thin skin regions of the body."

Doesn't sound completely harmless to me...