HMIPI and UKAEA in the hot seat over Dounreay contamination

The credibility of Scotland's HM Industrial Pollution Inspectorate (HMIPI) has been severely dented by its failure to investigate and act on severe radioactive contamination at the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) nuclear facility at Dounreay. A damning report by two official advisory committees has linked potentially lethal particles found on the shore with an explosion in a waste disposal shaft in 1977 - and warns that coastal erosion will breach the shaft and release large quantities of intermediate level waste within 40-100 years.¹