nuclear-news

Ban threat for local shellfish because of British plutonium being over 1 Bq/Kg?? what happenened next? 2004

Published at 01:00, Thursday, 14 October 2004

By Andrea Thompson

http://www.newsandstar.co.uk/news/ban-threat-for-local-shellfish-1.464538

Image source ; http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2011/03/16182005/35

SHELLFISH from Cumbria, the Solway Firth and Morecambe Bay could be banned under new international food safety regulations.

The UK’s Food Standards Agency (FSA) has warned that lobsters, cockles and scallops from the north west of England and the south west of Scotland are so contaminated with plutonium discharges from Sellafield that they will breach limits due to be introduced by the United Nations next year.

The UN’s Codex Alimentarius – which brings together the World Health Organization and the Food and Agriculture Organization – is proposing a safety limit for plutonium in food of one becquerel per kilogram (1Bq/kg).

The aim is to reduce the long-term risk of getting cancer from eating these foods to below one in a million.

The proposal takes into account scientific uncertainties about the health risks of small amounts of plutonium in the body. It is in line with radiation safety limits recommended by other regulatory authorities internationally, in the US and in the UK.

Concentrations of plutonium and other radioactivity in all the shellfish sampled by the FSA between the Ribble estuary at Preston and Kirkcudbright on the north Solway coast in 2002 exceeded 1Bq/kg. Winkles from St Bees contained 66 Bq/kg.

The new limits are welcomed by radiation experts, but have angered the shellfishing industry.

January 31, 2014 - Posted by arclight2011part2 | Uncategorized