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The scientists found raised levels of radioactive carbon-14 in shellfish sampled at Port Appin, at Maidens in South Ayrshire and at Garlieston and Kippford on the Solway coast of Dumfries and Galloway. Mussels were most contaminated “due to the surface environment they inhabit and their feeding behaviour,” they said.

The contamination comes from Sellafield, which has poured huge amounts of radioactivity into the sea, researchers concluded. The plant, which reprocesses spent fuel from nuclear power plants in Scotland and across the UK, has discharged an average of more than eight million megabecquerels (measure of radioactivity) of carbon-14 a year from its pipelines between 1994 and 2013.

The levels peaked in 2003 but have remained “relatively high”, the scientists pointed out. Carbon-14 persists for tens of thousands of years in the environment and the amounts emitted from Sellafield make up the largest contribution to the long-term collective radiation dose across Europe from the entire nuclear industry.

“This is the first study to have shown that radiocarbon is accumulating in areas remote from Sellafield like Port Appin,” the lead researcher, Kieran Tierney, told the Sunday Herald.

Dr Ian Fairlie, an independent radiation consultant, described some of the carbon-14 contamination as “surprisingly high”. At Garlieston near Dumfries concentrations in mussels were almost three times the normal background level, while at Port Appin, north of Oban, they were 20 per cent higher…….

Pete Roche, an energy consultant and editor of ‘no2 nuclear power’ website, said: “This is a wake up call for anyone in Scotland who thinks contamination from Sellafield is yesterday’s problem.”

He pointed out that waste fuel from nuclear plants at Torness in East Lothian, Hunterston in North Ayrshire and Dounreay in Caithness will continue to be reprocessed at Sellafield until at least 2018. “Radioactive discharges will continue to flow back in the other direction long after that,” he argued……..http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/14157272.Scottish_shellfish_are_contaminated_by_radioactive_waste_from_Sellafield