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The UK/Ireland Nuclear Free Local Authorities have been joined by campaigners from six local groups opposed to nuclear power in calling on the Science Minister to provide funding for citizen science projects to test levels of radioactivity near to civil nuclear power plants.
The partners have used the birthday of American ornithologist Wells Cooke (25 January), considered to be the founder of modern citizen science, to make their appeal to Michelle Donelan, who is the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology.
From 1881, Cooke engaged amateur birding enthusiasts in collecting information about bird migration. His program evolved into the government-run North American Bird Phenology Program supported by volunteers across the nation. More recently, even BBC television programmes, like Nature / Springwatch, have enrolled citizens in observing and reporting on wildlife in their gardens and communities.
Although citizen science has the virtue of engaging laypeople in research, making science more relevant and ‘immediate’ to the general population, for campaigners in West Cumbria sampling for radioactivity has not been a mere academic exercise for it highlighted radioactive ‘hotspots’ where exposure could be prejudicial to human health.
For almost ten years, volunteers at Radiation Free Lakeland have been taking soil and sand samples at various sites along the coast of West Cumbria from Whitehaven to Barrow-in-Furness, including beaches frequented by many tourists, and sending these to the United States for testing at a professional institute.
Due to a lack of available funding, the group could only afford to commission the institute to test for two isotopes – americium and caesium [1]. In 2018, undergraduate nuclear science students from the Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts compiled the results into an initial report:
‘Of the 36 samples tested 10 (28%) were found to be over the safety limit for cesium-137 and 14 (39%) were found to be over the safety limit for americium-241.’
Some of these adverse findings were from coastal sites near to St Bees and Ravenglass, which attract many seasonal tourists.
Americum-241 is highly radioactive and chemically toxic if absorbed, with deposits accumulating in the liver and bones, remaining there for twenty and fifty years respectively, or in the sexual organs, where its residence is permanent. In all these organs, americium promotes the formation of cancer cells through its radioactivity.
Caesium-137 is soluble in water and if ingested is soon uniformly distributed within the body and remains there for up to 70 days. Based on the findings of animal experiments and autopsies performed on children exposed to radiation in the Chernobyl accident, absorption can lead to the development of pancreatic cancer.
Former US nuclear industry regulator Arnie Gunderson, touring West Cumbria at the invitation of Radiation Free Lakeland, said that some of the samples were as radioactive as those found at Fukushima, where a major nuclear accident occurred in 2011.
Gunderson was in no doubt that it was only the dedication, rigour and persistence of citizen scientists that brought these findings to light:
“It is important to note that this beach radiation was NOT found by prospecting with a Geiger counter looking for hot spots. Rather, citizen scientists just took dirt/sand samples randomly between the low and high tide marks and then mailed the samples with a GPS location to be analyzed here in the US.”
Based on his professional assessment of the findings, Gunderson made a damning accusation that:
“The UK government has been covering up the severity of the radiation in the Irish Sea and on Cumbria’s beaches.”
Richard Bramhall from the Low-Level Radiation Campaign and Welsh Anti-Nuclear Alliance particularly advocates for monitoring of deadly uranium dust in the air:
“Nuclear power stations discharge unmonitored amounts of carcinogenic uranium dust to the air we all breathe. This presents unrecognised risks of cancer and congenital malformations.
“Some forms of radioactivity, once inhaled and lodged in body tissue, deliver their energy to microscopic populations of cells. Some of those cells receive very large doses — hundreds of millisieverts from a single alpha decay — while the rest of the body gets zero.
“The nuclear establishment averages the doses as its first line of defence to make their impact appear minimal. This dirty secret wrecks Nuclear Minister Andrew Bowie’s stated ambition for high environmental standards, and that it is why it is imperative that all discharges to the atmosphere are monitored.”
Clearly then there is good reason for continuing this important work, but there is a desperate lack of funding available to take it forward.
With a general election in the offing, the campaigners will also be making the same appeal to the Shadow Minister seeking a pledge for support from any incoming Labour Government and the Secretary of the Nuclear Free Local Authorities will also be raising the possibility of finance from the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, which is the taxpayer body responsible for clean-up operations at Sellafield, the source of most of this radioactive contamination, and the decommissioned nuclear plants.
The NFLA Chair, Councillor Lawrence O’Neill, said of the appeal: “Although we oppose the government’s recent Roadmap to expand nuclear generation, we welcome the stated commitments made by Nuclear Minister Andrew Bowie that ‘safety will remain paramount’ and that ‘community engagement would remain an essential part of the process.’
“If these commitments are to be upheld then surely it is only right that this government – and the nuclear industry – fund and support the establishment of new citizen science projects, led by local people, local schools and colleges, and local NGOs, to monitor radiation around existing and future nuclear sites?
“If such sites are indeed safe, then the government and nuclear industry has nothing to hide and engaging the public in such projects would provide them with reassurance”.
Ends//… For further information please contact the NFLA Secretary, Richard Outram, by email at richard.outram@manchester.gov.uk
Notes to Editors
The findings of the survey carried out by volunteers from Radiation Free Lakeland published by the Worcester Polytechnic Institute can be found here:
The letter sent to the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology follows:
The Rt Hon Michelle Donelan MP,
Secretary of State,
Science, Innovation and Technology
correspondence@dsit.gov.uk
25 January 2024
Dear Secretary of State,
An Appeal for Citizen Science
Today (25 January) is the birthday of American ornithologist Wells Cooke, considered to be the founder of modern citizen science. From 1881, he engaged amateur birding enthusiasts in collecting information about bird migration. His program evolved into the government-run North American Bird Phenology Programme, supported by volunteers across the nation.
In more recent times, British television programmes, such as the BBC’s seasonal Nature Watch shows, have sought the collaboration of many citizens in making observations of the great outdoors, and this data has been invaluable in understanding and monitoring our natural world.
Citizen science has many positive outcomes:
- It encourages and engages stakeholder citizens to learn more about their local environment and about science in general.
- It provides students with opportunities to take a meaningful role in the process of scientific research, sometimes leading to careers in STEM.
- It improves scientific literacy in general.
- It provides ‘big data’, generally of high quality, from many observers in many locations, which can then be subjected to centralised analysis by research professionals.
Consequently, citizen science increases community engagement; makes science more relevant and ‘immediate’ to the general population; and has a significant and increasing positive impact on research outcomes.
Despite this, there are insufficient financial or technical resources made available by government, the scientific and academic institutions, and by industry to support the expansion and sustainability of citizen science projects.
This letter then is an appeal for those resources to be made available to more citizen science projects in general, but more specifically for the study of radioactivity in our environment.
Secretary of State, your colleague the Minister for Nuclear and Renewables, the Rt Hon Andrew Bowie MP, recently announced the UK Government’s Civilian Nuclear Roadmap proposing a massive expansion of nuclear power generating capacity to 24 GW by 2050. The plan comprises the development and operation of two large mega-watt plants at Sizewell C in Suffolk and one other site, mostly likely Wylfa or Moorside, and the deployment of Small and Advanced Modular Reactors at numerous, yet to be determined, sites. In addition, we have Hinkley Point C in construction; five operational stations; and many former operational sites under the stewardship of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority.
In his written statement on the announcement of the Roadmap to the House of Commons dated 11 January [2], Mr Bowie said:
‘It is our intention that safety will remain paramount, with the highest safety, security and environmental standards overseen by the independent nuclear regulator and environment protection agencies. Public consultation and community engagement would also remain an essential part of the process.’
Recent revelations in The Guardian newspaper highlighted leakages of radioactive contaminants, both historic and ongoing, from the Sellafield plant, which have been reinforced by the findings from research conducted into the presence of radionuclides in West Cumbria by Radiation Free Lakeland, and in the last twelve months there have also been newspaper reports in Scotland concerning the clean-up of radioactive materials from Dalgety Bay and the detection of radioactive particles on the beaches surrounding Dounreay.
A common public concern in relation to the operation of civil nuclear sites is the inevitable radioactive contamination, airborne and of the ground and watercourses, of the surrounding environment. Routine discharges of alpha-emitting radioactive dusts are unmonitored although, once inhaled, they confer high doses to local tissue. We are concerned that the only published information on dusts emitted from nuclear power stations was for the early 1990s [3] and that no information on the uranium component of the dusts has ever been published.
For these reasons we welcome the Nuclear Minister’s stated commitments to ensure that ‘safety will remain paramount’ and that ‘community engagement would remain an essential part of the process’. If these commitments are to be upheld then surely it is only right that this government – and the nuclear industry – fund and support the establishment of new citizen science projects, led by local people, local schools and colleges, and local NGOs, to monitor radiation around existing and future nuclear sites?
If such sites are indeed safe, then the government and nuclear industry has nothing to hide and engaging the public in such projects would provide them with reassurance.
Secretary of State, we are writing to you assuming that this matter falls within the remit of your department rather than that of the Department of Energy Security and Net Zero to make the appeal for the necessary funding and support to make it so.
Thank you for taking the time to read this letter and consider its contents. We hope that we might have the opportunity to work with you and departmental civil servants to take this proposal forward and we look forward to your reply.
In the first instance could I ask you to reply by email to Richard Outram, NFLA Secretary, at richard.outram@manchester.gov.uk
Yours sincerely,
Councillor Lawrence O’Neill,
Chair, UK/Ireland NFLA Steering Committee
Endorsed and supported by:
Marianne Birkby, on behalf of Radiation Free Lakeland
Richard Bramhall, on behalf of Low-Level Radiation Campaign and Welsh Anti-Nuclear Alliance (WANA)
Rita Caine, on behalf of Ayrshire Radiation Monitoring Group
Sue Aubrey on behalf of Stop Hinkley
Pete Wilkinson, on behalf of Together against Sizewell C (TASC)
1. Referred to as Cesium in the report as this is the customary US spelling
2. https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-statements/detail/2024-01-11/hcws177
3. http://www.unscear.org/docs/publications/2000/UNSCEAR_2000_Annex-C-CORR.pdf Table 34
A near identical letter was also sent to the Labour Shadow Secretary of State The Rt Hon. Peter Kyle MP
