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The land owned by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority at Hunterston A includes an area reclaimed from the foreshore of the Firth of Clyde using mainly soil and rock excavated during the construction of the Hunterston A and B power stations. This 'Foreshore Reclaimed Area' lies outside the Nuclear Licensed Site, and includes a small area used for disposal of very low-level solid radioactive waste in the late 1970s and early 1980s, which is the subject of this case study.
This is the first SAFEGROUNDS case study to reflect the new (2009) SAFEGROUNDS guidance, and covers the Risk Assessment stage (including Immediate Action) and Options Appraisal stage of the SAFEGROUNDS process flow diagram. The main case study document is supported by presentation slides (referenced by number in the main document) and referenced non-technical summary of the options appraisal.
Characterisation of the Dounreay castle site using the groundhog system
Dounreay Castle is located at the mouth of the Mill Lade at the northern boundary of the UKAEA Dounreay site. As a result of past operations at the UKAEA Dounreay site the castle environs were affected by radioactive contamination. The two sources of contamination identified were effluent dispersion experiments carried out in the mid-1950s and leakage of the low-radioactive drainage system.
Remediation of a radioactively and chemically contaminated site at Harwell
The Southern Storage Area (SSA) comprises an area of land covering some 7.2 ha, approximately 1 km south of the UKAEA Harwell, Oxfordshire.The SSA was used by the RAF until 1945 as an ammunition store. From 1946 the site was used for a variety of waste storage and handling operations and for the “permanent”
landfill burial of mixed chemical, beryllium and low-level radioactive waste (LLW).
A preliminary clean-up of the site was carried out during 1988–1990, to eliminate the need for the site to be licensed under the Nuclear Installations Act (as was required for the main Harwell site). However, this remediation was not sufficient to allow unrestricted access to the site, which therefore remained secure.
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