Cleaning Up Fife Beach

Crunch talks will take place next Tuesday to clean-up Dalgety Bay beach.

Just weeks ago, the MOD committed to a £10 million plan to remove radioactive particles from the foreshore.

Fife Council, the Ministry of Defence, SEPA and local landowners are to meet on Tuesday 5th August.

The group has been welcomed by local MP Gordon Brown, who has campaigned for the £10million improvement of the bay. The group will examine concrete proposal to remove the sources of radioactive contamination at Dalgety Bay beach.

The meeting follows the agreement by the Ministry of Defence last month to fund the repair of the area after being named by SEPA as its polluter. The meeting will discuss proposals to replace or reinforce existing coastal armour protection to minimise the potential for erosion, and the removal of high activity (>40kBq) radium material from selected areas of the foreshore.

This may involve limited reprofiling of the beach and foreshore areas to accommodate a rock armour cover system, and the placement of a rock armour cover system over targeted areas to isolate remaining radium containing material. In the final stages there is a proposal to build a new slipway for the Sailing Club.

Mr Brown said: 

"I welcome this meeting and I hope we can soon agree a timetable of action. There will be a debate about securing a barrier 
wall at the headland as the best way of preventing further seepage of radioactive materials when there is coastal erosion. We will need the best engineering solutions to prevent further radioactive particles coming to the surface."