The operators of the Dounreay nuclear plant in Scotland were yesterday fined £140,000 for dumping radioactive waste at a landfill and releasing nuclear fragments into the sea over a 21-year period.

Sheriff Andrew Berry said that the UK Atomic Energy Authority committed “very grave errors” by illegally dumping waste from the Caithness plant.

The authority pleaded guilty last week to four charges under the Radioactive Substances Act. It admitted one charge of disposing of solid radioactive waste at a landfill site at the plant between 1963 and 1975, and three of allowing nuclear fuel particles to be released through drains into Pentland Firth between 1963 and 1984.

It was fined £40,000 for dumping the waste and £100,000 for releasing the particles. The fine will ultimately be borne by the taxpayer, as the authority is publicly funded.

Wick Sheriff Court was told that six of the particles recovered after escaping from pipes into the sea were considered “very dangerous” and could have been fatal if ingested. Investigators found that the radio-activity of some fragments in a drain was 26 times above the annual permitted dose for a member of the public.

The charges were brought after a lengthy investigation by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency. It said that the fine should “serve as a stark warning to operators who disregard pollution laws”.

Dounreay, a former fast reactor research and development centre, was closed in 1994 and is in the process of being decommissioned. More than 1,000 radioactive particles — fragments of spent uranium fuel rods about the size of a grain of sand — have been found on beaches and the sea bed in the surrounding area.

John Crofts, the authority’s director of safety, said: “We accept that mistakes were made and regret those mistakes. We share the view that this is an unacceptable legacy of the Dounreay experiment. Our priority has been and will continue to be to minimise the risk to people and the environment.”

Campbell Gemmell, chief executive of the Scottish Environment Protection Agency, said: “This case clearly highlights that pollution is avoidable. This outcome serves as a valuable lesson to UKAEA and others that poor waste management practices will not be tolerated.”

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