Dalgety Bay

Dalgety Bay lies on the north shore of the Firth of Forth, between Inverkeithing and Aberdour on the Fife coast.

The name of Dalgety Bay applies to both an actual inlet bay on the coast, and the town which has developed to the west and northwest of the bay.

From a small settlement, the area is said to have developed from 1962 onward, and been founded by the 20th Earl of Moray on land belonging to the former Donibristle Estate. It has been described as the first private development of a new town in Scotland, and was followed by the opening of the Forth Road Bridge in 1964,

Part of the estate was developed as an aerodrome during World War I, and was used by both the Royal Navy and RAF, and subsequently reactivated for World War II as HMS Merlin.

Donibristle Industrial Park was developed over the runway of the former air base, and evidence of the runway can still be found with the estate, and near the local tennis courts, where the apron associated with aircraft repair and salvage operations carried out at the base was located.

Z-Berth

Dalgety Bay was the location of a designated Z-Berth, however this facility has been classed as inactive for some years.

Contaminated area

Public notice
� Richard Webb

The use of radium in luminous paint, probably manufactured by Luminisers Ltd, for aircraft instruments has led to claims of a continuing Realistic hazard to public health, according to a Government report from 2006.

A survey by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) found about 1,000 radioactive items in the area of Dalgety Bay. It referred to this as far more than the number found at Sandside Beach near Dounreay, and 50 times higher than normal, however, it is probably necessary to read the further hazard analysis to discover which of the two actually carries the greater risk, as the nature and probablility of coming into contact with, and retaining the hazardous material is highly signiificant.

First reported in 1990, official enquiries resulted in a clean up operation of the area, with material being collected and removed for storage in the naval dockyard at Rosyth for some years thereafter. Although the area was cleared at the time, later surveys have reported the existence of similar contamination in the area.

The source of the contamination has been attributed to waste dumped from HMS Merlin, the naval air station which formerly occupied the area, and which was closed in 1959. During World War II, the station was tasked with carrying out maintenance of aircraft, and this involved service and repair operation of the aircraft instrumentation, and many of the cockpit instrument dial markings were coated with luminous paint containing radium, which is radioactive. Following the end of the war, many surplus aircraft were scrapped at HMS Merlin, and incinerated with other rubbish. The waste was ultimately disposed of as landfill, and used to form a headland at Dalgety Bay.

The subsequent re-appearance of radioactive material in the area resulted in the return of SEPA, and the completion of a further survey to determine the extent of the contamination, determine the level of any associated risk, and recommend preventive actions. The MoD was asked for assistance to clear the contamination, but report that they have been refused, with the MoD pointing out that the site has not been a defence site since the middle of the 1960s, and that no conclusive results regarding the source of the contamination have been presented in any of the investigation completed so far.

Fife Council, the Scottish Executive and NHS Fife have stressed that the risks are low, but the warns that the radiation level may be high enough to carry a risk of skin burns and cancer. As access to the bay and beach is unrestricted, they advise visitors to wash their hands if they handle any material from the beach.

The reason the overall risk is rated as low arises from the fact the background radiation level in the area falls within the generally accepted level for this parameter, however, the risk associated with being in contact, particularly prolonged contact, with a particle from the area is high, however the risk analysis also shows that the chances of this are low, and visitors to the beach are more likely to become ill from coming into contact other hazardous waste such as sewage, and this is the reason for advising hand washing.

According to government advisers, people who come into prolonged contact with the contamination could receive doses of radiation in breach of official safety limits, with the risk of skin burns and, at worst, an increased risk of cancer. Ingesting the material by swallowing or breathing in could carry a significantly increased risk. Again, the actual risk of this happening is low.

The area was included in a list of sites said to be contaminated by radium:

Dalgety Bay, Fife: A stretch of the shoreline around the Dalgety Bay Sailing Club is contaminated with radium dumped after the closure of a nearby Royal Navy air base at Donibristle
Forthside, Stirling: Vacant land near the railway station has been contaminated with radium from an old army luminising depot
Balloch, Dunbartonshire: A site now used as a boat yard was contaminated by MacArthur's Loch Lomond Radium Works, which closed in 1928
Wishaw, Lanarkshire: Land next to Castlehill Primary School was contaminated by a radium plant run by Smith's Industries
Carlisle, Cumbria: An RAF base suffered widespread contamination from radium that had been incinerated and dumped

Source: Deadly Sunshine: The History and Fatal Legacy of Radium. David Harvie. Tempus, 2005. (David Harvie is a British political activist).