Scottish Anger at DU Contamination

DU is still contaminating the military firing range near Kirkcudbright in the south of Scotland, according to an unpublished MoD survey, reports the Sunday Herald (11 April 2004). Since 1982 over 90 shells have been misfired or have malfunctioned and scattered fragments of DU across the ground. Despite searches, some of the fragments have never been recovered.

“Higher levels of contamination have sometimes been found at points where
malfunctioning DU rounds or fragments landed on the range, but this has been removed when MoD clean-up levels were exceeded,” the report states. Other areas were less contaminated, but fenced off “as a matter of good practice”. But, the report adds: “Some projectiles and fragments have not been recovered... There are also a small number of areas where it would be advantageous to carry out further intrusive investigations to investigate some apparently anomalous monitoring results.”

Local concern about the risks was highlighted when peace activists took to the streets to hand out cards that are deliberately designed to mimic those handed to troops in Iraq. “The focus of our action on April 16 is to highlight the hypocrisy of the MoD issuing warning cards to our troops, but not to the civilians they supposedly protect”.

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