Britain's farmers still restricted by Chernobyl nuclear fallout

Britain's farmers still restricted by Chernobyl nuclear fallout

Environmentalists say controls on 369 farms highlight danger of plans to build nuclear plants around UK

* Terry Macalister and Helen Carter
* guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 12 May 2009 12.30 BST

Nearly 370 farms in Britain are still restricted in the way they use land and rear sheep because of radioactive fallout from the Chernobyl nuclear power station accident 23 years ago, the government has admitted.

<snip>

Dawn Primarolo, minister for health, revealed 369 farms and 190,000 sheep were affected, but pointed out this was a tiny number compared with the immediate impact of radioactive fallout from Ukraine.

"This represents a reduction of over 95% since 1986, when approximately 9,700 farms and 4,225,000 sheep were under restriction across the United Kingdom. All restrictions in Northern Ireland were lifted in 2000," she added.

<snip>

"Ministers like to describe nuclear power as 'clean and green', as they press for up to 11 new reactors to be built across England and Wales. But these latest figures on Chernobyl fallout gives the lie to these claims.

"Any breach of containment accident at Sellafield's high activity liquid radioactive waste storage tanks would release many times the radioactivity released in the Chernobyl accident. And these tanks had an under-reported loss of coolant a month ago, so we have been warned," he added.

<snip>



<snip>