A nice little British nuclear catastrophe has been uncovered in Scotland, where the complex and millennia-long process of decommissioning the Dounreay facility is in trouble for stirring up an extremely small quantity of radioactive dust. A teaspoon of sand and a sprinkling of boron sorted it all out no problem.
The Scottish Environment Protection Agency revealed that the extremely minor incident happened in February, when dust was disturbed and made its way out during a test of the facility's ancient ventilation system. Sepa says the environmental impact was "very low" and within allowable discharge limits, so there was no need to evacuate the nearby town of Thurso and there probably won't even be a BBC Four documentary made about what happened, it was that boring and free of consequences.
Dounreay Site Restoration Ltd is taking it very seriously, mind, so much so that it has formulated an action plan, to make sure the many layers of dust within the 1950s nuclear testbed remain undisturbed and its staff are a bit more careful about pressing legacy buttons.
