EXERCISE SHORT SERMON
The largest ever nuclear accident exercise will take place at Faslane submarine base from 18th to 20th November 1997. Exercise Short Sermon will simulate a limited release of radioactive material into the atmosphere from the reactor of a nuclear submarine.
The exercise will involve evacuating 4,000 people from Faslane base and decisions being made on measures to protect the public in the surrounding area. However the exercise will not simulate the worst possible accident, which could affect most of Scotland.
What the MoD say about Exercise Short Sermon
Mystic Mod ?
"We will always get advanced warning if something was to go wrong" Andy Moore MoD
The Navy must think that the public are incredibly naive, if they expect us to believe this. There are some accident scenarios in which the situation would deteriorate slowly over several hours and where the Navy would be able to anticipate a disaster, but there are many other scenarios in which a disaster could happen in minutes or seconds.
However the Navy themselves have admitted in the past that there could be a sudden accident, with no advanced notice. The 1983 Safety Scheme for Faslane said that in some circumstances there could be an accident in which there was a radiological hazard external to the nuclear plant, without there having been an earlier stage which could give them warning.
An unblemished record ?
"There has never been an accident involving a nuclear powered submarine reactor which has led to, or come anywhere near leading to, any release of radioactive contamination to the environment" Dr John Reid, Armed Forces Minister.
There are four Russian (K8, K219, K278, K27) and two American nuclear submarines (USS Thresher, USS Scorpion) currently on the sea bed following major accidents. A nuclear armed missile exploded on Russian submarine K219 on 6th October 1986. The reactor on Russian submarine K 314 exploded on 10th August 1985, at least ten people died and radiation was scattered across Siberia.
"In 40 years we have never had an accident" Commander Eric Thompson, Faslane
The Navy has had a long string of accidents on nuclear submarines. The most recent being the release of radioactive coolant from the reactor of HMS Turbulent in early November 1997. The two most serious known accidents were:
"Submarine propulsion systems because of their size, mobility and the hostile environment in which they must operate, are exposed to substantially greater risks than land-based nuclear power stations; accident situations are appreciably more numerous because of the possibilities of collision, fire sinking, grounding and stranding, sea-effect, and so on."
What will happen during the exercise ?
Conduct of Exercise Short Sermon within Faslane
An accident will be simulated on a nuclear powered submarine. Emergency services from the base and from outside will be called to the scene, where they would need to have a high degree of protection.
Probably just before lunchtime on Tuesday 18th, an alarm will tell everyone inside the base to take shelter. A massive and complex operation will then take place to evacuate 4,000 people who are inside the base. The Emergency Planning Officer at Faslane has described Short Sermon as "perhaps the most intense exercise ever held by NARO (Nuclear Accident Response Organisation) ... All departments, lodger units, ships and submarines alongside will be affected by it. Play within the base will be total with very few exceptions."
Conduct of Exercise Short Sermon outside Faslane
A new version of the Clyde Public Safety Scheme (CLYDEPUBSAFE) has just been published by the Navy. It is assumed that this will form the blueprint for this Exercise.
Units will be despatched to carry out monitoring to find out the levels of radiation both inside and outside the base. They will be told what figures to radio in to their headquarters. Making sense of these readings will take time - in a similar exercise at Devonport in 1993 it took 24 hours to collate all the notional radiation monitoring information.
Apart from monitoring it is unlikely that any real public protection measures will take place outwith the base during Exercise Short Sermon. However emergency services, local authority and other representatives will meet to make decisions on paper about what response would be needed. They will staff the Clyde Off Site Centre at Rhu. Previous exercises involved Strathclyde Regional Council. It remains to be seen how well Argyll and Bute Council will respond to an exercise of this magnitude.
There will also be involvement at higher levels of Government including Whitehall. George Robertson, the Secretary of State for Defence will be kept informed of progress during the exercise.
Argyll and Bute Council will assume that the radioactive fallout would affect an area downwind of the accident in an arc 15 degrees either side of the direction of the wind. (It is likely that the scenario for the exercise will dictate which way the wind will blow). The public are not expected to participate in Exercise Short Sermon. However the civil authorities are expected to decide on paper that the following should happen:
Preplanned countermeasures Zone This is the area within 2 kms downwind of the accident. Garelochhead, Shandon and parts of the Rosneath peninsula are within 2 kms of Faslane. Garelochhead Primary School and Garelochhead Outdoor Education Centre are described as vulnerable communities as they could be inside this zone. In the exercise it will probably be decided that everyone in this zone would be advised to take shelter and issued with Potassium Iodate Tablets (PITs - see below). It may be decided that everyone in this zone would have to be evacuated.
Extendibility Zone This is the area within 10 kms downwind of the accident. Helensburgh (population 16,000), Rhu, Clynder, Cove and Kilcreggan are all within 10 kms of Faslane. In the exercise it may be decided that some or all of the people in this zone would also be advised to take shelter and be issued with PITs.
Wider area Restrictions on food grown on contaminated land would "extend far beyond the area over which other safety measures are required" and could apply over a long period of time. This would result in widespread disruption of farming.
In the type of accident simulated during Exercise Short Sermon contamination of drinking and sea water could be an additional problem. Public and private water supplies could be contaminated over a large area. The catchment areas for water supplies for the Rosneath peninsula, Helensburgh, Dumbarton, Greenock and Dunoon are all close to Faslane. The catchment area for Glasgow's main water supply is 20 kms from Faslane. It is likely that radiation from Faslane would be detected in water supplies downwind of a nuclear accident.
An accident on a nuclear submarine would also pollute the sea with radioactive fall-out. This would be dispersed over a wide area and drift with tide and currents. There would be a long term build up of radioactivity in sediments and mudflats.
CLYDEPUBSAFE lists Glasgow Royal and Glasgow Western as two hospitals which could be expected to receive irradiated casualties. Vale of Leven and Inverclyde hospitals are also mentioned although it is noted that if casualties are sent there radiation monitoring services should be arranged. Ambulance and hospital workers could be exposed to radiation in dealing with casualties from a nuclear accident.
Does Exercise Short Sermon simulate the worst that could happen ?
Naval training manuals which were classified are now in the public domain. They make it clear that the type of accident being simulated in Exercise Short Sermon is not the worst case. The worst case accident is a reactor containment failure accident. This would actually affect a large part of Scotland.
The manuals from Greenwich College show the radiation doses people could receive. Applying the Site Specific Intervention Levels in the CLYDEPUBSAFE to these radiation doses shows that:
Evacuation - everyone within 30 kms downwind of the accident should be evacuated from their homes. For an accident at Faslane this could mean evacuating Alexandria, Dumbarton, Clydebank, Greenock or Dunoon.
Shelter & PITs - everyone within 120 kms downwind should be told to take shelter and issued with PITs. This could apply to a very large part of Scotland. Not only the people of Glasgow but even those living in Edinburgh or Dundee could be seriously affected..
There are no publicly available plans which detail how the emergency services would respond to an accident of this magnitude. Exercise Short Sermon is likely to illustrate the severe difficulties that there would be in trying to respond to a relatively small nuclear accident. In the worst case the emergency services would be totally overwhelmed. For example, the distribution of PITs around Garelochhead within 2 hours of an accident would be very difficult to achieve. There are no arrangements in place for even attempting to distribute them across a large part of Scotland in this timescale.
Taking account of the fact that an accident could happen not just at Faslane, but anywhere frequented by nuclear submarines, it is clear that the whole of Scotland is at risk.
The true scale of a nuclear disaster is illustrated by the fact that on 3rd May 1986 a significant amount of radioactive fall-out was detected in raindrops in Govan, over 2,300 kms from the Chernobyl reactor which was on fire at the time.
Distribution of Potassium Iodate Tablets
Prevention of thyroid cancer
At least 500 children living in Eastern Europe have suffered from thyroid cancer because of the nuclear accident at the Chernobyl. There will continue to be more cases for another 30 years. Young children were found to be particularly sensitive to the effects of radiation and the cancers among children have been more aggressive than the cancers among adults.
At Chernobyl, radioactive iodine was released into the atmosphere. An accident on a nuclear submarine could also result in radioactive iodine being dispersed. The iodine is absorbed by the thyroid, which is a gland in the neck. This can lead to thyroid cancer. The younger a child is, the smaller his or her thyroid is likely to be and the more sensitive it is to radiation. An infant thyroid is ten times more sensitive to the effects of radiation than that of an adult.
It is possible to protect children and adults from exposure to radioactive iodine. This can be done by taking a tablet which contains iodine in another form, potassium iodate. The tablets are 98 % effective if taken an hour before exposure, 90% effective if taken at the time of exposure, but only 50 % effective if taken 3 or 4 hours after exposure. Several days after the Chernobyl accident millions of children in Eastern Europe were given these tablets, but it was too late. The sooner the tablets are taken after an accident the more effective they will be. If it takes several hours to distribute the tablets then more children will be exposed to radiation, and more will develop cancer.
So long as only the recommended dose is taken there is very little risk from side effects from these tablets. There were no reported adverse effects among the 10.5 million children who were issued with tablets after Chernobyl and the risk of severe detriment to the general public is "vanishingly small" (1 in 10 million).
Health boards around the Clyde hold stocks of the Potassium Iodate Tablets and the current plan is that if there was an accident on a nuclear submarine, then they would be distributed. But by then it would be too late. A recent survey of current practice amongst health boards in Britain concludes that pre distribution offers the most effective protection.
At a minimum these Potassium Iodate tablets should be distributed in advance to schools and nursery schools within 2 km of a possible accident. There is also a strong case for wider distribution of these tablets to all households. At the Navy's other nuclear submarine base, Devonport, there has been widespread distribution of these tablets to schools and households.
Comparison of arrangement at Devonport and Faslane
Schools
Around Devonport tablets have been pre distributed to 17 schools. No tablets have been pre distributed to any schools near Faslane.
Households
At Devonport, West of the River Tamar tablets have been issued to all households by Cornwall Health Board. East of the river Plymouth Health Board distributed leaflets to 17,500 homes. These leaflets asked if people wanted to be issued with tablets. Following this tablets have been issued to 1,700 homes. No tablets have been issued to near Faslane.
It must be emphasised that Potassium Iodate Tablets are not a cure all. They only counter one particular radiation risk - that of iodine 131 to the thyroid. The tablets do not provide any protection from other forms of radiation which could result in cancer.
Response to an accident occurring on a submarine at sea in the Clyde Estuary
The object of the Clyde Public Safety Scheme is to safeguard the public from a nuclear submarine accident in the Clyde Area. The Scheme includes specific plans for listed submarine berths, not only at Faslane but also at Coulport, Loch Goil, Campbeltown, Rothesay and Loch Striven. However there are no specific plans for dealing with a nuclear accident on a submarine while it is at sea in the estuary. Nuclear submarines travel several times a week passing Dunoon, Gourock and Helensburgh. This is far more frequent than visits to Loch Striven, Rothesay or Campbeltown. But yet there is no attempt to detail provisions for these areas.
According to the Safety Scheme there should be pre planned countermeasures which can be put into effect within 2 kms of the scene of an accident. There are some plans for the area within 2 kms of berths, but no plans for areas within 2 kms of where submarines sail past. In the event of an accident the civil authorities should be told to implement shelter and Potassium Iodate Tablet distribution within the 2 km zone.
At Devonport tablets have been pre distributed and this should be done in areas around the Clyde, at least to schools and nursery schools. In the appendix is a list of schools and nurseries around Gareloch. Similar lists should be drawn up for Gourock, Dunoon and other coastal areas. The list includes pre-school groups because of the particular importance of distribution of Potassium Iodate Tablets to the youngest age group.
The Clyde Public Safety Scheme also describes an "Extendibility Zone" within which countermeasures might be considered. This extends for 10 kms around the potential scene of an accident.
Within the immediate area of an accident there is a 550 m "Automatic Countermeasures Zone" from which everyone would be immediately evacuated except the emergency services.
There are also a number of places which are within 550 m of navigation channels used regularly by nuclear submarines. These include Kilcreggan, Rosneath, Rosneath Castle caravan park, Rhu spit and Kidston Park. Kilcreggan is particularly at risk as there is a Degaussing Range 600 m from the shore which is used very regularly by nuclear submarines.
Conclusion
The hazards from nuclear submarines are so great that the only way in which to protect the public from the hazard is to remove it.