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33. South Uist. (NF 752 429), (NF 777 406)
The major military facility on South Uist is the missile range,
which is controlled by QinetiQ at RAF Benbecula[12]. There are a
number of sites throughout the island, including the rangehead,
complete with missile launch areas, at West Geirinis. The range
control is situated at Ruabhal, and the summit of the hill has been
tagged "where religion meets radar" as the control centre
was built alongside a 30ft statue of the Madonna and Child called
'Our Lady of the Isles'. The hill top site encompasses a number
of buildings and domes.
In March 2004, it was revealed that in a declassified 1981 report,
the Naval Radiation Protection Services discovered that the rangehead
and its surrounding area had been contaminated between 1967 and
1980 by high amounts of Cobalt-60, a radioisotope used to track
missiles. In this thirteen year period, the Cobalt-60 was leaked
onto the launch pad over one hundred times, a dangerous situation
that may have caused harm to a large number of people. The report
concluded that " both the ammunition technicians at RA Range
Hebrides and possibly the general public were being placed at unnecessary
radiological risk by the inadvertent consequences of Radio Mist
Distance Indicators operations." In addition, the report noted
that the land and sand dunes outside the base may have been contaminated
but because no evidence of the isotopes was found, the land was
not included in the decontamination process. An earlier investigation
by the West Highland Free Press in 2002 had found that the 352 drums
of waste from the decontamination process were buried at the range.
Also on South Uist are a sea watch radar station at Sheaval and
a patrol boat mooring at Lochboisdale.
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