Chernobyl blights UK sheep farms

Hundreds of British sheep farms continue to suffer the effects of radioactive fall-out after the world's worst nuclear accident, two decades ago at Chernobyl, will have to follow strict safety measures for years to come, it emerged on Wednesday.

Checks on sheep over the past two years for the UK Food Standards Agency suggest levels of caesium, the main radioactive element, are still high in uplands that were affected by rain carrying contaminated material released by the blast.

The tests, done on animals within 24 hours of their leaving the highest slopes, show that many farms still suffer serious problems. Although the sheep excrete the caesium rapidly when they are moved to lower pastures, the element has a half-life of 30 years.

The problem is worst in Wales. Even on the farms that have seen radioactive levels drop, the farmers cannot escape controls because there are no stock-proof fences separating neighbours. Sheep have to be tested with special monitors before they can be sent to market for slaughter, and strict rules govern the movement of other sheep on and off farms.

Radioactivity also remains in the poor soils on the tops of hills in southern Scotland, parts of the Lake District, northwestern England and in Snowdonia, northern Wales. Grass and other plants easily absorb caesium and so do the sheep that eat them. Few farmers wish to talk about their experiences, being worried about scaring consumers.

The agency says the controls have effectively protected public food safety. Authorities have no central records on how many sheep have failed food safety tests but farmers quickly learned that bringing their animals off the highest slopes to lower pasture where the grass was not tainted allowed time for the caesium to disappear before the tests.

Numbers of farms affected have dwindled, from the original 8,900 to 359 in Wales, nine in the Lake District and 10 in Scotland. No one knows when the restrictions will end.

"It does make you think twice about living in the shadow of a nuclear power station, if they ever opened another one here," said Edwin Noble, 45, whose farm is on the side of the Roman Bridge valley between Betws-y-coed and Blaenau Ffestiniog.

When Chernobyl happened there was a nuclear plant operating just a few kilometres south of the farm at Trawsfynydd. "I am told some of the rocks are quite radioactive anyway; they have a high background reading. I would personally prefer to see windmills than nuclear, although I don't want to see them on every mountain."

Nicola Noble, his wife, said: "They never took any readings before Chernobyl so we never knew what was there before." The Nobles, who have two children, still call out agriculture officials 14 or 15 times a year either to check for radioactive sheep or to mark others with red paint to show they have legally left the farm for grazing at the holding they also own on lower ground 20 miles away. They have to give five working days' notice.

"Before Chernobyl you could get out, get the lambs and put them to market," said Noble. "I never arrange to scan the sheep the day I take them off the mountain. It can take seven hours to gather them and arrange with the neighbours to get five or six men to do it. It is not a thing we do lightly."

Operators check for background radiation and then hold cylinders against the sheep to measure radioactivity in their muscles. They take three readings and pass or fail animals on the average score.

The safety limit set by European experts is 1,000 becquerels (a unit of radioactivity) per kilogram of sheep. But in practice, they are only passed as fit to eat if the reading is under 645, as mud and wool get in the way and to get greater accuracy would mean killing the sheep.

Farmers are paid 1.30 pounds (US$2.26) a sheep for each time they muster their stock, and compensated for any drop in price fetched by marked sheep at market. Such payments have probably cost more than 15 million pounds (US$26 million) so far. Cattle and other animals are not a concern as they graze on lower ground, although in the early days low levels of caesium were found in mushrooms and honey.

Noble said: "I don't think we thought it was something that lasted that long. The people who come here now have no answer to how long it will go on. What happened here pales into insignificance with what happened there those who lost their lives. It is not devastated like that here."

Source:China Daily