From: Alan M.Johnston.
Recently, our befuddled Prime Minister had a jolly spiffing idea that a bridge between Scotland and the north of Ireland would quell the democratic demands of those natives of a nationalistic bent in each of his colonies and make more palatable the black hole of reason that is brexit.
In an effort to bolster his snake oil sales pitch he wheeled out some of the pop guns of unionist support to give volleys of hope, admiration and inspiration on the idea. Our Secretary of State, an estate owning multi millionaire with his fingers on the pulse of estate owning millionaires everywhere pontificated thus. “It’s, it’s, it’s, it’s a euphemism for a tunnel. Even now people are working hard on it”, he stated in a gruntled sort of fashion. If the SoS, and never have three letters been brought together in such an apposite manner, wishes to save the country millions of pounds in a search for information on the bridge tunnel proposal , he should read on.
The area the tunnel is to be driven through contains a trench known as Beaufort’s Dyke. This trench was gouged out of the rock by glaciers during the ice age. It reaches a depth of up to 1,000 feet. It has remained so deep and unfilled with mud or sand over the thousands of years since the ice age ended because of the scouring action of the massive tidal movements in the area. This trench was used for decades as a dumping ground by the MoD. According to the MoD’s own figures the material dumped includes 1,500,000 tons of ordnance. (things that go from bang to awfy big bang), 14,500 tons of phosgene. Remember all the photographs from WW1 showing the lines of soldiers being led like blind mice one behind the other after being blinded by gas? Those were the survivors of phosgene chemical attacks. There is also 2 tons of nuclear waste. Low level waste they assure us. This is the area under which they want to drive a tunnel. A number of years ago a pipeline was taken through the area. During the laying of the pipeline, ordnance(burny, bangy things) kept being washed up on the foreshore on both sides of the channel.
Were these the only problems likely to be encountered it would be sufficient for us to say ”Enough”.
There is however,much more.
An archived piece of research by the British Geological Survey, as shown below, gives details of explosions in the area of the Dyke between 1992 and 2004. It only shows explosions between particular magnitudes over that period of time. https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20121018180851/http://www.mod.uk/NR/rdonlyres/712B6133-E353-4030-9DD0-F677DC3B6F38/0/bgs_beauforts.pdf
To drive a tunnel through this area given the possible instability of the ordnance would be total madness. The vibrations of the tunnelling equipment, the possibility of chemical leakage permeating through the rock, the explosions already occurring without warning must all be considered. The dangers of these things, added to the difficulties of driving one of the deepest and longest undersea tunnels in the world must mean that the tunnellers would be at serious risk. I wonder what a Health and Safety risk assessment and a method statement would bring into view.
Earlier it was stated that 1.5 million tons of various munitions had been dumped. It was also stated that the trench has been kept clear by the scouring actions of the tidal flows. Given both of these facts there must have been a migration of some of these explosives and chemicals out of the designated dumping ground. The mapped positions of the explosions would appear to show this. There should be a survey by an underwater unmanned vehicle to determine the condition and spread of the materials.
Is there also any risk to the undersea cables and pipelines which are in areas that contain unexploded materials because of any migration?
In case anyone thinks that Beaufort’s Dyke was the only place around Scotland that was used either as a dump or as a proposed dump this is a list of others, taken from Hansard, January 1996, Volume 269.
| Inner Sound of Raasay | 57 19 00 N | 5 51 00 W |
| Isle of May, Firth of Forth1 | 56 10 45 N | 2 30 15 W |
| Isle of May, Firth of Forth1 | 56 11 24 N | 2 29 00 W |
| Sound of Mull | 56 30 00 N | 5 37 00 W |
| East of Aberdeen | 57 09 00 N | 1 58 30 W |
| Loch Linnhe | 56 30 00 N | 5 37 00 W |
| Firth of Clyde | 55 37 00 N | 4 59 30 W |
This map shows the sites of the munitions dumps listed above and also of 6 chemical dumps.
https://marinescotland.atkinsgeospatial.com/nmpi/default.aspx?layers=631
Many years ago I used to be a sea angler enjoying boat angling trips. One of my favourite places was Loch Broom. Local skippers would take us over their favourite marks for haddock etc. I was told on a couple of occasions that we were fishing over a massive “hole” in the loch bed that had excellent fishing. The skippers also said that the MoD spent years dumping munitions into these places. I have so far been unable to find any information on this on any official site.
Pooling and Sharing, my fellow Scots. Better Together?
Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
Highly entertaining first half – ‘burny bangy things’ 🙂 but grim reading by the second half – who knew how much toxic dumping there has been? That’s all Scotland is to the landed gentry though, a dumping ground.
Thanks Alan, very informative
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Thanks for this Alan. And let’s not forget the toxic stuff dumped once upon a time in the Holy Loch by the US Navy. See this from the New Scientist from 1997: https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg15320720-200-cold-war-waste-fouls-the-clyde/
“TOXIC waste thrown overboard by the US Navy has transformed Holy Loch on the Clyde estuary into one of the dirtiest stretches of coastal water in the world, according to reports commissioned by Britain’s Ministry of Defence.”
“Concentrations of the gender-bending chemical phthalate, which mimics the hormone oestrogen, reached 245 micrograms per litre of water – 49 times the Dutch safety limit for groundwater. Water sampling also suggested concentrations of mercury, tin and copper in excess of European environmental quality standards. ERM (an environmental consultancy undertaking survey work here) did not look for radioactivity, but points out that an earlier survey of sediment by the MoD detected low levels of cobalt-60 and manganese-54 from submarine reactors.”
The article goes on: “The ERM reports disclose another MoD survey of Holy Loch in 1995, which found up to 864 micrograms of PCBs per kilogram of sediment. Graham Shimmield, director of the government-funded Dunstaffnage Marine Laboratory near Oban in Scotland, says this is the highest level he has heard of anywhere in the world.”
In the same New Scientist article there were concerns expressed that any attempt at a clean up could make matters worse by disturbing toxic material on the bed of the Loch. I don’t know what clean up was attempted and if so how successful it has proved.
Overall, MoD and similar exploitation of Scotland’s natural environment has been bad and over a very long time. Arguably, the full story has never (yet) been sufficiently aggregated and amplified to impinge on public opinion in Scotland as it should.
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Huntin’, fishin’, shootin’, dumpin’.
Holy Loch, Faslane, Dounreay—people in authority just dumping nuke waste at their erse.
Dump munitions, poison etc at sea–dig a hole and bury it–always in Scotland. It’s. why they are so keen to have nuclear power in Scotland—a repository far away from London(the deep clay beds down south are actually safest for nuke waste).
And the bridge/tunnel/stepping stone, is just a “euphemism” for deflecting us from the eye-watering investments the budget will bring to England. ……..Scotland? Oh, your “tunnel” is in the pipeline, don’t you know? Maybe next year, when the digger is free!
Union Jock Jack makes Mundell look like he was interested, though he was utterly useless. Don’t know what it is, but Jack reminds me of Bertie Wooster. A privileged buffoon with “connections”.
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I have heard a massive amount was also dumped in the Cromarty Firth of the “Yankee Pier”,don’t know if any truth in this maybe someone could answer if that is the case.
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Thanks for the information. Can you advise what and where in Loch Linnhe they dumped their stuff. I live just where Loch Linnhe joins Locheil, and would like to know. I know that there were naval bases here but was unaware about an actual weapons dump.
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I am sure that this will be twisted by some anti-independence types that “this shows Scotland could not manage on its own, because how can we find the money to clear up this mess. Best to stay with the UK, which knows how to deal with these things!!!!” (Bodger Darling Broon)
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