Confidential files have revealed that radioactive water from the Royal Navy's Coulport armaments depot in Scotland leaked into Loch Long due to poor maintenance of aging pipes. The base holds the UK's nuclear warheads for Trident submarines.
The Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) found that up to half the components at the base were beyond their design life. A pipe burst in August 2019 released water contaminated with low levels of tritium into the loch. Sepa blamed the leaks on 'shortfalls in maintenance' by the Royal Navy.
Despite promises of 23 remedial actions after the 2019 incident, two further pipe bursts occurred in 2021. Sepa noted that progress on repairs was 'slow and delayed'. The Ministry of Defence (MoD) had argued the files should remain secret for national security reasons, but the Scottish information commissioner ordered their release.
David Cullen, a nuclear weapons expert, called the repeated pollution incidents 'shocking' and the secrecy attempts 'outrageous'. The MoD is nearly 10 years into a £2bn infrastructure programme at the base, yet lacked a proper asset management system as recently as 2022.
