Revealed: MoD's Beaufort's Dyke leaving toxic cargo on Scotland's shores

The Herald on Sunday has obtained a list of lethal jetsam which has washed up across Scotland since January 2020, including 1000lb bombs, grenades, mortar shells, Nazi mines and bullets.

The MoD is now facing calls to improve its inspections at the site and ensure the weapons, some of which contain toxic chemicals, are not harming the environment or marine life around the coast.

Undated handout photo issued by the Ardrossan Coastguard Rescue Team of a suspected sea mine, which washed up in in the North Ayrshire town of Ardrossan around 3pm on April 29, 2015. Image: Press Association

The department insists the items contained within the two-mile wide trench are not harmful, and some of the items washed up on shores are 200 miles from the dyke, and post-date the cessation of dumping therefore cannot have come from it.

However SNP MSP Siobhan Brown, who represents Ayr, said the department was acting irresponsibly and the weapons posed “a threat to one of the busiest shipping lanes in the British Isles.”

This is disputed by the MoD, which insists there is no threat posed to the shipping area by the hundreds of thousands of weapons beneath it.

According to a freedom of information request from the Ministry of Defence obtained by The Herald on Sunday, at least 289 items have been recorded by the MoD as having landed in Scotland and destroyed between January 2020 and April 2021, on almost 60 occasions.

They have washed up all over Scotland, including in Glasgow, Nairn, Orkney, Arran and Troon.

The last time a survey was done on the site’s contents was almost 20 years ago, with the department confirming: “In late 1995 and mid-1996, the Scottish Office’s Marine Laboratory carried out two detailed surveys of Beaufort’s Dyke to find out if the area has been polluted by the munitions which were dumped there.

“Samples of sediment and the edible flesh of fish and shellfish taken from the area were examined for a range of contaminants, but laboratory tests confirmed that none were present. Laboratory tests of the samples also revealed no trace of explosives.”

Poison Gas Dumping at Beaufort's Dyke

When asked about recent tests and surveys of the munitions dump, the department pointed to a ministerial question in 2019, where junior minister Tobias Elwood said: “the Government does not undertake any monitoring of the munitions in Beaufort Dyke.”

The 30-mile long undersea stretch between Stranraer and Belfast is crammed with chemical and weapons from WWI and WWII , with more than 1 million tonnes deposited by the MoD until the 1970s.

After the Second World War over one and a half million tonnes of munitions were dumped in the deep undersea trench off the Galloway coast.

But much of the ordnance never found its way into the deep trench at all and is littered across the shallower seabed.

It has also been revealed that drums of deadly chemical weapons captured from the Nazis in 1945, including Sarin, Tabun, mustard gas, phosgene, anthrax and cyanide, were dumped in this area as well.

In June 1997, during the public inquiry into the laying of an electricity cable across the North Channel, it was revealed that radioactive waste had systematically been dumped in Beaufort’s Dyke in the 1950s, containing Caesium-137, Radium-226 and other highly dangerous radionuclides.

Alarmingly, the British Geological Survey in Edinburgh then claimed that they had monitored eight unexplained explosions in the vicinity of Beaufort’s Dyke, each measuring two on the Richter Scale, around the time a gas pipeline was laid across the North Channel in 1995.

READ MORE: Radioactive secret of Beaufort's Dyke

The public inquiry was also informed that during the laying of the gas pipeline, over 4,500 incendiary devices had been washed up around the beaches of Dumfries & Galloway, Ayrshire, Argyll & Bute and County Antrim.

A child in Campbeltown and an adult in Ballantrae were injured after handling these explosive phosphorous tubes.

The inquiry was told of reports of fishermen trawling up phosphorous incendiary bombs in their nets causing fires and explosions on board fishing vessels and even ashore.

The MoD confirmed that it had met compensation claims from the owner of the Day Dawn fishing vessel, after nets caught fire as they were winched aboard north of Beaufort’s Dyke. In October 1995 they also paid £9,000 in compensation to the skipper of the Scottish Maid, after fishing nets caught fire on the back of his lorry.

A list of items which have washed up in Scotland shows similarities to those known to have been dumped in and around the dyke, such as Spigot mortar bombs, smoke generators and flares.

The MoD said it was not possible to know which came from the Dyke from the information they provided, but some clearly did not.

READ MORE: Beaufort's Dyke row flares up after inquiry confirms Herald revelation of munitions dumped short.

In February last year 32 smoke markers and flares were found in Oban, a phosphorus submarine smoke marker in Gourock and a three inch trench mortar in Stranraer.

Weapons containing phosphorus or other gases can be toxic when they interact with water, as they can break down into other chemicals which can damage the environment.

Two 1000lb bombs washed up in Luce Bay in southern Scotland in May last year, and in July 2020 a German mine was found on Islay.

A 1kg German incendiary was found and destroyed at Old Kilpatrick in June 2020, while an MK17 sea mine was found on Colonsay in April this year.

SNP MSP Siobhan Brown

SNP MSP for Ayr Siobhan Brown said: “It is incredibly irresponsible for the MoD to leave a number of highly dangerous explosives in a munitions dump at the bottom of the sea off the west coast of Scotland without carrying out regular safety inspections on the site.

“These destructive weapons not only pose a threat to one of the busiest shipping lanes in the British Isles, but also to the environment around where they are dumped which is the home to precious wildlife.

“Locals have reported for years seeing dangerous materials wash up on the west coast so they are also posing a serious health risk to members of the public too.

“For the safety of the communities around Beaufort’s Dyke, the MoD should inspect this site regularly to ensure that it is safe and does not pose any danger or is not having a detrimental impact on the sea life in the area.”

In 1995, more than 4500 phosphorus bombs washed up on the Scottish shores after work began to drill pipes near the trench, and campaigners urged the government to investigate and inspect the amount of toxic and potentially deadly material that was in the underwater trench.

In 1996, a joint report commissioned the Irish and British governments confirmed that more weapons had been dumped than previously acknowledged and found that many had been deposited outside the designated area of the Dyke.

In 2000, it was discovered that private companies were given permission to deposit toxic and radioactive waste in the sea in the 1950s and 60s, with no records kept of how much, or what, was being dropped.

READ MORE: Nuclear dumping revealed More waste in the sea

Despite the revelations and the volume of waste coming ashore, government ministers have always insisted that the Dyke and its contents are not a danger to the public.

A new report, produced in November last year by the Nuclear Free Local Authorities group, and conducted by independent marine radioactivity consultant Tim Deere-Jones, states that the site presented a “major risk of conflict” due to its use as a munitions dump and as a training area for submarines and the navy.

It also stated: “This review further concludes that there is also a major risk of conflict between the use of the Beaufort’s Dyke area as a nuclear submarine training and tactical deployment area and its heavy use by commercial surface vessels including fishing vessels with active nets.”