Departmental report : 1997 (MAFF) / Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Forestry Commission ; presented to Parliament by the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

  • Great Britain. Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs
Date:
1997
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Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: Departmental report : 1997 (MAFF) / Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Forestry Commission ; presented to Parliament by the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    eee SSE SE SS ee ee ee Table 6: Sellafield critical dose from liquid radioactive waste discharges Year 1990 1991 1992 LER! 1994 19952 Dose as % of international limit 18 [5 19 18 14 12 *The 1995 dose has been evaluated using updated guidance on the conversion factors between the intake of radioactivity and the dose received. Therefore this value is not strictly comparable with those for previous years. The limit remains 1 millisievert. | 3.52 The Ministry’s work on the aquatic and terrestrial food chains has been combined in this Programme since November 1995 and results of the two surveillance programmes are now published in a single annual report, Radioactivity in Food and the Environment (RIFE). In 1995 the maximum potential exposure levels to consumers of agricultural produce and fish and shellfish were 8% and 12% respectively of the limit of 1 mSv. (For comparison, the average dose to members of the public due to natural background is 2.6 mSv in the Uk). 3.53 In the summer of 1996 a survey of the sheep in the remaining post-Chernoby] restricted area of Cumbria was carried out.The results enabled us to continue the gradual relaxation of controls and there are now just 11 holdings in Cumbria still subject to control. Table 7: Number of holdings subject to controls in the Cumbrian restricted area Year 1992-3 1993-94 1994-95 1995-96 1996-97 Holdings 126 112 66 13 11 3.54 MAFF investigated 175 possible food safety incidents involving contamination by non- radioactive chemicals during 1996; a 15% increase over the previous year. All incidents were resolved without recourse to statutory measures, often through swift voluntary action by farmers to restrict the movement of affected animals until the risk had passed. To test out its plans, MAFF participated in six interdepartmental emergency response exercises and carried out a major internal exercise. 3.55 A key task for the coming year will be to publish the combined terrestrial and aquatic radioactivity monitoring report by October 1997. The number of consultations undertaken by the Environment Agency will be monitored and the percentage completed on time recorded.
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