The Cows that had Nuclear Fallout for Lunch
Jon Taylor has been a Certificated Radiation Protection Adviser since 2003. He was a physicist and has worked in the MoD with nuclear submarines. In 2005, Jon joined Aurora Health Physics Services where he enjoys a wide range of nuclear, medical, industrial, research and remediation projects with a particular interest in accelerators and contaminated land.
In the 1950s, there was growing concern over the number of atmospheric nuclear weapons tests that were being carried out around the world. There had been approximately 200 tests between 1945 and 1956 and Lord Rothschild tasked a scientific team lead by Dr R S Russel to research the impact of such tests on the food chain. In 1956, nuclear fallout taken from atom bomb test sites was brought to the Institute of Animal Health in Compton, Berkshire, where it was mixed with soil, used to grow animal feed, which in turn was fed to cows. The cows were then assessed in a specially constructed whole body monitor, terminated and then buried in trenches on site.
The Search In 2012 and 2013, Aurora Health Physics Services Limited( Aurora) supported the Institute of Animal Health( IAH) in searching all the locations on the map. In some locations, short lived radioactivity had decayed away but the pots containing nuclear fallout were still very radioactive( containing plutonium, americium, caesium and other isotopes). Teams from Aurora, in air-fed respirators, worked in ventilated containment tents to take measurements and samples. The cows were much more difficult to find, having been buried deep in trenches under banks at the edge of the site. Eventually, white chalk revealed a darker soil in long lines, and all that remained of the cows were bones, discoloured soil and elevated levels of radioactivity. The trenches also contained laboratory and incinerator waste, bags of solidified blood, empty radioisotope bottles and an old Twix wrapper priced at 3 pence!
The Clean Up After it had been surveyed and sampled, the site closed and remained dormant for another ten years until Homes England
The research team moved to more suitable premises at Letcombe Laboratory in 1957 and the pots of contaminated soil and contaminated cows in trenches remained buried and forgotten until the site was earmarked for closure in 2012. However, some of the longer serving employees knew about the experiments and created a map of where they thought all the radioactive waste was buried. This knowledge proved invaluable for the surveying and remediation works that followed.
Excavation to remove contaminated land.
22 Radiation Protection Today www. srp-rpt. uk