Report shows more weapons dumped in sea than admitted

THE electricity inter-connector between Northern Ireland and Scotland should not go ahead until the whole area around the Beaufort Dyke in the Irish Sea is remapped, according to a draft report commissioned by the Irish and British governments.

The report, which is expected to be published next month, also shows that Britain dumped far more weapons in the sea between Northern Ireland and Scotland than it had previously admitted.

It also acknowledges that the weapons were dumped well out side the designated area of Beaufort Dyke a deep depression on the sea bed where munitions and old weapons were dumped between the 1920s and 1976.

Last night Mr Oliver McMullan, a district councillor from Cushendall in Co Antrim, who has seen a copy of the draft report, said the document states that the phosphorous cylinders washed up on the coast of Scotland and Antrim last year were dislodged by work on the gas pipeline.

The report was commissioned jointly by the British Ministry of Defence and the Department of the Marine. In the summer officials from both departments carried out a survey of the area around the Beaufort Dyke, which is 32 miles long and about 15 miles wide.

Ireland and Britain are both signatories to an international OSPAR convention on dumping at sea. However, a clause the convention, the "sovereign immunity clause", allows Britain to dump waste at sea without informing the other signatories to the convention of the type or quantity of waste.

Ireland has already dropped that clause and the report, if published as drafted, will recommend that Britain also drop the clause. The report also calls for both governments to take responsibility for future dumping.

Mr McMullan has been campaigning for the past four years for the British government to "tell the truth" about the level and quantity of dumping in the area. Part of the problem, he said, was that a lot of dumping was carried out by private contractors and no records were kept. He has consistently asserted that toxic waste, including nerve and mustard gas, was disposed of in the area.

"If the Ministry of Defence had answered questions truthfully a long time ago, none of this would have come up," he said last night. "Now there is so much evidence, they will have to act and sooner rather than later." He said local councils should be compensated for the cost of clean-up operations when waste is washed ashore.

The Department of the Marine could not be contacted last night for comment.