Irish Sea

Natural gas as distributed in the UK is obtained from various sources. These comprise primarily the southern North Sea basin, northern North Sea fields (both British and Norwegian), Morecambe Bay from the Irish Sea (used primarily for winter peaks) and gas from world sources imported in small quantities as liquefied natural gas (TNG). Gas from the different fields is of very consistent quality, and further blending, conditioning, etc. allows a gas of very consistent quality and specification to be distributed. 

Morecambe Bay The Morecambe Bay field is a recently developed gas field in the Irish Sea connected to the NTS by means of a gas pipeline to Barrow terminal. While it is possible to operate this field throughout the year, it is currently being drawn on only in the winter months as a form of peak-shaving. 

A second source of plutonium, dispersed more locally, is liquid effluent from fuel reprocessing facilities. One such is the fuel reprocessing plant at Windscale, Cumbria in the United Kingdom where liquid waste is released to the Irish Sea(6). Chemical analysis of this effluent shows that about one percent or less of the plutonium is in an oxidized form before it contacts the marine water(7). Approximately 95 percent of the plutonium rapidly adsorbs to particulate matter after discharge and deposits on the seabed while 5 percent is removed from the area as a soluble component ). Because this source provided concentrations that were readily detected, pioneering field research into plutonium oxidation states in the marine environment was conducted at this location. 

An interesting aspect of the characterization of plutonium as Pu(V) in the Irish Sea, Lake Michigan, and Pond 3513 is that the origins of the radionuclides are different in each system, i.e., fuel reprocessing waste, fallout, and laboratory effluents, respectively. 

These observations contrast with some of the results obtained in natural waters. In the experiments where contaminated sediments were equilibrated with Lake Michigan water for a number of days, the Pu(IV) that was on the sediments and was transferred to the water was oxidized to Pu(V), with the oxidation occurring either during or after desorption (15). The studies in the Irish Sea near Windscale show that although no more than 1 percent of the waste effluent stream is oxidized plutonium, approximately 5 percent of the plutonium released leaves the area in the currents of the Irish Sea as oxidized plutonium. Most of the plutonium, therefore, must be oxidized fairly rapidly in sea water. 

One widely reported incident was a large seabird wreck that occurred in the Irish Sea in the autumn of 1969 (Natural Environment Research Council Publication... 

Natural Environment Research Council (1971). The Sea Bird Wreck in the Irish Sea Autumn 1969. NERC Publications C No. 4. 

Ronis, M.J.J., Borlakoglu, J., and Walker, C.H. et al. (1989). Expression of orthologues to rat P450 1Al and IIB1 in sea birds from the Irish sea 1978-1988 evidence for environmental induction. Marine Environmental Research 28, 123-130. 

Irish Sea, site impacted by Windscale Reprocessing Plant and reference sites, 1977 EPA 1984... 

Environmental Fate. The environmental fate of americium has been extensively studied in relation to its introduction into the Irish Sea from the BNFL nuclear fuel reprocessing plant at Sellafield, United Kingdom (Belot et al. 1982 Bennett 1976 Bunzl et al. 1994, 1995 Malcolm et al. 1990 McCartney et al. 1994 McKay et al. 1994a Murray et al. 1978, 1979 Pattenden and McKay 1994 Walker et al. 1986). 

Assinder DJ, Yamamoto M, Kim CK, et al. 1993. Radioisotopes of thirteen elements in intertidal coastal and estuarine sediments in the Irish Sea. J Radioanal Nucl Chem 170(2) 333-346. 

Hunt GJ. 1998. Transfer across the human gut of environmental plutonium, americium, cobalt, caesium and technetium Studies with cockles (Cerastoderma edule) from the Irish Sea. J Radiol Prot 18(2) 101-109. 

Malcolm SJ, Kershaw PJ, Cromar NJ, et al. 1990a. Iron and manganese geochemistry and the distribution of 239,240Pu and 241 Am in the sediments of the north east Irish Sea. Sci Total Environ 95 69-87. 

McCartney M, Kershaw PJ, Woodhead DS, et al. 1994. Artificial radionuclides in the surface sediments of the Irish Sea, 1968-1988. Sci Total Environ 141 103-138. 

McKay WA, Pattenden NJ. 1989. Radionuclides in shoreline waters of the northeast Irish Sea. Sci Total Environ 84 159-167. 

Rose CL, McKay WA, Leonard DRP, et al. 1996. Radioactivity in two tide-washed marsh areas in the eastern Irish Sea A radiological assessment. Sci Total Environ 191 1-13. 

Sanchez AL, Horrill AD, Howard BJ, et al. 1998. Anthropogenic radionuclides in tide-washed pastures bordering the Irish Sea coast of England and Wales. Water Air Soil Pollut 106 403-424. 

In "Tc samples of two kinds of brown algae (one is IAEA seaweed Ag-1 Fucus serrantus taken from the Irish Sea near the Sellafield nuclear facility and the other is Fucus vesiculosus taken from the same area) measured by Koide and... 

MaVchliNe, J. and Templeton, W. L. (1963). Dispersion in the Irish Sea of the radioactive liquid effluent from Windscale Works of the U.K. Atomic Energy Authority, Nature 198, 623. 

Achterberg, Van den Berg, and others [786] used a voltammetric technique to take continuous real-time measurements of nickel, copper, and zinc in the Irish Sea. 

The precision of the method was tested by carrying out replicate analyses (10) on 150 ml aliquots of two seawater samples from the Irish Sea. Mean ( sd) arsenic concentrations of 2.63 0.05 and 2.49 0.05 pg/1 amounts of were found. The recovery of arsenic was checked by analysing 150 ml aliquots of arsenic-free seawater which had been spiked with known amounts of arsenic (V). The results of these experiments shows that there is a linear relationship between absorbance and arsenic concentration and that arsenic could be recovered from seawater with an average efficiency of 98.0% at levels of 1.3-6.6 pg/1. Analagous experiments in which arsenic (III) was used gave similar recoveries. 

Welsh coast and Irish Sea adults of 17 species of Usually between 3.2 and 30.0 FW 89... 

Law, R.J., B.R. Jones, J.R. Baker, S. Kennedy, R. Milne, and RJ. Morris. 1992. Trace metals in the livers of marine mammals from the Welsh coast and the Irish Sea. Mar. Pollut. Bull. 24 296-304. 

Scyliorhinus caniculus, muscle, Irish Sea, August 1985 North and NW areas 0.15-2.1 FW 68... 

Leah, R.T., S.J. Evans, and M.S. Johnson. 1992. Mercury in flounder (Platichthys flesus L.) from estuaries and coastal waters of the north-east Irish Sea. Environ, Pollut. 75 317-322. 

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