- Date released
- 21 December 2023
- Request number
- 202311003
- Release of information under
-
Environmental Information Regulations (EIR)
Information requested
The purpose of this letter is to ask for your assistance with a Defra project relating to reviewing concentrations of Radon and Tritium in water in England and Wales. This project builds on a 2015 Defra/Drinking Water Inspectorate (DWI) project relating to the requirement of the Water Quality (Water Supply) Regulations 2016 (as amended), with Part 4, Regulation 6 for monitoring drinking water supplies for radioactive substances. For this project, we, in partnership with Public Health England (PHE) and British Geological Survey (BGS), undertook the study to produce a report entitled ‘Understanding the Implications of the EC’s Proposals Relating to Radon in Drinking Water for the UK’.
As part of this project, we are seeking your help to provide any information you hold and/or information that has been provided to you regarding the occurrence of radon and tritium in water surrounding the licensed nuclear sites in England and Wales.
As tritium production is associated with anthropogenic sources relating to nuclear activities, data held by ONR on behalf of nuclear sites licensed within England and Wales obtained from routine environmental monitoring would be hugely valuable for the delivery of this Defra project. In order to review and update the current knowledge, the project will require data relating to concentrations of both radon and tritium from earliest record-present.
We are therefore requesting ONR to provide any data held on radon and tritium in groundwater or surface water, in the timeframe specified above.
If the release of data is granted, please would you be able to provide the data in an excel file format?
The information we are looking for includes:
- Source (e.g. aquifer, treatment plant, reservoir, consumer point of use, private well)
- Date of sample
- Sample type (e.g. open/flowing water, piped supply, plant/lab, borehole, other)
- Sample test method (e.g. laboratory, on site equipment)
- Sample location (eastings, northings)
Information released
We confirm that we do not hold the information you have requested.
This matter is the responsibility of the Environment Agency (EA), Natural Resources Wales (NRW) and the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) and we would suggest making contact with them in the first instance as they may hold this information.
Further information
The three environmental agencies listed above all contribute to the UK Radioactivity in Food and the Environment (RIFE) reports. ONR’s contribution relates to doses to people off licenced sites arising from direct external radiation exposures only (as opposed to any ingestion doses arising from water and foodstuffs resulting from contamination in the ground or air). We would therefore suggest viewing published RIFE reports which can be found on the Food Standards Agency and SEPA websites, as well as contacting the above agencies should you require any further information.
Exemptions applied
N/A
PIT (Public Interest Test) if applicable
N/A