Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, whether the Government has (a) sponsored operations to clear military waste on Kiritimati (i) in 2005 and (ii) at any other time and (b) made an assessment of the potential impact of that waste on the island's freshwater lens.

The Ministry of Defence (MOD) arranged and took part in a specialist Reconnaissance Survey on Kiritimati during September 1998 to identify the types and quantities of waste materials, including an assessment of environmental risks, arising from the island's use as a base for the United Kingdom's nuclear test programme in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

A further visit was made to Kiritimati in August 2000 by MOD and independent specialists to gather further detailed information for the proposed clean-up project.

Removal of waste was undertaken between 2005 and 2008. The previous survey work had identified elevated levels of radioactivity associated with the presence of radium-226, commonly used to luminise vehicle instruments at the time of the test programme, but no other elevated levels of radioactivity substances were identified. Removal of the radium was achieved by removing the instruments and small quantities of soil from affected sites. Non-radioactive waste consisting of bitumen, rubber, metal and asbestos materials was also removed from the island.