IAIN GRANT and DAVID ROSS
Dounreay's operators have had to revise their plans to build a new low-level waste dump after discovering their preferred site lies on top of a geological fault-line.
They had been working on flawed information provided by the Nirex agency that drilled a series of boreholes in the early 1990s when Dounreay was being considered as the site for a national intermediate-level nuclear waste dump.
New research has led to the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) moving the location of the dump further north and revising the layout of the six underground concrete vaults.
The ground remains outwith the licensed nuclear site and close to the neighbouring settlement of Buldoo, whose residents remain opposed to the proposed £110m complex.
The changes will prompt a new round of consultation over UKAEA's bid to dispose of up to 175,000 cubic metres of lightly contaminated solid debris, much of which comes from Dounreay. Some also comes from the notorious waste pits that shocked Highland councillors who visited the site in 1993.
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