Agriculture minister Jeff Rooker's reply on Cardiff's tritium problem (Thistle Diary, 13 February, p 53) demonstrates the blind-eye syndrome that afflicts officialdom. The minister did not inquire why his office was wrong by "several hundred times" (This Week, 31 October 1998, p 10) over tritium levels in fish in the sea off Cardiff.
The minister gives no hinthe may never have been informedof the crisis meeting between the Welsh Office, Environment Agency and MAFF last May, called after tritium in local shellfish showed 47 000 becquerels per kilogram. This was the first such measurement since 1992, despite a requirement for quarterly monitoring.
The minister tells Tam Dalyell that the problem comes from fish and shellfish feeding near the sewer outfall, yet has no evidence that tritium levels are this high in the sewage effluent.
His excuse does not of course explain why seaweeds several kilometres away also demonstrate ...
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