A series of radioactive water leaks at a Royal Navy nuclear weapons depot in western Scotland has raised serious questions about the upkeep and safety standards at a facility critical to Britain’s nuclear deterrent. According to recently released documents obtained by the investigative platform The Ferret, radioactive water containing tritium-a radioactive isotope used in nuclear warheads-was allowed to escape into Loch Long multiple times due to aging infrastructure and inadequate maintenance.

The Royal Naval Armaments Depot (RNAD) Coulport, located on the western shore of Loch Long, is a key storage and processing site for the UK’s Trident nuclear warheads. These warheads are deployed on the Royal Navy’s Vanguard-class submarines, forming the backbone of Britain’s nuclear deterrent. The depot handles the storage, maintenance, and loading of these warheads, making safety and environmental controls paramount.

Despite this, the facility’s infrastructure has long been under scrutiny. The newly published files from the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) reveal that much of the depot’s water piping was significantly past its intended lifespan. SEPA stated that as many as half of the 1,500 water pipes at the site were beyond their design life when the radioactive leaks occurred.

The documents detail multiple incidents over a decade where aging pipes burst and released irradiated water into the adjacent Loch Long. These leaks occurred in 2010, twice in 2019, and twice again in 2021. The August 2019 leak was particularly notable: a warhead processing area flooded, and contaminated water flowed through an open drain directly into the loch. This incident prompted a SEPA investigation, which concluded that the water contained low levels of tritium.

Tritium, a radioactive isotope of hydrogen, is used in the warheads stored at Coulport. While small amounts of tritium are generally considered low risk to human health, prolonged or high exposure........

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