Albo wrote:
Mike: Poor things? When these bullet-proof, man-eating curs - surely the Godzilla-like spawn of nuclear submarine activity in the area - come marching up the beach and break both your legs in their rock-hard pincers of DEATH, don't come running to me.

chanticleer , 11:41pm Fri 16 May 08 wrote:
I do recall the Arish Mell calculations and have to say that nowadays they make for rather alarming reading. Examination of the Exercise MERMAID scientific report, which investigated the discharge to sea of radioactive effluent from Winfrith via the Arish Mell outfall pipes, reveals that the safe levels for permitted discharge were based on two main factors: experience gained from similar discharges at Windscale (aka Sellafield), and a survey of the habits of Dorset residents (which Harwell seem to have somehow 'lost'. The Exercise MERMAID report mentions that levels of radioactive discharge to Weymouth Bay should be of a scale that: ‘anyone may safely spend 100 hours a year at the low water mark on a beach’ . The report omits to mention mention what dangers might be faced by those whose employment required them to spend longer periods on the foreshore!
With regard to local fish stock, the Harwell report states: ‘These also assume major importance because of their low mobility and other characteristics resulting in their concentrating activity more effectively than plaice, the most important fish off Windscale. In the calculations made for the safe permissible discharge it is assumed that fish in Dorset will take up a proportion of the discharge ten times greater than at Windscale’.

So even though local crabs might not actually glow, long term consumption of lobsters, especially those caught from near the Lulworth Banks, may indeed have had some adverse health effect on local residents.