Nuclear and environmental regulators are facing a grilling over why people living in the north were not told about a radioactive leak.
Members of a community liaison group are outraged they were kept in the dark after the incident at the UK Government’s Vulcan Nuclear Reactor Test Establishment next to Dounreay two years ago.
Details only emerged last week when Defence Secretary Philip Hammond revealed that £120million was to be spent refuelling the reactor of the nuclear submarine HMS Vanguard after a test device was found to have a small radiation leak.
He told MPs that low levels of radioactivity were found in the cooling water of a prototype reactor in January 2012.
The Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) was informed in October 2012 – but Scottish ministers only found out last week, leading to accusations of a cover-up.
No information was given to the Dounreay Stakeholder Group at the quarterly meetings with industry representatives and regulators. Members will be demanding answers at their meeting in Thurso tomorrow night.
Highland councillor George Farlow said: “I am outraged. We have these meetings. We are accused of being a talking shop and it appears we just are.”
Mr Farlow said around the time of the incident, he asked the Ministry of Defence, Sepa and the Office for Nuclear Regulation how group members could check their information.
“They all came back and said they were absolutely independent and the information they gave was accurate,” he said.
“We think they are open and transparent, they tell us they are, but plainly they are not.”
Scottish Environment Secretary Richard Lochhead, who is making a statement on the issue at Holyrood today, said: “The culture of secrecy just gets deeper and deeper.
“Not only did the Ministry of Defence not inform the people of Scotland, the Scottish Parliament or the Scottish Government of this nuclear-related issue, they actually told the local community that there was ‘little to report’ when clearly there was plenty to report.”
When details of the leak first emerged, Mr Hammond said that investigators found a “microscopic breach” in a small area of metal cladding surrounding one fuel element with the reactor core.
There was no threat to workers and the incident was ranked as “level zero” on international scales.