ABOUT 150 families have been warned that tests will be carried out to determine whether a landfill site near their homes contains dangerous waste from a nuclear plant or deadly gases.
The former flagstone quarry is known to contain more than 10 years' worth of waste - including a dead whale, cattle carcasses and domestic rubbish from the Dounreay nuclear plant, for which there is no surviving documentation.
Workers in protective clothing and respirators will next month begin boring test holes in 30 different spots on the 25acre site in the Caithness village of Castletown. The former dump is now tree-covered amenity land between homes and the shoreline which features picnic tables and public sculptures. The nearest houses are only a few feet from the site and a public football pitch just 200 yards further.
Tests will be conducted to ensure that the Dounreay refuse is not radioactive. The rubbish arrived at a time when the checks at the nuclear plant were not as stringent as today.
The landfill site closed in 1988.
Officials with the UK Atomic Energy Authority at Dounreay said: "The master copies of the disposal details of what went to Castletown were sent to the old district council. We only kept a copy and we were only required to keep them for two to five years, so I am afraid they would have long since been destroyed. But any waste leaving the site would have been monitored for any radioactivity."
Officials said the primary interest is to establish the levels of carbon dioxide - which can lead to asphyxiation - as well as methane, a combustible gas.
Alistair Thomson, Highland Council's head of environmental health, visited Castletown yesterday to meet community leaders.
He said the testing was purely a precautionary measure which was part of the local authority's programme for dealing with contaminated land. However, the first exercise in the programme resulted in 24 houses which had been built over a gas works in Invergordon being demolished last year.
Mr Thomson stressed that the situation in Castletown was different.
He said: "In Invergordon the houses were built on top of the contamination. Here in Castletown we are first of all trying to establish whether there are gases and then whether they are moving in the direction of the houses."
John Crowden, chairman of Castletown Community Council, said: "I think the council is doing what it should by checking for the presence of gas. The dump has been there for 30 years and hasn't killed anybody yet. I think we should wait to see what the results are before we start worrying."
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