Rob Edwards

New evidence of lax safety at Clyde bomb base

28 April 2009

New evidence of poor safety standards at the nuclear bomb base at Faslane on the Clyde is revealed in an internal document from the government’s health and safety watchdog.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) said it was “extremely disappointed” with the attitude of Faslane supervisors towards protecting their staff from potential accidents. Critics have compared the base’s safety bungles to those of the cartoon character, Homer Simpson.

The document, released to Channel Four News under freedom of information legislation, discloses a series of mishaps which have worried the HSE. In one incident a “spray leak” of radioactivity had caused “potential contamination”.

In another incident, ship’s staff were accused of “failing to control a designated area”. According to the HSE, these two events “seemed to point to a lack of understanding” of radiation safety rules.

There had been a “recent history of radiological incidents on boats”, the HSE said, and it was “concerned” about staff training and knowledge. Faslane’s radioactive waste disposal building was “in a poor state”.

Revealed: MoD guilty of repeated nuclear safety breaches

from The Guardian, 27 April 2009

by Rob Edwards and Severin Carrell

Britain’s nuclear submarine fleet has been hit by a series of serious safety breaches involving repeated leaks of radioactive waste from submarines, broken pipes and waste tanks at its home base on the Clyde, the Ministry of Defence has disclosed.

In a confidential report released under the Freedom of Information Act, the MoD has admitted that safety failings at the UK’s main nuclear submarine base at Faslane near Glasgow are a “recurring theme” and ingrained in the base’s culture.

The worst breaches include three leaks of radioactive coolant from nuclear submarines in 2004, 2007 and 2008 into the Firth of Clyde, while last year a radioactive waste plant manager was replaced. It emerged he had no qualifications in radioactive waste management.

The repeated safety breaches, which have been revealed in documents released to Channel 4 News, (see video) are so serious that the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency (Sepa) has warned that it would consider closing the base down if it had the legal powers to do so.

The MoD is legally exempt from the civil radioactive safety regulations policed by Sepa but promised the agency a number of times it would voluntarily uphold those laws at the base – promises that Sepa has now accused the MoD of repeatedly breaking.

Failure after failure at home of Trident fleet

from The Guardian, 27 April 2009

by Rob Edwards and Severin Carrell

They are devastating admissions about one of Britain’s most significant nuclear sites, the sprawling and heavily-defended base for the UK’s nuclear deterrent at Faslane, a facility which dominates the coastline on a quiet sea loch north-west of Glasgow.

Detailed within 400 pages of closely-typed internal reports, emails and letters released under the Freedom of Information, are startling admissions of a culture of incompetence, repeated safety breaches and basic failures of management at the base.

Faslane has been home to the UK’s nuclear missile fleet since Polaris came into service in the mid-60s, and is now the base for the four Trident missile submarines that replaced it. The facility, known formally as HM Naval Base Clyde, is also the base for one remaining nuclear-powered Swiftsure hunter killer, and four Astute class submarines coming into service from next year.

Revealed: a web of police bids to infiltrate protest groups

from Sunday Herald, 26 April 2009

A long-running and intricate web of covert police attempts to spy on peaceful activists and infiltrate legitimate protest movements in Scotland has been uncovered by the Sunday Herald.

Citizens protesting against nuclear bases on the Clyde have been offered cash for intelligence by Ministry of Defence (MoD) police, it has been claimed, while environmental activists report similar offers from Strathclyde Police.

They all back up the revelation made yesterday that Strathclyde police offered to pay Tilly Gifford, an anti-airport protester with Plane Stupid, for inside information. She recorded two police officers making the offer.

The veteran anti-nuclear activist, Jane Tallents from Helensburgh, spoke about how she and five others arrested for blockading the Coulport nuclear armaments depot on Loch Long were offered money. They were all invited one by one for “cosy chats” with two female MoD police officers, she said.

Police tactics backfire, say protesters

for Sunday Herald, 26 April 2009

One of the aims of police informers is to undermine, demoralise and divide protest groups, but in fact they can have the opposite effect.

At least that’s what campaigners said yesterday as details of attempts by Strathclyde and Minister of Defence police to offer cash for intelligence emerged.

“They want us to break up and disband but exactly the opposite is happening,” said Dan Glass, from the anti-airport group, Plane Stupid. “We’ve had lots of people getting in touch and offering us their support.”

Scrap Trident, says General

from Sunday Herald, 26 April 2009

He’s not one of the usual suspects, and he didn’t mince his words. “Trident is no bloody use,” he said. “Let’s not waste money on it”.

General Sir Hugh Beach, the former deputy Commander-in-Chief of UK Land Forces, was in Glasgow yesterday to talk about Britain’s nuclear bombs. The submarines based on the Clyde and armed with Trident nuclear warheads should not be replaced but immediately scrapped, he argued.

His dramatic call echoes those of a series of former military top-brass demanding government action on nuclear disarmament. And it comes against a background of international moves to cut nuclear weapons stockpiles, initiated by US President, Barack Obama.

Chernobyl still contaminating Scottish sheep

for Sunday Herald, 26 April 2009

It exploded 23 years ago today more than 1,400 miles away, but it is still contaminating sheep in Scotland.

The Chernobyl nuclear reactor near Kiev in Ukraine spewed a huge cloud of radioactivity over Europe, after it overheated and ripped apart on 26 April 1986 because of errors made by control room staff. It was the world’s worst nuclear accident.

Now, according to the government’s Food Standards Agency (FSA), some 3,000 sheep are still subject to restrictions because they remain contaminated by Chernobyl in breach of the safety limit. They are at five farms covering about 7,000 hectares in Stirling and Ayrshire.

Peat and grass in upland areas were polluted with radioactive caesium-137 released by the accident and brought to ground by rain. This is eaten by sheep and has persisted much longer than originally anticipated.

Government crack down on cutting off shark fins for China

from Sunday Herald, 26 April 2009

The Scottish government is issuing new rules aimed at preventing endangered sharks from having their fins cut off and sold to China for soup.

Ministers are determined to stop foreign-owned boats from “shark finning” in Scottish waters, condemning it as a “wasteful and damaging practice”. Some fishermen are alleged to throw the sharks back into the sea after removing their fins.

There is a lucrative market in Asia for the fins, which are said to be worth up to £450 a kilogram. Shark fin soup is prized as a traditional delicacy at weddings and banquets in China.

According to the Scottish government, Anglo-Spanish boats administered from Ayr and Ullapool have applied for 16 shark finning permits this year. Seven permits were issued in 2006 and seven in 2007.

New tidal machines could replace nuclear power

from Sunday Herald, 19 April 2009

A unique tidal power machine being developed at Strathclyde University could produce enough electricity to replace both of Scotland’s ageing nuclear power stations.

Researchers say that 2,000 underwater turbines tethered to the seabed around the west and north coasts could generate a massive two gigawatts of power. That is more than enough to supply all Scotland’s base load electricity, and supplant power from the reactors at Hunterston in North Ayrshire and Torness in East Lothian.

With the right incentives a series of large tidal turbine farms could be in operation around the Scottish coast by the 2020s, researchers argue, enabling Hunterston and Torness to be closed down without power blackouts.

Glasgow in 2030: electric car city

from Sunday Herald, 19 April 2009

It was the tranquility Sandra Harvie loved when she woke up. All around her the city was on the move, but there was hardly a sound. She lay in bed listening to the silence.

It was how she imagined the Greek island her parents had told her about years ago where there were no cars, so all you heard were voices and laughter drifting on the wind. It was invigorating.

It was so blessedly different from the Glasgow she remembered as a child. Some streets had been so noisy then with buses and lorries and cars that they had drowned out speech, and smothered music.

But now, in 2030, her city was quiet and peaceful. As she ate breakfast in her tenement flat she listened to the radio reporting that Glasgow’s clean air index had again broken records, giving the city the safest and most breathable oxygen for decades.

Drive to make Glasgow an electric car city

from Sunday Herald, 19 April 2009

Glasgow could become one of the first electric car cities in Britain under plans launched by government and industry, making it quieter, cleaner and greener.

The city is playing a leading role in the UK government’s drive to transform electric vehicles from the playthings of geeks to a major mode of transport in urban areas.

A £1.8 million scheme to trial 30 electric vehicles in Glasgow over the next two years has been given the go-ahead, at the same time as the government announced plans to give drivers up to £5,000 off new all-electric cars from 2011.

Anger over plans to ‘cover Fife in concrete’

from Sunday Herald, 19 April 2009

Ministers are coming under mounting pressure to rethink plans for one of Scotland’s biggest and most controversial housing-building projects.

Proposals to build over 35,000 new homes across Fife over the next 20 years are being opposed by Edinburgh and Dundee councils, the government’s conservation agency, Scottish Natural Heritage, and dozens of community groups.

They are strongly backed, however, by Fife Council and by private house-builders, who argue that new houses are needed to meet demand and to kick-start economic growth.

The latest version of Fife Council’s structure plan is now with Scottish ministers, waiting for a final decision. Objectors fear that they are preparing to give it the go-ahead.

'Neglect' at nuclear clean-up sites

from Sunday Herald, 12 April 2009

It’s one of the world’s dirtiest jobs and it’s going to cost at least £70 billion - and it’s already going wrong.

The mammoth task of cleaning up the radioactive mess created by more than half a century of nuclear power and weapons is running into problems across the UK, according to a report from the government’s nuclear watchdog.

In Scotland, technical cock-ups, maintenance oversights and bureaucratic delays have been dogging the decommissioning of old nuclear plants around the country. They suggest a “worrying pattern of neglect”, say critics.

The new report comes from the nuclear directorate of the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), and summarises regulatory issues at civil and military nuclear plants last year.

At Chapelcross, near Annan in Dumfries and Galloway, the defuelling of a defunct reactor had to be halted after a fuel rod got stuck. A special “stuck element machine” has been built to try and solve the problem.

Nuclear ships are unsafe, says report

from Sunday Herald, 12 April 2009

The growing number of nuclear waste shipments being made through the Irish Sea risk accidents that could cause widespread radioactive contamination, according to an expert report out this week.

The transport ships have “design flaws” which could make them unsafe while the emergency plans in place for coping with an accident are non-existent or inadequate, the report says.

At least 45 movements of nuclear materials have been made north and south through the Irish Sea since 2004. Cargoes of radioactive waste and fuel are transported from the Sellafield nuclear complex in Cumbria to nuclear plants in Japan, the US and Europe.

The report was commissioned by a coalition of more than 70 local authorities in the UK and Ireland worried about nuclear power. It was written by the independent marine pollution consultant, Tim Deere-Jones, and is due to be published in a few days.

RBS under fire for investing in climate pollution

from Sunday Herald, 12 April 2009

The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) is coming under mounting pressure to stop investing in climate-wrecking fossil fuels in favour of climate-friendly renewables.

Environmental campaigners are planning a series of new moves aimed at forcing the troubled bank to stop supporting controversial coal, oil and gas developments and back plans for solar, wind and wave power instead.

They say that, although the bank is now 70% publicly owned, it is still investing billions of pounds in projects that will increase the pollution that is warming the globe.

A coalition of environmental and development groups is demanding that the the Treasury tell the bank to switch its investments. They have also taken legal action to find out what environmental impact assessments have been made of the government’s £20 billion bailout of RBS.

UK clings onto Trident while the world seeks to disarm

from Sunday Herald, 05 April 2009

The UK government has backtracked on its suggestion that the number of submarines carrying Trident nuclear weapons could be cut from four to three.

As US president, Barack Obama, launches a ground-breaking nuclear disarmament initiative and a powerful coalition of former generals and world leaders call for nuclear warheads to be scrapped, UK ministers are clinging on to their nuclear bombs.

Amongst those now backing the Global Zero campaign to rid the world of nuclear weapons are the former US President, Jimmy Carter, and his national security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski; the former head of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev; the UK’s former foreign secretaries, Douglas Hurd, Malcolm Rifkind and Margaret Beckett; and the former Irish president, Mary Robinson.

In order to sweeten the decision to replace Trident in 2006, ministers let it be known that they were considering one less submarine in the future. The suggestion was that with three submarines it would be possible to keep one constantly on patrol.

But that idea has now been firmly squashed by the Foreign Office Minister, Lord Malloch Brown. “It would not be possible to reduce the number of submarines in service from four to three, because that would not allow us constant coverage at sea,” he said.

Revealed: the relentless rise of Scotland's climate pollution

from Sunday Herald, 05 April 2009

For years successive governments have been proudly assuring us that Scotland’s climate-wrecking emissions have been going down. But it’s not true: they’ve actually been going up. 

An expert report due out this week will give the lie to the comforting and widespread notion that as a nation we are doing our bit to help protect the planet from catastrophic climate change.

In fact, because of all the pollution caused by the increasing number of goods and materials imported from other countries, the emissions for which Scotland is responsible have been relentlessly rising.

The revelation poses major challenges for the Scottish government’s climate change bill, currently on its way through parliament. Pollution from imports has historically been ignored by Scottish ministers.

Growing campaign to ban depleted uranium weapons

from Sunday Herald, 05 April 2009

The Scottish government is coming under mounting pressure to back an international ban on the use of depleted uranium (DU) in weapons.

MSPs from the Scottish Nationalist, Labour and Liberal Democrat parties are calling on Scottish ministers to try and stop DU from being used by the UK government in future conflicts. They also want an end to the testing of DU shells at the Dundrennan military firing range near Kirkcudbright.

The Scottish government has strongly opposed the test firing of DU shells on Scottish soil. But under the terms of the devolution settlement, it has no powers to prevent it.

Disaster death toll on the rise

from Sunday Herald, 05 April 2009

The number of major disasters in the world is bound to increase as global warming brings worse and worse storms, the World Health Organisation (WHO) is warning.

On the eve of World Health Day on Tuesday 7 April, the WHO’s director-general Dr Margaret Chan is calling on countries to do more to protect health services so they can help those injured by floods, winds and extreme weather.

“Worldwide, the number of emergencies and disasters is rising,” she says. “This trend is certain to continue as urbanisation crowds people together on unsafe sites and climate change brings more frequent and more severe extreme weather events.”

Scary scenario if Copenhagen climate talks fail

for The House Magazine, 31 March 2009

It’s been billed as the most important global summit ever. When leaders from nearly 200 countries gather in Copenhagen this December, they will literally hold the fate of the world in their hands.

Their task will be to agree how to cut the pollution that is disrupting the climate and threatening disaster. The decisions they make are likely to set the framework for global action on climate change for much of the rest of the century.

Unfortunately, the indications so far are that countries are not doing anything like enough. So the British government’s newly formed Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) is facing huge diplomatic challenges if it is serious in its aim of negotiating a deal that will prevent global warming from becoming dangerous.