Rob Edwards

Crackdown on Sellafield after radioactive leaks

from The Guardian, 31 May 2010

by Rob Edwards and Terry Macalister

The government’s safety watchdog is cracking down on Britain’s biggest and oldest nuclear complex after a series of radioactive leaks and safety blunders, despite private sector managers receiving multimillion-pound “performance-related” payments from the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has closed down a vital nuclear waste plant at Sellafield in Cumbria, and is taking legal action to force the site’s operators to improve their flawed safety procedures.

The HSE has also rejected a £40bn plan for cleaning up Sellafield because of proposed delays in dismantling ageing and potentially hazardous facilities.

The disclosures come at a critical time for the nuclear industry which is trying to convince Chris Huhne, the energy and climate change secretary, it is efficient enough to build a new generation of reactors.

But the crackdown is also embarrassing because Nuclear Management Partners (NMP) – a consortium involving Amec, URS and Areva – is believed to have made “profits” of up to £50m over a 12-month period.

Long quest for cancer data fails at last hurdle

from Sunday Herald, 30 May 2010

Scotland’s first, longest and most disputed freedom of information case has ended up keeping vital cancer statistics secret.

After two investigations by the Scottish information commissioner, Kevin Dunion, plus appeals to the Court of Session in Edinburgh and the House of Lords in London, numbers that might shed light on the links between children’s blood cancer and radioactive pollution have been kept under wraps.

The Scottish Green Party, which made the original request, is frustrated and annoyed. The Scottish Health Service, which fought to keep the information confidential, sounds relieved.

Back at the beginning of 2005, Michael Collie, a researcher for the then Green MSP, Chris Ballance, asked the Scottish health service for the annual incidence of childhood leukaemia in every census ward in Dumfries and Galloway from 1990 to 2003.

They wanted to test widespread suspicions that the debilitating and potentially fatal cancer could be caused by radioactive contamination. Plutonium from the Sellafield nuclear plant in Cumbria washes up on the Solway coast, and has been detected around the shoreline.

Does factory farmed meat make us sick?

from Sunday Herald, 30 May 2010

The video clips are upsetting. There’s a big bin full of dead lambs, a piglet slipping across a filth-strewn floor in search of its mother and a calf lying dead in a shed with blood seeping from its nose and mouth.

The latest compilation of factory farming horrors assembled by the campaign group, Animal Aid, packs an emotional punch. But it also underlies the serious message that the anti-meat activists want to get across: that industrial farms can hurt humans as well as animals.

At least 12 major diseases, which between them cause millions of people to suffer and tens of thousands to die around the world, can be blamed on factory farming, they claim. These include swine flu, bird flu, salmonella, e-coli and mad cow disease.

But their campaign has provoked a vitriolic response from the National Farmers Union (NFU) in Scotland, who condemned it as “poisonous”. Others, however, are less critical, arguing that the campaigners have a point, but just take it too far.

The arguments, though sometimes bitter, are important because they are about how we look after the animals on which we rely for food. And they raise the question of what we can eat without being cruel -  and without putting our own health at risk.

Ministers under fire for failing to green government

from Caledonian Mercury, 26 May 2010

Scottish ministers have been condemned by their own expert advisers for failing to meet most of their targets for cutting pollution and greening government.

Their performance has been described as “poor” and “worrying” by the Sustainable Development Commission, which was set up to advise ministers on environmental policy. Ministers will only be forced to improve if they are subject to external scrutiny, the commission warned.

The Scottish government’s failure to live up to its much-vaunted green credentials has also been lambasted as depressing and hypocritical by environmental groups and opposition politicians. In its defence, the government says that it is now trying harder.

When ministers’ latest environmental performance report was published a few days ago, the spin was all positive. “The Scottish government is taking action to improve its environmental performance as it pledges to lead by example,” boasted the news release.

Though you wouldn’t know it from the blurb, the real picture revealed by the report for 2008-09 was very different. Of the eleven environmental targets ministers set themselves, eight are on track to be missed.

SNP face defeat over climate targets

from Sunday Herald, 23 May 2010

The SNP government could suffer an embarrassing defeat in the Scottish parliament this week unless it toughens up its targets for cutting climate pollution.

Labour, LibDems and the Greens are threatening to combine to throw out ministers’ latest plans to reduce the country’s carbon emissions by just half a per cent in 2011 and one per cent in 2012.

The opposition parties all point out that the government’s targets are way below the three per cent a year promised in the SNP’s 2007 manifesto for Holyrood. Ministers’ targets are “woefully inadequate”, they say, and in breach of their election promises.

“The SNP’s failure to set meaningful targets for reducing carbon emissions shows they cannot be trusted on this important issue,” Labour’s environment spokeswoman, Sarah Boyack MSP, told the Sunday Herald.

“The SNP’s own manifesto promised mandatory carbon reductions of three per cent per annum, but ministers now say this won’t be achieved until 2018. Their target for this year is only 0.05 per cent and shows they are not taking the issue sufficiently seriously.”

Revealed: drinking water contaminated with slug toxin

from Sunday Herald, 23 May 2010

Drinking water in the north east of Scotland has been contaminated by a toxic slug pesticide in breach of safety limits, the Sunday Herald can reveal.

Many thousands of consumers in the Peterhead area have been drinking water containing excess levels of metaldehyde, a hazardous chemical compound widely used by farmers to kill slugs. Two other areas nearby in the north east are officially said to be “at risk” of pollution from the pesticide.

The revelation has sparked anxiety amongst local people and environmentalists, while the pesticide industry says it is taking the issue “extremely seriously”. Government watchdogs insist, however, that there is “no risk” to public health, though they are making concerted efforts to cut back on the contamination.

Slugs and snails pose a major problem for farmers and gardeners because they eat crops and plants. Metaldehyde is the pesticide most commonly used against them, often in distinctive bright blue pellets spread across the ground.

It has been blamed for accidentally poisoning pets and making children ill, and comes with a strongly-worded official health warning: “Since this product contains metaldehyde, which can kill if eaten, it must be kept away from children and pets.”

Scotland fails to protect endangered wildlife

from Sunday Herald, 23 May 2010

Scotland has failed to meet international targets to protect wildlife, putting dozens of precious animals and plants at risk of extinction.

Ministers and their expert advisers have admitted that they have broken a promise made nine years ago to conserve the nation’s endangered species. As a result iconic animals like the red squirrel and the freshwater pearl mussel, as well as seabirds, butterflies, flowers and insects are all still under threat.

The admission is embarrassing because it comes as the world celebrates the extraordinary variety of nature. Yesterday was international day for biological diversity in the UK, the highlight of the 2010 United Nations (UN) International Year of Biodiversity, involving more than 340 nature conservation groups around the country. 

But 2010 is also the year by which Scotland, along with other countries in Europe, promised in 2001 to “protect and restore the functioning of natural systems and to halt the loss of biodiversity.”

Scottish ministers and their wildlife agency, Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH), now accept that this aim has not been achieved. Too many native species and natural habitats are still in decline, at risk from farming, forestry, the invasion of alien species and the changing climate.

Government targets to cut climate pollution rejected by MSPs

from Caledonian Mercury, 18 May 2010

Scottish ministers may be forced to up their targets for cutting climate pollution over the next two years after their plans were roundly rejected as “seriously inadequate” by MSPs.

Labour, LibDem and Green MSPs on the Scottish Parliament’s climate change committee today combined to vote down the SNP government’s aim of cutting carbon emissions by just half a percent in 2011 and in 2012.

Ministers now have to decide whether to risk another rejection by putting their proposals before the full parliament, or to come up with improved targets. They only have two weeks to act because climate change law says that annual targets have to be in place by 1 June.

The SNP manifesto for the 2007 Holyrood election promised “mandatory carbon reduction targets of 3% per annum“ in order to reach a 42% cut by 2020. But that aim was watered down to 0.5% for the next couple of years on the grounds that it would be too hard to meet.

The statutory instrument that would have brought in the annual targets was thrown out by five votes to three at a meeting of the Transport, Infrastructure and Climate Change Committee. “These proposals from SNP ministers were seriously inadequate,” said the committee’s convenor, Green MSP Patrick Harvie.

Revealed: hundreds of safety lapses at Clyde nuclear bases

from Sunday Herald, 16 May 2010

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) is struggling to deal with hundreds of safety blunders, pollution leaks and environmental lapses at the nuclear weapons bases on the Firth of Clyde.

Official reports obtained by the Sunday Herald reveal that Faslane and Coulport have been plagued by nuclear accidents, radioactive contamination and fires over the last two years. 

Worryingly, there have been unspecified “shortfalls” in the safe management of nuclear bombs. And rules meant to protect people against asbestos and Legionnaires’ disease have been frequently broken.

The government’s safety watchdogs have also warned that unless millions of pounds are invested in replacing the ageing radioactive waste plants at Faslane, it will no longer be safe in four years time. That will add to the multi-billion bill for keeping nuclear weapons in Scotland, critics say.

Faslane, on Gareloch, is the home port for the four Vanguard-class submarines that carry Trident missiles, as well as other nuclear-powered submarines. Coulport, on Loch Long, is where nuclear warheads for the  missiles are kept.

The MoD last week released annual health, safety and environment reports for HM Naval Base Clyde covering 2007-08 and 2008-09, in response to requests under freedom of information law. The reports reveal for the first time the huge range of safety problems Faslane and Coulport are having to cope with.

Over the last two years there have been 167 nuclear safety incidents, 17 of which led to releases of radioactivity, or had the potential to do so. In the majority of cases, the root cause was said to be human error.

In one incident in 2008-09, two underwater divers working on jetties at Faslane “strayed into an area where they received a slightly higher dose of radiation than expected”, records one report. The event triggered a high-level investigation.

Anger after government axes anti-waste projects

from Sunday Herald, 16 May 2010

Ministers are under fire for failing for tackle Scotland’s vast mountain of waste after they axed pioneering projects aimed at reducing rubbish.

Environmental groups, volunteers and politicians are upset because the Scottish government has cut funding for community-based anti-waste schemes. They say this undermines the government’s aim of “zero waste”.

Although there has been a significant rise in the amount of waste being recycled in recent years, this has not led to a reduction in the 20 million tonnes of waste being produced every year. This is a problem, campaigners say, because preventing waste in the first place is more important.

In an attempt to combat the problem, the Scottish government agreed to fund a series of projects under a £7.5 million programme. One was Communities Reducing Excess Waste (CREW), which was run by Friends of the Earth Scotland, and was meant to run for three years from 2008.

The £200,000 project, which employed two staff and involved 55 volunteers, aimed to encourage communities to reduce their waste by avoiding excess packaging, reusing materials and buying less. But earlier this year its funding was suddenly cut, and its staff made redundant.

Only a few lambs are killed by sea eagles, says study

from Caledonian Mercury, 11 May 2010

They are known as “flying barn doors”, and they kill to live. But according to a new study, they don’t kill many lambs.

Sea eagles are Britain’s biggest birds of prey, with wings shaped like barn doors spanning over over eight feet. They were persecuted to extinction in the early 19th century, but are now being reintroduced under a government programme begun in the 1970s.

Their return, however, has not been welcomed by crofters in north west Scotland. They have previously blamed the birds for taking more than 200 young lambs and damaging their livelihoods.

But the new study, conducted for the Scottish government’s wildlife agency, Scottish Natural Heritage, suggests that these claims were exaggerated. Less than two per cent of deaths amongst lambs could be attributed to sea eagles, it concluded.

Revealed: Scotland’s farm subsidy millionaires

from Sunday Herald, 09 May 2010

Four farmers in Scotland were given record handouts of more than £1 million each by taxpayers last year, according to new figures released by the Scottish government.

They join the elite club of Europe’s agricultural ‘subsidy millionaires’ who take the most from the public purse to help run their huge farming businesses. Large landowners and aristocrats across Scotland were also given hundreds of thousands of pound each under the European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy.

The massive subsidies to rich farmers have infuriated public spending, environmental and anti-poverty campaigners, who say that poor farmers at home and abroad suffer as a result. But they have been defended by landowning and farming groups as necessary to keep down the cost of food.

Figures for the subsidies given in 2009 have been posted online by the Scottish government, in line with freedom of information legislation. In the last two weeks, most other European countries have also released a huge amount of information about agricultural subsidies.

Fears over carbon capture plan as costs rise

from Sunday Herald, 09 May 2010

Rising costs have prompted new fears for one of the central planks of the Scottish government’s strategy for cutting climate pollution.

Scottish ministers want to keep burning coal in power stations by developing technology to capture and store the carbon dioxide they belch out. But new evidence from Norway suggests that this could cost nearly three times more than expected.

This comes on top of recent expert reports casting doubt on the feasibility of carbon carbon and storage (CCS) - the great green hope of the energy industry. The technology is, however, strongly defended by its backers in Scotland.

One of Norway’s flagship CCS projects is run by the state-owned gas company, Gassco. But it has revealed that the estimated costs have rocketed from £0.4 billion in 2007 to £1.2 billion now.

Trident replacement threatened by doubts over US submarines

from Caledonian Mercury, 03 May 2010

The UK government’s plans to replace Trident submarines could be thrown into disarray by growing doubts over their future in the US.

The US Defence Secretary, Robert Gates, is today expected to challenge the American Navy’s plans to spend up to $80 billion (£52 bn) on 12 new submarines to replace the existing Ohio-class boats which carry Trident nuclear missiles.

Because the UK programme is so dependent on the US, this could hugely increase costs and jeopardise Labour and Conservative promises to replace the Trident nuclear weapons system.

Gates is due to give a speech to a major US naval conference in Maryland. According to his aides, he will raise a series of questions about the Ohio replacement programme, due to commence in 2027.

Nuclear submarines went to sea with potentially disastrous defect

from The Guardian, 02 May 2010

by Severin Carrell and Rob Edwards

Two British nuclear submarines went to sea with a potentially disastrous safety problem that left both vessels at risk of a catastrophic accident, the Guardian can reveal.

Safety valves designed to release pressure from steam generators in an emergency were completely sealed off when the nuclear hunter killers Turbulent and Tireless left port, a leaked memo discloses.

The problem went undetected on HMS Turbulent for more than two years, during which time the vessel was on operations around the Atlantic, and visited Bergen in Norway, the Portuguese capital, Lisbon, and Faslane naval base near Glasgow.

It was not noticed on HMS Tireless for more than a year, and was finally detected last month, two months after Tireless started sea trials from its home port at Devonport naval base in Plymouth.

Banana beaks beckon twitchers to Lewis

from Sunday Herald, 02 May 2010

They are nicknamed ‘banana beaks’, they are very mysterious and they are here. Bird-watchers are getting very excited this weekend because the white-billed diver has arrived off the north coast of Lewis.

Also known confusingly as the yellow-billed loon, the bird is famed for its large ivory beak. It is a rare sight around the UK, and is attracting the attention of twitchers, that dedicated band of ornithological enthusiasts who travel hundreds of miles in the hope of being able to tick unusual birds off their lists.

The white-billed diver has the added attraction of being an enigma since so little is know about its life. They breed every summer somewhere in the arctic tundra, but no-one knows where they spend the winter.

“Seeing a white-billed diver always quickens the pulse,” said Martin Scott, the conservation officer for the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds on the island of Lewis.