Rob Edwards

Revealed: BP’s 54 safety breaches in the UK

from Sunday Herald, 27 June 2010

The troubled oil giant, BP, has broken vital health and safety rules 54 times over the past five years in the UK, according to the government watchdog, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE).

The British multinational corporation, under international condemnation for its polluting gusher in the Gulf of Mexico, has been accused of a series of maintenance and operating lapses which put workers and the environment at risk from major leaks, fires and accidents in the North Sea and elsewhere.

As a result BP companies have been served with 21 legal enforcement notices since 2006 by HSE, requiring lax and dangerous practices to be improved. The company, however, has not been prosecuted by the watchdog since 2005.

The revelations have been greeted with horror by experts and environmentalists, appalled at BP’s track record in the UK. The company’s failings here are directly linked to the unfolding disaster in the Gulf of Mexico after the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig in April, they say.

An analysis of the HSE enforcement database by the Sunday Herald shows that four BP companies - BP Exploration, BP Oil UK, BP Chemicals and BP Shipping - have been hit with legal notices in the last five years. Altogether, there have been 54 breaches of eight health and safety laws or regulations (see table below).

Home insulation scheme failing to reach many homes

from Sunday Herald, 27 June 2010

A scheme designed to boost home insulation and cut climate pollution has reached fewer than one per cent of households in Scotland, prompting condemnation and calls for action from critics.

A new report from Consumer Focus Scotland reveals that the Scottish government’s home insulation scheme has only been taken up by one in ten of those targeted. And it only targeted fewer than five per cent of Scottish households.

The performance of the scheme has been damned as “embarrassingly poor” by the Scottish Greens and energy campaigners. But ministers promise that they will do better in the future.

Consumer Focus Scotland, which replaced the Scottish Consumer Council and other consumer groups two years ago, has investigated the effectiveness of ten area-based energy efficiency projects across the country.

It concludes that, though their performances vary, there is much that can be learnt from them. They could play a “key role” in helping to encourage more people to insulate their homes, it says.

Cutbacks could make nuclear weapons unsafe, warns MoD

from Sunday Herald, 20 June 2010

Worsening shortages of staff and funds could jeopardise the safety of Britain’s Trident nuclear weapons, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has secretly warned.

In an internal safety report for 2009 just released under freedom of information law, the MoD says that it is facing increasing difficulties managing its nuclear programme “with due regard for the protection of the workforce, the public and the environment”.

Experts fear that the outcome could be disastrous. They point out that the MoD has already run into major problems with decommissioning defunct nuclear submarines, and with leaks from its ageing radioactive waste facilities at the Faslane naval base on the Clyde.

“This really is rapidly tipping into a calamitous situation,” John Large, a leading nuclear consultant, told the Sunday Herald. The MoD’s entire safety system was under-resourced, outdated and largely unaccountable, he alleged.

“The signs are that the MoD’s nuclear regulatory and safeguard framework is already creaking and cracking at the seams with a number of crucial nuclear safety and environmental protection programmes being put on hold or subject to expedient repair and maintenance.”

Scotland’s beaches are some of the most polluted in Europe

from Sunday Herald, 20 June 2010

Scotland has become one of the dirtiest nations in Europe. The pollution of our beautiful beaches with sewage is now worse than almost every other country on the continent, according to a new report by the European Environment Agency.

The bathing waters around the coasts of twenty countries are cleaner than Scotland’s, including those of Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Slovenia, Romania and Bulgaria. Only two countries have beaches that are more contaminated with faeces:  Poland and Ireland.

Scotland’s record has been condemned as “shameful” by environmental groups. They point out that, with tougher standards due to be introduced from 2015, many of Scotland’s beaches will be labelled “unfit for bathing”.

The European Environment Agency has published its latest analysis (pdf) of the quality of bathing water in the European Union for 2009. This shows the proportion of coastal bathing waters in each country that failed to meet  basic sewage safety limits set more than 30 years ago.

These are beaches where the levels of faecal pollution from humans and animals are so high that bathers, surfers and paddlers run serious risks of getting stomach, skin or ear infections. In extreme cases, infections can be lethal.

Are Scotland’s national parks failing us?

from Sunday Herald, 20 June 2010

It’s an ugly bug, but it’s a controversial one. That’s because its most northerly home in the UK is about to be covered in concrete.

The slender groundhopper, which looks like a kind of dusky grasshopper, has been found near Aviemore in the Cairngorms where developers have just won permission to build a huge new housing estate.

Its survival is threatened, and wildlife groups are upset. But the issues raised by the fate of this humble insect are not superficial: they go right to the heart of how Scotland treats its natural heritage.

In giving the go-ahead to up to 1,500 new houses at An Camus Mor earlier this month, the Cairngorm National Park Authority has stirred up a hornets’ nest. It is precisely the kind of major development that environmentalists say should never be allowed in a national park.

As well as endangering the slender groundhopper, the housing scheme will threaten wildcats, otters, red squirrels, badgers and several bird species, they argue. It will also damage the landscape, they say, and put more pressure on vulnerable mountain areas.

The park authority voted by a narrow majority to reject advice from its own officials to limit the number of houses to 1,100 to prevent “unacceptable” environmental damage. The authority also ignored a recent report by Scottish government planning officials which concluded that the development breached national planning policies, and wasn’t justified.

Unveiled: undercover eco-spooks emerge from the shadows

from Sunday Herald, 13 June 2010

For 15 years they have been working undercover to expose environmental criminals around the globe, spying on wildlife smugglers, secretly filming animal abusers and infiltrating planet-trashers.

They have witnessed appalling cruelty, adopted numerous fake identities and sometimes put their lives in danger. In so doing they have helped put crooks behind bars, changed government policies and made many headlines.

But they have not, until now, claimed any credit. Today, for the first time, they are emerging from the shadows to court a little publicity for their daring deeds. 

Welcome to the eco-spooks - or, to give them their proper name, Tracks Investigations. They are, as they say, “not MI5, not 9 to 5”, and they boast an “amazing success record.”

They don’t want to be pictured, and some of them don’t want to be named. They don’t like speaking about their current investigations, but they have just set up a website. And they’ve agreed to talk to the Sunday Herald.

Since 1995, Tracks Investigations has carried about 250 investigations in scores of countries. They have exposed destruction of the Amazon rainforest, mass sheep shipments from Australia, pig cargoes trucked across Europe and the stripping of protected peatlands in the UK.

Anger over repeated delays to energy-saving plan

from Sunday Herald, 13 June 2010

A plan to help householders and business save energy and money in Scotland has been delayed for the sixth time, sparking outrage from opposition politicians and environmental groups.

The Sunday Herald can reveal that the Scottish government’s long-awaited energy efficiency action plan - meant to boost home insulation, aid the installation of smart meters and kick-start small-scale renewable and heat technologies - has been postponed until the autumn.

The delay calls into doubt the commitment of Scottish ministers to cutting climate pollution, say critics. And it undermines their efforts to promote Scotland’s “world-leading” targets to tackle climate change on the international stage, they claim.

The action plan was first proposed back in December 2004 by the then environment minister, Ross Finnie. The previous Labour and Liberal Democrat administration said it would be published in 2005, then 2006 and then 2007.

Curbing the hillside ‘vandalism’ of the lairds

from Caledonian Mercury, 07 June 2010

Landowners accused of “mindless vandalism” for bulldozing rough tracks across Scotland’s wild and beautiful landscape are facing calls for a crackdown this week.

MSPs and mountain conservation groups will be demanding tougher controls to prevent scores of hill tracks from scarring slopes and spoiling views across the highlands.

Mountaineers and walkers are angered that landowners can construct “ugly” tracks to enable easier access for stag shooting parties in 4x4 vehicles - without even needing to apply to councils for planning permission.

“It’s outrageous that a privileged few have the power to scar a pristine landscape,” said David Windle, chairman of the North East Mountain Trust, a conservation group. 

“They shouldn’t be allowed to make the tracks in the first place. Thirty years ago they walked the last half a mile for a shoot; now it seems they can’t be bothered.”

McDonald’s: playing chicken with British food

from Sunday Herald, 06 June 2010

The cattle crowded into the barn near Bishopton stared intently at the group of visiting dignitaries, blissfully unaware of their fate. “These animals are very close to being burgers,” said the farmer, John Ritchie, with a smile.

He was helping the world’s most famous fast food chain, McDonald’s, do its public relations. Surrounded by the US company’s irrepressible executives, he carefully spelled out how his beef cattle were reared locally on local food, before they were killed to make Big Macs.

It’s the patriotic pitch at the heart of McDonald’s new, high-profile marketing campaign, which jetted in and out of Scotland on Friday. The company’s beef, pork, eggs, milk and potatoes were virtually all British: that was the message, repeated ad nauseam.

“Our customers care about where their food comes from,” insisted Nick Hindle, the company’s vice president for communications from London. “People want to eat British food. They think it is supporting the British economy and they trust the quality.”

But there’s one McDonald’s staple that is not mentioned in any of the blurbs, that fails to feature in any of the media spin, and that makes a mockery of the whole PR exercise: chicken. That’s because 99% of it comes from abroad.

Scotland: still polluted after all these years

from Caledonian Mercury, 1 June 2010

More than a quarter of a century after it was banned, the notorious pesticide, DDT, is still contaminating eels throughout Scotland, a new scientific study has revealed.

A range of other persistent pollutants, including PCBs and BDEs, have also been detected in a survey of eels from 26 Scottish rivers. The highest levels were found in the River Clyde in Glasgow and the River Don in Aberdeen, a legacy of their industrial pasts.

Although evidence suggests that most of the pollution is declining, there are a few places where it seems to be refusing to go away. Traces of DDT in River Don eels were higher than they were in 1986, while levels in eels from the River Cree at Newton Stewart hadn’t dropped.

DDT - dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane - holds a unique place in twentieth century history. It was seen as the farmers’ saviour in the 1940s and 1950s, and was widely used to kill agricultural pests.

But in the 1960s it was blamed for wiping out birds in Silent Spring, the famous book by US naturalist, Rachel Carson, credited with giving birth to the modern-day environmental movement. It was also said to cause cancer and other diseases.