Rob Edwards

Safety fears after nuclear bomb store avoids independent inspections

from Sunday Herald, 31 March 2013

The UK’s newly-privatised nuclear bomb store on the Clyde has wriggled out of independent safety regulation, sparking fears about accidents and leaks. 

The Sunday Herald can reveal that the Royal Naval Armaments Depot at Coulport has narrowly avoided being licensed for inspection by the UK government’s nuclear safety watchdog. This is despite its operation being taken over in January by a group of private companies headed by the US arms dealer, Lockheed Martin. 

The revelation has prompted one former senior MoD safety official to warn that workers and the public are being put at risk by lower safety standards. It has also angered politicians and trade unions, who suspect a “cosy stitch-up” to save money.

Ministry of Defence (MoD) nuclear sites have historically had crown immunity from prosecution because they’ve not been covered by nuclear safety legislation. But in the past when their management was put into private hands, this has had to change. 

In 1997 the bomb-making factories at Aldermaston and Burghfield in Berkshire were licensed under the Nuclear Installations Act and subject to independent inspections after they were handed over to private companies. Critics say this has greatly improved safety and transparency. 

But the same has not happened at Coulport. Internal documents released under freedom of information law show that the companies now running the nuclear weapons store escaped safety licencing because the MoD’s continuing oversight was deemed “the absolute minimum that is acceptable.”

Company accused of hiding gas fracking plans

from Sunday Herald, 31 March 2013 

An Australian energy company has been accused of hiding plans to use the controversial technique of fracking to exploit shale gas under central Scotland.

Dart Energy insists that it has “no plans” to mine shale gas in Scotland. But in a submission to the Australian stock exchange it has highlighted two major shale fields near Falkirk containing more than two trillion cubic feet of gas as “prospective” developments.

The company also has an agreement with the BG gas group for the rights to one of the shale fields, and has been promoting its Scottish shale gas assets to potential investors.

Shale gas is trapped in rock formations deep underground. It is freed by pumping in liquids under high pressure to deliberately fracture the rock, a process known as fracking.

But fracking has been blamed for causing earthquakes, and for contaminating water supplies with toxic chemicals. It can also boost the pollution that is disrupting the climate.

Scottish ministers under fire for misleading parliament on climate targets

Exclusive, 24 March 2013

Ministers have been accused of misleading the Scottish Parliament and flouting the law by failing to cut the pollution that is disrupting the climate.

Scotland is on track to breach its statutory targets to reduce climate emissions in each of the next two years, according to a new analysis by a powerful coalition of 60 environmental, faith, development, trade union and community groups.

The Scottish government’s latest plan to combat climate change, the second report on proposals and policies (RPP2), is due to be debated by MSPs in the parliament on Tuesday. The report is crucial because it is meant to demonstrate how ministers are going to meet agreed legal targets to cut carbon pollution.

But according to the Stop Climate Chaos Scotland (SCCS) coalition, RPP2 is founded on the mistaken assumption that the European Union (EU) is increasing its 2020 target for cutting emissions from 20% to 30%. Although the EU has offered to do that if other countries take action, it isn’t expected to make any move before 2016 at the earliest.

As a result, even if the Scottish government successfully implements all its proposals and policies to cut pollution, it will miss its climate targets in 2014 and 2015. “Ministers are trying to pull the wool over the eyes of the parliament with the current climate plan,” said SCCS chair, Tom Ballantine.

Plutonium: repeating the same mistakes exactly

comment, 23 March 2013

There is a very funny sketch by the comedians, Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, performed for Amnesty International in 1989. Cook plays an aristocrat who ran a failing restaurant on the Yorkshire moors serving only frog and peach to eat. 

At the end, Moore asks him what he has learnt from his “catastrophic” business experience. “I’ve learned from my mistakes,” says Cook, “and I’m sure I could repeat them exactly.” 

I kept thinking of the joke over the last two days while cloistered in a small, stuffy room at Chatham House in London listening to leading experts talk about what to do with the world’s plutonium. The event, organised by Princeton University’s International Panel on Fissile Materials, was fascinating.

How wildlife has suffered from Scotland’s £575m farming subsidies

from Scottish Wildlife magazine, March 2013

Lapwings used to be one of those birds that defined the countryside. They were always there, swooping and flocking, flashing black and white in the air, racing across the ground, or standing crested and proud.

Their loud, liquid ‘pee-wit’ call was the soundtrack to every lowland walk. Sometimes, during the nesting season, they would become impossible to ignore as they sought to protect their chicks by dive-bombing anyone who came close. 

These days, however, you have to be lucky to see lapwings. According to the government wildlife agency, Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH), their population in Scotland has crashed by more than 50% over the last ten years.

Distressingly, the same could be starting to happen to another of the birds that has characterised the countryside – skylarks. They have declined 14% over the last decade, says SNH, particularly in the last couple of years.

There is also evidence that kestrels and rooks have suffered, along with other animals, insects and plants. Specialist species of butterflies decreased by 48% between 1979 and 2007, according to a 2010 report by the Rural Policy Centre at the then Scottish Agricultural College.

The feature that all these species have in common is that they live on farmland, suggesting that farming has been eroding biodiversity. There are other species that seem to have done better, like swallows and goldfinches, but experts think that the overall trend could be downwards, and that changing agricultural practices must take a share of the blame.

The slow motion disasters caused by making US and Soviet nuclear bombs

Review from New Scientist, 18 March 2013

Making plutonium for nuclear bombs takes balls, but not in the way you might think. In 1965 scientists at the Hanford nuclear weapons complex in Washington State wanted to investigate the impact of radiation on fertility - and they weren’t hidebound by ethics.

In a specially fortified room in the basement of Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla, volunteer prisoners were asked to lie face down on a trapezoid-shaped bed. They put their legs into stirrups, and let their testicles drop into a plastic box of water where they were zapped by x-rays.

The experiments, which lasted for a decade and involved 131 prisoners, came up with some unsurprising results. Even at the lowest dose – 0.1 gray – sperm was damaged, and at twice that the prisoners became sterile. They were paid five dollars a month for their trouble, plus $25 per biopsy and $100 for a compulsory vasectomy at the end so they didn’t father children with mutations.

The testicle tests are just one of many disturbing details Kate Brown has unearthed from the official archives in her fascinating nuclear history. She also tells how tunnelling muskrats undermined one of Hanford’s storage ponds, causing 16 million gallons of radioactive effluent to pour into the Columbia river. 

And there is the scary tale of how Hanford scientists in 1949 conducted one of their most risky experiments, later dubbed the “green run”. For seven hours they processed highly radioactive ‘green’ fuel that hadn’t been allowed to decay for as long as usual - and showered 407,000 gigabecquerels of radioactive iodine over nearby cities.

Revealed: how the Scottish government sold out to supermarkets on food waste

from Sunday Herald, 17 March 2013

A high-profile Scottish government campaign to cut food waste had to be soft-pedalled to avoid offending the big supermarkets, a document leaked to the Sunday Herald reveals.

Campaign staff were forbidden from advising shoppers to buy less food or to ignore ‘buy one get one free’ (BOGOF) offers because Asda, Sainsbury’s and Tesco were “extremely sensitive about this subject”. Winning their co-operation for the campaign had been “very difficult”, says an internal briefing.

Environmentalists have accused ministers of “selling out” to big business at the expense of pollution and waste. “You wonder which campaign will be neutered next in the supermarkets' BOGOF deal with the government,” said Dr Richard Dixon, the director of Friends of the Earth Scotland. 

The campaign, launched by the environment minister, Richard Lochhead MSP, last October, included TV, radio and newspaper adverts, social media and a travelling supermarket roadshow. The aim was to try and prevent people throwing away up to a fifth of their food, which is reckoned to cost Scotland a massive £1 billion a year.

Over two months, teams were recruited to staff stalls at major branches of Asda, Sainsbury’s and Tesco in Glasgow, Paisley, Falkirk, Edinburgh, Dundee, Aberdeen, Inverness and elsewhere. They were equipped with branded bodywarmers, baseball caps and iPads and told to “engage as many people as possible”. 

The strapline for the campaign was “shop smarter, waste less, save more.” But according to the official 69-page briefing for staff obtained by the Sunday Herald, they had to play down the central message for fear of upsetting the supermarkets.

Ministers under fire for promoting food packaging

from Sunday Herald, 17 March 2013

Scottish ministers have been accused of surrendering to the propaganda of the £11 billion packaging industry by forming a partnership that promotes food wrappings.

A government website aimed at encouraging people to waste less food waxes lyrical about the benefits of packaging – and it is backed by the industry’s Packaging Federation. “Food loves the packaging it comes in,” the website says.

“There’s nothing better to protect it and keep it fresher for longer. From ziplocks on cheese packs to breathable fruit and veg bags, it has been cleverly designed with all sorts of cunning features.”

But according to the Green MSP, Alison Johnstone, this will confuse the public. “Most waste information urges you to try and avoid over-packaging of fresh food, not tell you how brilliant it is,” she said.

Revealed: how the MoD gets away with dumping radioactive waste at sea

from Sunday Herald, 10 March 2013

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has been evading an international ban on dumping radioactive waste at sea by defining thousands of uranium weapons lost in the Solway Firth as “placements”.

Minutes of secret meetings released under freedom of information law reveal that the MoD was worried about breaching an inter-government agreement on marine pollution by firing depleted uranium (DU) tank rounds into the sea from a military range at Dundrennan near Kirkcudbright. 

But officials found a way round the problem, by arguing that the munitions were not being “dumped” in the sea, but “placed” there. This is despite the fact that attempts to retrieve them have failed, and their locations are unknown.

Campaigners have accused the MoD of desperately resorting to “semantic trickery” to justify its plans to dump more DU weapons in Scottish waters. Based on past practice, the MoD will restart test-firing at Dundrennan this year, they say.

In the last 30 years, army tanks have fired more than 6,700 shells into the Solway Firth from the range, containing nearly 30 tonnes of DU. The shells pierce canvas targets set up on the cliff tops, and then plunge into the sea.

Scotland labelled ‘soft touch’ for polluters due to low fines

from Sunday Herald, 10 March 2013 

Scotland has been labelled a “soft touch” for polluters because the fines for environmental crimes imposed by Scottish courts are 36% lower than in England and Wales.

A new report by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) reveals that the average fine for pollution offences in 2011-12 was £5,926, compared to £9,336 south of the border. Fines have been consistently much lower in Scotland for the last three years (see table below).

Environmentalists say that this means it’s easier for criminals to get way with wrecking the environment in Scotland. Sepa accepts there is a problem, but insists it is being tackled.

Sepa’s enforcement report for 2011-12, posted online, says that it referred 37 cases to procurator fiscals, served 124 statutory enforcement notices and 160 final warning letters. Most action was taken against waste companies for illegal dumping, fly-tipping or transfers.

The Highland Park whisky distillery was fined £15,000 for discharging diesel oil into a stream in Orkney, and the Caledonian Cheese Company in Stranraer was fined £20,000 for failing to upgrade its effluent treatment plant. Of those convicted by sheriff courts for environment offences, four were in Edinburgh, three in Perth, two in Glasgow, two in Hamilton and two in Dunfermline.

Accident at Hinkley Point nuclear plant could contaminate Austria, warns government agency

07 March 2013

Austria could be badly contaminated by radioactive pollution from a serious accident at the new nuclear power station proposed for Hinkley Point in Someset, the country's environment agency has warned.

The Austrian government's Umweltbundesamt has lodged a formal objection to the application to build the station by the French power company, EDF Energy. The dangers of a worst-case accident should be assessed before the plant is given the go-ahead, it says.

The Vienna agency's 39-page submission concludes that the environmental impact assessment of the proposed Hinkley reactors "does not permit a meaningful assessment of the effects of conceivable accidents". EDF's claim that the risk of a large release of radioactivity has been practically eliminated "is not sufficiently demonstrated", it says.

Severe accidents leading to massive releases of caesium-137 similar to that from the explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear plant in 1986 "cannot be excluded", the agency warns. Though they are unlikely, they should have been included in EDF's assessment "since their effects can be widespread and long-lasting."

The Umweltbundesamt says that a release of 53.18 petabecquerels of caesium-137 from Hinkley "would result in a considerable contamination of the Austrian territory." In most places the contamination would be above the safety levels requiring restrictions to be imposed on farmers.

"It is recommended that this should be taken into consideration before granting further permissions," it says. "Austria should be kept informed regarding the ongoing progress resolving the assessment findings concerning severe accidents."

Cleaning up 300 Iraqi sites contaminated by uranium weapons will cost $30m

from The Guardian, 06 March 2013

Cleaning up more than 300 sites in Iraq still contaminated by depleted uranium (DU) weapons will cost at least $30 million, according to a report by a Dutch peace group to be published tomorrow. 

The report, which was funded by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, warns that the contamination is being spread by poorly regulated scrap metal dealers, including children. Many more contaminated sites are likely to be discovered, it says.

The report also casts doubt on official assurances that DU weapons were only fired at armoured vehicles during the Iraq war ten years ago. There is strong evidence that they were widely used against buildings and other civilian targets, including the Iraqi Ministry of Planning in Baghdad, it says.

More than 400 tonnes of DU ammunition are estimated to have been fired by jets and tanks in the two Iraq wars in 1991 and 2003, the vast majority by US forces. The UK government says that British forces fired less than three tonnes. 

DU is a chemically toxic and radioactive heavy metal produced as waste by the nuclear power industry. It is used in weapons because it is an extremely hard material capable of piercing armour.

But in the wake of firefights it can contaminate the environment, and has been linked to health problems in civilian populations. Iraqi doctors have reported increases in cancers, and an alleged rise in birth defects is under investigation by the World Health Organisation and the Iraqi Ministry of Health.

The health effects are disputed, however, by the US and UK governments, who joined with France and Israel to vote against a resolution calling for “a precautionary approach” to the use of DU weapons at the United Nations General Assembly in December. 155 countries voted in favour of the resolution.

Ministers under pressure to ban pesticides blamed for killing bees

from Sunday Herald, 03 March 2013 

Scottish ministers are under mounting pressure to defy the Westminster government and back a European ban on toxic pesticides blamed for killing bees.

A powerful coalition of environmental groups is urging the Scottish environment secretary, Richard Lochhead, to support a move by the European Commission to restrict the use of nicotine-based nerve agents designed to kill insects that prevent crops from growing.

Their campaign has been backed by the Scottish National Party MEP, Alyn Smith, who is calling on his party colleagues at Holyrood to change their minds. To use incomplete science as an excuse for delaying a ban is a “shoddy lobbying tactic”, he said.

So far Lochhead has steadfastly supported the UK government’s rejection of a ban, stressing that there are “gaps” in the science and concerns for farmers. But the Sunday Herald understands that some of his senior officials now regard restrictions as inevitable. 

Environmentalists point to more than 30 scientific studies suggesting that the pesticides are harming bees and other wildlife, including some from Scottish universities. Bees and other pollinating insects like bumblebees, butterflies, moths and hoverflies are vital to the production of food, and are reckoned to be worth £43 million a year to the Scottish economy.

Anger over decline of geology in schools

from Sunday Herald, 03 March 2013

The vital science of geology, which was born and celebrated in Scotland, is disappearing from high schools because it is being dropped from the curriculum.

The education secretary, Michael Russell MSP, is facing mounting pressure from pupils, teachers, academics and experts to reverse a decision to abandon higher geology qualifications in 2015.

Geology, or earth science, is the study of the rocks under our feet, and is crucial to understanding the dangers of climate pollution, as well as the extraction of oil, gas, gold and other minerals. The 18th century Scottish scientist, James Hutton, is known as the father of modern geology, and Scotland is home to some of the world’s most famous geological sites.

But geology has suffered a sharp decline in Scottish schools, with only a tiny handful now offering the subject compared to about 40 in the past. The number of pupils taking geology highers fell from 63 in 2011 to 17 in 2012, and no new geology teachers have been trained in Scotland since 1985. 

Concern was also voiced last year about declines in modern languages like German, French and Spanish in secondary schools. More than half Scotland’s schools were reported to have dropped a requirement for pupils to study a foreign language until S4.