Rob Edwards

Plans for gas development delayed as talks break down

from The Herald, 20 May 2013

Negotiations on the handling of highly controversial plans to exploit underground gas in central Scotland have broken down, paving the way for an appeal to the Scottish government.

The Australian company, Dart Energy, has been forced to postpone the start of commercial mining for coal bed methane around Airth this year because Falkirk and Stirling councils have repeatedly delayed their deadlines for taking a decision.

Until now, the delays have been agreed between the councils and the company. But in the last few weeks they have failed to reach an agreement on a new deadline, enabling Dart to appeal directly to Scottish ministers for a decision.

As many as 1,500 objections have now been lodged with the two councils against Dart’s plans. The company has applied for planning permission to sink 22 wells at 14 sites to extract up to 60 billion cubic feet of gas.

There are fears that gas could leak, water could be contaminated and public health put at risk. But the company insists that the process will be safe, and claims it has no plans to use the hotly disputed technology of fracking to get at the gas.

Revealed: the problem that could hamper underground gas development

from Sunday Herald, 07 April 2013

Controversial plans to exploit underground gas in central Scotland could be stymied by problems with the quality of the gas, the Sunday Herald can reveal.

The troubled Australian company, Dart Energy, has applied for planning permission to mine up to 60 billion cubic feet of coal bed methane at Airth near Falkirk. It has signed a £300 million deal with Scottish and Southern Energy (SSE) for the supply of gas over the next seven years, and has said it hopes to start delivery before the end of this year.

But the Sunday Herald has seen evidence that the calorific value of the gas, which is crucial in determining its price for consumers, is unlikely to be high enough for the national grid. Dart has been warned about the problem by independent consultants.

The company has been told that the gas may need to be blended with higher-quality gas on the grid, which, if permitted, would have cost implications. Or the gas could be enriched by adding propane, a high-risk process that is not included in the company’s current planning applications.

According to experts, enrichment would mean importing nearly a hundred tonnes of propane every day, in three large tanker deliveries. It would also require part of the site to be regulated by the UK government’s Health and Safety Executive as a “major accident hazard”.

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.

Commonwealth games refuse to rule out Bhopal sponsor

08 October 2012 

Organisers of the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow are under fire for failing to blacklist the US chemical giant linked to one of the world’s worst industrial accidents at Bhopal in India.

Bhopal survivors, MSPs and environmental campaigners are angry that the Games’ organising committee has refused to rule out any association with the Dow Chemical Company. The company’s high-prolife sponsorship of the London Olympics this summer generated fierce controversy. 

The Commonwealth Games are seeking £100 million of commercial revenue from sponsorship, broadcast rights, ticketing and merchandise. They have already signed deals with some sponsors, including the power company, Scottish and Southern Energy and the computer manufacturers, Dell, but are looking for more 

The Bhopal disaster began shortly after midnight on 4 December 1984 when the highly toxic gas, methyl isocyanate, leaked from a tank at a pesticide plant and killed thousands of people. The regional government put the immediate death toll at 3,787.

Local people say the real number was more like 8,000. In the years since, they say, another 25,000 have died from chronic diseases caused by the contamination, though this is disputed.

At the time of the accident, the plant was owned by the US company, Union Carbide. In 2001, Union Carbide was bought by Dow, and since then the company has become the target of Bhopal campaigners - though it protests its innocence.

Thousands injured by government cutbacks, warn experts

from Sunday Herald, 23 September 2012

Thousands more people are being killed or seriously injured at work because of drastic cutbacks at the UK government’s Health and Safety Executive (HSE), experts are warning.

An 80-page report by Stirling University due to be published tomorrow blames a steep rise in major workplace injuries on deep cuts in funding, staff, inspections and enforcement. Just one in 20 major injuries are now investigated by the HSE, and only one in 170 results in prosecution. 

Over the last five years the number of major and fatal injuries at work in the UK has jumped by 2,700 a year, the report says. In the same period, the proportion investigated by HSE has fallen from 8% to 5%, while those prosecuted dropped from 1% to 0.6% (see table below).

The HSE’s budget has been cut by 13% from £228 million in 2009-10 to £199 million in 2011-12, with further cuts planned over the next three years. Its staff numbers have been reduced 22% from 3,702 in 2010 to 2,889 in June this year.

As a result the HSE is becoming a “threadbare” agency, say the report’s authors, Professor Rory O’Neill and Professor Andrew Watterson, from Stirling University’s Occupational and Environmental Health Research Group. “Workplace safety inspections are now so infrequent it is unlikely most workers will ever encounter an inspector in a working lifetime,” they say.

‘Feeble’ plans to prevent thousands of workers being killed by cancer

for Sunday Herald, 26 August 2012

Efforts by the UK government’s health and safety watchdog to prevent 8,000 workers from being killed by cancers every year have been condemned as “feeble”. 

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) leadership is “frozen in the headlights of a problem too big for it to handle”, according to a leading expert, Professor Andrew Watterson, who heads the Occupational and Environmental Health Research Group at the University of Stirling.

A report to an HSE board meeting in Bootle near Liverpool last week set out plans for tacking the scourge of occupational cancers caused by exposure to toxic chemicals, pollution and other factors at work. It said that cancers were to blame for 8,000 of the 12,000 deaths a year due to occupational illnesses.

In addition, there were 14,000 new cases of workplace cancers registered every year. By far the biggest killer is asbestos, which is responsible for nearly 4,000 deaths a year.

As many as 1.8 million tradespeople are at risk of getting mesothelioma and cancers of the lung, larynx and stomach from exposure to asbestos in buildings. But the HSE has recently ended a high-profile “hidden killer” campaign aimed at highlighting the dangers.

Weather round-up: floods, cancellations, tweets and songs

from Sunday Herald, 15 July 2012

Homes flooded and travel disrupted

Heavy rain has caused flooding, landslides and severe disruption to travellers and homeowners. Last week the entrance of Borders General Hospital was flooded, as well as roads in nearby Melrose and Darnick.

The week before, trains in and out of Glasgow Queen Street and Edinburgh Haymarket were halted or delayed for hours after floods and signal damage. Strathclyde Fire and Rescue Service reported 120 calls from householders and businesses worried about flooding.

At the end of June torrential downpours triggered landslides that blocked both the west and east coast train lines in northern England. Hundreds of people were trapped on one train from London to Glasgow for up to 15 hours.

The West Highland line between Crianlarich and Fort William was closed for two weeks because a 24-wagon freight train hit a boulder, unloosed by rain, and ploughed down a slope.

Homes and streets in the Stockbridge area of Edinburgh were flooded after the Water of Leith burst its banks. In Yorkshire, the town of Hebden Bridge has suffered three serious floods in as many weeks, while in Tyneside more than 20 families are still waiting to return to their homes two weeks after they were flooded.

Sleepless in the North Sea: the risks of working long hours

from Hesamag, June 2012

Jake Malloy is angry. Sitting in his cramped and recently flooded office near the docks in Aberdeen, he is talking about his union’s 20-year campaign to reduce the working hours of North Sea oil and gas workers.

The UK’s highest court has recently ruled against the union. “Nothing’s changed,” he says. “Offshore workers continue to work 12 hours a night in very hazardous, high risk environments, and nothing’s changed.”

Malloy, the offshore energy organiser with the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT), lost a legal battle in the Supreme Court in London in December 2011. Technically, it was about the application of the European Union (EU) Working Time Directive to offshore workers, and what that meant for legal holiday entitlements.

But it was also about how long working hours degrade quality of life, endanger workers’ health and ultimately put lives at risk. It was about shift patterns, living accommodation and the danger of leaks and accidents.

Underlying the arguments were different visions of the kind of working life, and the kind of society, that people in a modern industrial age deserve, and how to balance that against profits made for shareholders. For many, the outcome clearly demonstrated that the UK North Sea oil industry has a long way to go to deliver a decent job for its employees.

Cutting inspections can cause deaths

comment from Sunday Herald, 10 June 2012

Prevention, they say, is better than cure. That is the key lesson that should be learnt from the tragic outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease in Edinburgh last week.

It’s all very well for the regulatory authorities to be crawling over suspected culprits like a rash now - but where were they beforehand? Much sorrow and pain would have been saved if health inspectors had stopped the deadly bacteria from spreading over a large part of the city in the first place.

But, as we reveal today, the UK Health and Safety Executive and Scottish local authority environmental health departments have suffered serious cutbacks in recent years, losing up to a fifth of their staff. Of course no-one can say for sure that this caused the Edinburgh outbreak.

But we can be pretty sure that fewer inspectors and fewer inspections make it more likely that there will be further outbreaks like this in the future. If companies think they can get away with cutting corners to save money in these straightened times, they will – and the consequences could be more unnecessary deaths and illness.

The cutbacks that could cause legionella

from Sunday Herald, 10 June 2012

Severe cutbacks in the number of safety inspectors and inspections could have allowed the outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease in Edinburgh and may cause future outbreaks in Scotland, experts have warned.

The Sunday Herald can reveal that the City of Edinburgh Council has cut its environmental health officers by 18% within the last three years – double the average cut of 9% imposed by all Scottish councils. The number of officials responsible for protecting public health in the city has reduced from 61 in 2009 to 50 in 2011.

The UK government’s Health and Safety Executive (HSE), which helps to prevent companies across the country from harbouring and spreading the deadly legionella bacteria, has also suffered serious cuts. Its UK field operations division responsible for inspections has lost 18% of its staff – more than 250 - between 2007 and 2011.

According to the trade union, Prospect, which represents HSE inspectors, the number of preventative workplace inspections was slashed by a third last year on the instructions of UK ministers, from 30,000 to 20,000 a year.

The cutbacks were described as “staggering, shocking and savage” by one leading expert, Professor Andrew Watterson, head of the Occupational and Environment Research Group at the University of Stirling. “The crippling impact of cuts in staff numbers and resources is now threatening public health,” he said.

National museum named as legionella suspect

from Sunday Herald, 10 June 2012

The hugely popular National Museum of Scotland has been named as a new suspect in the investigation into the cause of the outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease in Edinburgh.

The UK government’s Health and Safety Executive (HSE) told the Sunday Herald that its inspectors visited the museum in Chambers Street on Friday as part of its continuing efforts to pinpoint the source of the infection.

On the same day it was announced that two million people have visited the museum since its £47 million upgrade ten months ago. It was said to have become the most popular tourist attraction in Scotland.

The HSE also confirmed that it had paid a visit to an Italian defence electronics company, Selex Galileo, at Crewe Toll in the city. This brings the number of sites whose cooling towers have been checked for the deadly legionella bacteria to six. 

A spokeswoman for the National Museum of Scotland confirmed that it had received a “precautionary visit” from HSE inspectors. “They checked our documentation and procedures and there were no immediate concerns raised,” said a museum spokeswoman.

The Scottish towns most at risk from the recession

from Sunday Herald, 27 May 2012

Towns in the south west of Scotland face a grim and uncertain future because they are most at risk from the recession, according to an authoritative new analysis of the state of rural Scotland.

Nine out of the ten towns judged to be most vulnerable to job losses and cutbacks are in Ayrshire, Argyll and Dumfries and Galloway. The worst off are said to be Campbeltown and Dunoon, which share joint first place in the league of economic losers. 

Other towns that feature high in the so-called “vulnerability index” are Girvan, Stranraer, Sanquhar, Cumnock, Ayr, Maybole and Kilwinning. The only place in the top ten that is not in the south west is the village of Castlebay on the island of Barra.

The index has been drawn up the Scottish Agricultural College’s Rural Policy Centre as part of a 104-page report to be published tomorrow. It suggests, according to the centre’s Dr Jane Atterton, that some communities could die.

“Ongoing vulnerability in some settlements may lead to increasing unemployment, population out-migration and a decline in local service provision, and may place the long-term sustainability of these settlements at risk,” she warned.

“This has implications for the population of the town itself, and of its surrounding rural hinterland in terms of the ability of people to access vital services, including employment and health care. This is particularly the case in remoter areas where residents often have limited choice in terms of the service centres they can access.”

Scotland’s rural areas – more people, less jobs and twilight zones

for Sunday Herald, 27 May 2012

More people are expected to live in most of rural Scotland in the next 20 years, but there are likely to be fewer jobs for them to do.

Those are two of the headline findings from one of the most comprehensive surveys of the state of the nation’s smaller towns and villages, due to be unveiled tomorrow.

The report, compiled by experts from the Scottish Agricultural College’s Rural Policy Centre in Edinburgh, also sounds clear warnings about the need to boost business and voluntary activity, bring superfast broadband and cut climate pollution.

Projections suggest that overall Scotland’s rural population will grow 10% by 2035. The largest increases are likely to be in prosperous areas like Perth and Kinross, where a rise of 32% is predicted, and in places close to the main cities.

In remoter areas, however, the population will decline, with an 11 per cent drop forecast in the Western Isles. “Migration into and out of rural areas is a key aspect of this growth and decline,” said the report’s editor, Dr Sarah Skerratt.

“Younger people often leave to find opportunities for jobs, entertainment, and education. Families with young children move back to rural areas, as well as retirees who may have holidayed in those areas for years.”

But she warned that private and public sector employment were likely to decline over the next few years. “When a small business closes, the impact can be significant in rural towns and villages,” she said.

“Rural areas typically see many people employed in the council, hospitals, doctor’s surgeries and schools, so as public resources continue to be reduced and targeted, employment impacts will continue to be felt at individual, household and community level.”

Revealed: the dinners that drove disputed Indian oil deal

from Sunday Herald, 20 May 2012

Westminster secretly lobbied the Indian government to give the go-ahead to a disputed multi-billion pound deal with a leading Scottish oil company, internal emails passed to the Sunday Herald reveal. 

UK government officials, briefed “over dinner” by Edinburgh-based Cairn Energy, offered to “polish” and send a letter drafted by the company. At a lunch, they also had a quiet word urging a key Indian government minister to back the deal.

The Indian government subsequently gave permission for Cairn’s £5.5 billion deal to sell off the bulk of its Indian oil business to Vedanta, an Indian mining and metals giant much criticised by human rights and environmental groups. The deal, labeled “the largest transaction ever to happen in India”, is now being challenged in the Indian Supreme Court.

The UK government has been condemned for doing Cairn’s bidding “slavishly” and “shamelessly” by campaign groups. “The political and industrial elite of India conspire with their counterparts in other countries to short-change local people and hand over national resources on a platter to multinationals,” said the leading Indian campaigner, Nityanand Jayaraman.

The controversial deal with Vedanta was at the root of the shareholder rebellion that swept through Cairn’s AGM in Edinburgh on Thursday. Plans to reward the company’s founder and chairman, Sir Bill Gammell, up to £5 million in bonuses for securing the deal were voted down two-to-one by shareholders.

Has the population bomb been defused?

from Sunday Herald, 23 October 2011

It’s going to happen, the United Nations says, at the end of this month. Somewhere in the world on the 31 October, a baby will be born that for the first time in history will bring the planet’s population to seven billion.

The precise day, of course, is little more than an educated guess. But the undeniable prospect of the world reaching seven billion will generate a whole new flurry of international arguments about whether we can feed and house so many people without destroying the planet.

The UN will this week be releasing a new report on the state of the world’s population, starting a countdown to the 31 October. There will be those who say that that the “population bomb” will explode and engulf us all; and there will be those who argue that it has been defused and we should all be OK.

Whatever view you take, there is no doubt that an expanding population creates challenges. The world first reached one billion people in 1804, and it took 123 years to get to two billion in 1927.

But then the growth accelerated, with six billion being reached in 1998 (see table below) and seven billion just 13 years later. In May the UN predicted a global population on 9.3 billion by 2050 and more than ten billion by the end of the century.

Concern over contamination from chemical weapons plants in Scotland

from Sunday Herald, 31 July 2011

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) is facing demands from politicians, experts and environmentalists to come clean about contamination from former chemical weapons plants in Scotland.

An internal MoD briefing has revealed that sites near Beith in North Ayrshire and near Callander in Stirling have been under investigation for possible risks to human health and the environment. The sites were previously used to make, store and dispose of chemical warfare agents.

Though the MoD insists that the sites are safe, critics are concerned about the dangers of lingering contamination. They are demanding more information about the MoD’s investigations, and urging complete openness with local communities.

Stan Blackley, the chief executive of Friends of the Earth Scotland, warned that the MoD’s information machine was “toxic” and couldn’t be trusted. “We need more than just assurances that there is no risk to public health at these sites, particularly given the toxic nature of what went on at them in the past,” he told the Sunday Herald.

“Until independent scientific verification is obtained and released stating that these sites are safe and pose no risk, it would be foolish for anyone to do anything other than treat what we're being told with a big pinch of salt, and avoid them like the plague.”

Former chemical weapons sites investigated for contamination

from The Guardian, 25 July 2011

The Ministry of Defence has investigated 14 former chemical weapons factories and stores across the UK for contamination, according to an official briefing seen by the Guardian.

Tens of thousands of tonnes of mustard gas, phosgene and other lethal chemicals have been made, stored, burned and dumped at sites in England, Wales and Scotland since the first world war. Some areas are still fenced off to protect the public today.

After a four-year investigation of the sites considered potentially hazardous – named Project Cleansweep – it has concluded that there is "no indication of significant risk to public health or environment" from the sites.

That has been questioned, however, by one expert, who pointed out that there was still no scientific proof that all harmful traces of the weapons have been removed, particularly after they were burnt.

Prof Alastair Hay, an expert on chemical weapons and who is a professor of environmental toxicology at the University of Leeds and an official adviser to the Health and Safety Executive, argued that more sampling might still be needed at the sites. Some areas should be kept secure as a failsafe because mustard gas can be very persistent in the environment, he warned.

Pay up, Bono: the perils of protesting against tax-dodgers

from Sunday Herald, 26 June 2011

Protestors attempting to embarrass the rock group, U2, over their failure to pay taxes were attacked and wrestled to the ground by security guards at the Glastonbury festival late on Friday night.

As Bono and his ageing band took to the stage for their headlining performance, activists in the crowd inflated a 25-foot balloon saying ‘U Pay Your Tax 2’. The plan was to float it in front of the stage so that the band, their 50,000 rain-drenched fans and thousands of TV viewers would get the message.

But a team of fierce-looking security guards in blue anoraks immediately pounced on the protestors. There were violent clashes, as they forcibly took control of the balloon, deflated it and took it away.

Several protestors were pinned against a fence, and one reported a broken finger. A security guard told a photographer to "go away", adding: "If you are press, I'll have you."

The attack on the balloon was cheered by some in the crowd, but booed by others. "It was all a bit shocking,” said Gary Noble, 45, from Eastbourne.

“I love U2 but I think everyone should pay their taxes. The campaigners have a right to voice their opinion.”

Warning about barbed wire booby traps in the countryside

from Caledonian Mercury, 13 June 2011

Gamekeepers have been accused of setting potentially lethal booby traps in the countryside after green-coloured barbed wire was strung at head-height across a woodland track near Fettercairn in Aberdeenshire.

Long-distance horse rider, John Thomson, was only saved from serious injury because his pure-bred Arabian gelding, Prince Omar, came to a juddering halt just in front of the wire during an early morning training run last week. “It was a narrow escape,” he said.

“We normally canter this section into the woods, and against the background of trees and bushes the wire was difficult to see. This was a deliberate action to prevent access by horses, designed to cause maximum damage.”

He blamed inexperienced gamekeepers for setting a trap that could have caused a “catastrophe” for riders, cyclists or quad-bikers. “This was a stupid act of gross insensitivity in countryside matters,” he said.

Thomson complained to Grampian police, and to the Fettercairn Estate, whose land includes the woodland track. As a result the wire was taken down after a couple of days, though it remains in the undergrowth and could be put up again.

The wire was described as “nasty” and “horrific” by countryside recreation groups, who back Thomson’s complaint. “This seems like a very vindictive way of preventing access,” said Helene Mauchlen, Scottish development officer for the British Horse Society.

Hundreds of thousands of suicides blamed on big company farming

from Sunday Herald, 15 May 2011
Pastapur, India

Big business agriculture promoted by western corporations is to blame for up to a quarter of a million farmers committing suicide over the last ten years, according to community leaders in India.

Poor farmers are forced to take out big loans to buy expensive pesticides and fertilisers, and to dig wells for the increasing amounts of water they need. But when their crops fail, or their wells dry up, they fall into debt - and many thousands kill themselves out of desperation.

That is the bleak picture painted by P.V. Satheesh, the director of the Deccan Development Society, which supports community farming in one of the poorest parts of rural India. Sitting barefoot with his laptop in the shade outside his house in the village of Pastapur, in the Zaheerabad region of Andhra Pradesh, he gets angry about what’s happening.

Farmers are “misled” into believing the promise that the high-input, chemical-intensive, single-crop agriculture of the so-called ‘green revolution’ is their salvation, he says. So when it fails, they end up trapped in a debt spiral that too often leads to despair and suicide.

“Those that say that the green revolution will save the world should come and see the hundreds of thousands who have committed suicide in India," he warns. “The green revolution is a downhill slide into disaster.”