Rob Edwards

Revealed: the dirty dozen salmon farms that contaminate lochs with pesticides

from Sunday Herald, 05 May 2013

Pesticides from 12 salmon farms have contaminated lochs around Scotland’s coast in breach of safety limits, according to the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa).

Environmental monitoring by the government watchdog over the last three years has discovered high levels of toxic chemicals in sediments from the Firth of Lorn, the Isle of Lewis, the northwest Highlands and Shetland. Fish farmers use the chemicals to kill the lice that eat away at salmon.

By far the worst pollution was found in Loch Shell on the east of Lewis near a fish farm operated by the Norwegian-owned company, Marine Harvest. There, levels of a pesticide called teflubenzuron, were up to 455 times higher than Sepa’s environmental quality standards in 2012.

Sepa is now reviewing the operating licence for the Loch Shell fish farm with a view to imposing restrictions on the volume of pesticides that can be used, and the mass of salmon that can be kept in cages. In 2011 fishermen blamed pollution from the farm for killing off a valuable prawn fishery in the loch.

Marine Harvest said it was “deeply disappointed” by the pollution detected in Loch Shell. The high levels were “very much outside the norm”, according to the company’s business support manager, Steve Bracken.

16 tips for using freedom of information law in the UK

talk to Strathclyde University journalism students, 30 April 2013

Here are a few suggestions on how to exercise your right to know using freedom of information legislation in the UK. They are not exhaustive or comprehensive.

1. Don’t go drift netting for thousands of fish, go angling for one or two. I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with fishing for information from public agencies, but it’s best if you have at least an idea of what you’re looking for - a rough idea of where the bodies might be buried, or where the smoking guns are hidden.

2. Know your topic before you make freedom of information (FoI) requests. Be aware of what’s already in the public domain. Use Google to check what’s online. Look at the information already released, and work out which public agencies might have the information you’re after. Talk to experts, insiders, academics, campaigners, politicians – anyone who might have insight into the issue you are researching.

3. Use investigative journalism. FoI requests are not a substitute for investigatory research work, they are a supplement to it. By far the best FoI requests are those where you know exactly what you are looking for, when an insider or campaigner has tipped you off to the existence of an interesting or embarrassing report or email, and you can ask for it by date, reference number or author.

4. Ask about things that matter to you. I think it’s important to make FoI requests about issues that concern you, bother you, worry you – about things you really care about, are curious about. Scams you suspect, injustices that anger you, pollution that upsets you, societal idiocies you think need to be exposed.

Lochhead accused of “spineless sell-out” on bee pesticides

28 April 2013

A new compromise plan by Scotland’s environment minister, Richard Lochhead, to agree - but not implement - a ban on the pesticides blamed for killing bees has been condemned as a “complete fudge” and a “spineless sell-out” that could help usher in “ecological Armageddon”.

Scientists, beekeepers, environmental groups, and politicians reacted angrily yesterday to a bid by the Cabinet Secretary for two years more research before deciding whether or not to restrict the use of nicotine-based nerve poisons used by farmers to kill insects and protect crops.

Lochhead has written to UK ministers urging them to accept proposed European restrictions on neonicotinoid pesticides, due to be discussed in Brussels tomorrow. But he said that the restrictions should only be implemented in 2015 if further evidence proves that bees are being harmed. 

The pesticides have already been banned in France, Germany, Italy and Slovenia, and by major retailers in the UK. The proposed European restrictions, which look likely to go ahead, have been backed by the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee.

Lochhead, however, argued that the science was not clear-cut. “Given the lack of conclusive evidence I think it would be sensible to carry out a further programme of research over the next two years,” he said.

Victory claimed as MoD drops uranium weapons tests

from Sunday Herald, 28 April 2013

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has been stopped from test-firing shells made of depleted uranium (DU) in Scotland by public opposition, campaigners say.

Defence ministers have told MPs that a planned weapons testing programme will use alternatives to DU. The toxic and radioactive metal, used to harden armour-piercing tank shells, has been blamed for cancers, birth defects and other illnesses suffered by soldiers and civilians after the Iraq war.

The MoD had been expected to begin test-firing DU shells, known as CHARM 3, at the Dundrennan military range near Kirkcudbright later this year. Over the last three decades, army tanks have fired more than 6,700 shells into the Solway Firth from the range, containing nearly 30 tonnes of DU. 

Some shells were misfired and ended up contaminating parts of the range in breach of agreed safety limits. High levels of DU, a byproduct of the nuclear industry, were discovered in earthworms on the site.

The armed forces minister, Andrew Robathan MP, has now said that the CHARM 3 charge “can be tested by firing variants that do not contain DU”. Another defence minister, Philip Dunne MP, has told the House of Commons that the planned CHARM3 testing programme “does not involve the firing of depleted uranium.”

Scottish government ordered to name seal-shooting salmon farms

from Sunday Herald, 28 April 2013 

A last-ditch bid by Scottish ministers to keep the salmon farms that shoot seals secret has been rejected by Scotland’s freedom of information watchdog, Rosemary Agnew.

The Sunday Herald can reveal that she has ordered the government to name the individual fish farms by 7 May. Its argument that identifying the farms would put those shooting the seals at increased risk of attacks by animal rights campaigners was not “compelling”, she concluded.

Agnew’s decision has been warmly welcomed by environmental and animal welfare groups, but attacked by the fish farming industry for endangering public safety. The Scottish government said it was “disappointed” but would have to comply.

According to official figures, fish farmers shot 449 seals in 2011 and 2012 in order to try and prevent them from eating salmon. A further 443 were killed around the coast by salmon netting companies and river fisheries.

The Scottish government refused to name the specific fish farms responsible for the shooting last year, claiming that direct action by protestors would put shooters at risk. In December, its arguments were dismissed as “tenuous” by Agnew, the Scottish Information Commissioner.

Trump adverts against Salmond and wind farms ruled misleading

from Sunday Herald, 21 April 2013

An advertising campaign by Donald Trump, the US property tycoon, attacking Alex Salmond’s support for wind farms will this week be condemned as “misleading” by the UK government’s advertising watchdog.

The Sunday Herald has learnt that the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) will publish on Wednesday a damning ruling on adverts that appeared in Scottish newspapers in December. The adverts linked the First Minister’s backing for wind power to the Scottish government’s decision to free the Lockerbie bomber, Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi. 

The ruling, the second against Trump’s anti-wind farm campaign in Scotland, has been welcomed by environmental groups and wind lobbyists. But it has prompted the Trump Organisation, which confirmed the ruling against it, to berate the ASA for being “disorganised, inefficient and wasteful”.

The adverts featured a picture of a forest of wind turbines on a hill overlooking a motorway in California under the heading “Is this the future for Scotland?” Below was a photograph of Salmond smiling and giving the thumbs up.

“Tourism will suffer and the beauty of the country is in jeopardy,” said the text. “This is the same mind that backed the release of terrorist al-Megrahi ‘for humane reasons’ after he ruthlessly killed 270 people on Pan-Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie.”

The adverts, which ran in the Aberdeen Press and Journal and the Dundee Courier on 14 December 2012, prompted 21 complaints to the ASA. They argued that the text and imagery were misleading, and the reference to al-Megrahi offensive.

The ASA has concluded that the claim that tourism would suffer “could not be substantiated”. The picture implying that a wind farm in Scotland would look like the turbines in California was “misleading”, it said.

Legal controls on seal shooting are ‘pointless’, says salmon company

from Sunday Herald, 21 April 2013

The boss of Scotland’s biggest salmon netting company has branded legal limits on the number of seals he’s allowed to shoot as “pointless”, according to the minute of a meeting leaked to the Sunday Herald.

George Pullar, the director of Usan salmon fisheries based in Montrose, was quoted saying that netting companies should be able to shoot as many seals as was necessary to protect their salmon. The government’s licensing scheme controlling the number of seals killed each year was “not practical”, he said.

According to the Scottish government, 892 seals have been shot under licence around the nation’s coasts over the last two years. Half of them have been killed by salmon netting companies or river fisheries and half by fish farms to prevent them from eating fish.

Pullar is at the centre of a fierce row about seal-killing in Gardenstown, near Banff in Aberdeenshire. He told the local paper last month that shooting seals was “the very last resort for our company”.

But then a dead female seal was found washed up on the shore with a bullet hole in her head after Pullar’s marksmen had been seen in the area. This prompted outrage amongst local people, with the laird and former Fairport Convention singer, Marc Ellington, threatening to stop shooting from his land.

Revealed: nuclear submarine mishap on the Clyde

from Sunday Herald, 14 April 2013

Britain’s newest nuclear-powered submarine was forced to abandon sea trials and return to port in the Clyde after a system defect was discovered last week.

The Sunday Herald can reveal that HMS Ambush, which was handed over to the Royal Navy last month, was towed back to the Faslane naval base near Helensburgh after coming to an unexpected halt in the middle of Gareloch on Wednesday.

The £1.6 billion submarine was seen to be in difficulties by anti-nuclear campaigners from the Faslane Peace Camp. Members of the crew were observed standing on top of the boat, which was venting steam and surrounded by three tugs.

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has confirmed that the submarine experienced a problem, but has declined to give any details. Something went wrong that “affected a variety of systems on the boat," an MoD spokesman said.

“Following HMS Ambush’s maintenance period undertaken at Her Majesty’s Naval Base Clyde, an issue with a non-nuclear system was identified on Wednesday,” he added. “A decision was taken to return HMS Ambush to the naval base to allow remedial action to take place.”

The opencast coal scars that may never heal

from Sunday Herald, 14 April 2013

The giant wounds on the landscape left by dozens of opencast coal mines across Scotland may never be healed under plans being considered by Scottish ministers.

Community and environment groups are warning that the Scottish government is preparing to allow coal companies to break their promises to restore defunct mines in order to try and help the deeply troubled industry.

Because of financial difficulties, Scottish Coal said last month it was axing 450 of its 758 workforce, and closing four of its nine opencast mines. Another opencast company that operates five mines in Scotland, ATH Resources, went into administration in December.

The Scottish government told the Sunday Herald that its industry deregulation guru, Professor Russel Griggs, was leading a working group “to explore issues affecting the Scottish coal industry”. Amongst the issues under review was “the restoration of future opencast coal sites”.

Griggs, who chairs the Scottish government's Regulatory Review Group, has been asked by the energy minister, Fergus Ewing MSP, to brief MSPs on progress. The briefing is due to take place at Holyrood on 17 April.

Dr Richard Dixon, director of Friends of the Earth Scotland, pointed out that communities suffering opencast mining had been assured that the huge holes, heaps and dirt tracks would be cleaned up. “It seems these promises are being widely broken and the government may even be working to let the industry off the hook at more sites,” he said.

“These companies have made large profits at the expense of the environment and local businesses. Instead of trying to prop up an ailing industry, the government needs to guarantee that overdue restoration work will get underway.”

Probe into leaking gas claims

from Sunday Herald, 14 April 2013

An allegation that explosive and highly polluting gas is leaking from boreholes in southwest Scotland is being probed by the Scottish government’s green watchdog.

The Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) is launching an investigation into claims that methane is “bubbling up” in wells drilled to test for the gas in coal seams near Canonbie in Dumfries and Galloway. The claims are denied by the company that owns the wells.

The Sunday Herald received information claiming gas was escaping in the wells.

The information was passed to Sepa, which promised to investigate. “Sepa has recently become aware of information regarding the potential release of gas from coal bed methane wells in the Canonbie area,” said a Sepa spokesman. “Sepa will shortly be carrying out investigations into this."

Sepa stressed that it was important for members of the public to report suspected pollution incidents to its telephone hotline (0800 80 70 60). “Once the investigation is completed, we will consider whether any follow-up work may be necessary in line with our enforcement policy,” said Sepa’s spokesman.

“If methane were escaping from a well, Sepa would advise that it is reported to the regulators involved in the control of these operations. This would include Sepa, the Department of Energy and Climate Change, the local planning authority, the Health and Safety Executive, and the Coal Authority.”

Exposing expenses to try and regain trust

comment, 11 April 2013

Journalism in the UK is in crisis. As well as being ethically shredded by Leveson, its economic base is crumbling. Public trust in journalists is at a historic low, and skilled hacks are fleeing the profession to earn their crusts elsewhere.

In the belief that any decent democracy needs serious, fact-based, investigative journalism, there are many good people worrying about the problem and trying to come up with creative solutions. But, as yet, the answer is far from clear.

One thing, though, has become clear to me. Part of the answer to re-establishing trust in journalists is for us to become much more open and honest in what we do. This means, for example, providing access to information sources, including leaked documents, as often as possible so that readers can make their own judgements.

It also means being much more transparent about our influences, our income and our expenses. This was argued strongly by The Guardian columnist, George Monbiot, who has been posting his financial details online since 2011. He has been followed in Scotland by the writer and land reform campaigner, Andy Wightman; the author and ecology activist, Alastair McIntosh; and the former BBC journalist, David Eyre.

Belatedly, I am now joining them. I have made my first declaration of interests here on my profile page. Comments welcome.

This was reported by allmediascotland.

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”.

Row over the bird fair linked to an estate that's killed birds

from Sunday Herald, 07 April 2013

A bitter row has erupted over the staging of a major event celebrating wild birds at the stately home of a lord who owns an estate with one of the worst records for illegally persecuting birds of prey.

The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) in Scotland has come under fierce fire for hosting its popular Scottish Birdfair next month at Hopetoun House, the palatial pile peopled by Lord Hopetoun and his family on the Firth of Forth near Edinburgh.

Lord Hopetoun is owner of the 11,000-acre Leadhills grouse-shooting estate in South Lanarkshire, which has been repeatedly linked to wildlife crime incidents. Estate gamekeepers have been convicted for laying poisoned bait and shooting an owl, and last October a golden eagle was found shot close to the estate’s border, and has since died.

In the past Hopetoun has denied that he is responsible for the management of his estate, which is on long-term lease to a sporting company registered in Delaware, USA. But this is questioned by a land campaigner who has studied the lease.

Ronnie Graham, an expert on birds of prey and a veteran member of the Scottish Raptor Study Groups, is calling for a boycott of the RSPB birdfair. “I’m just furious at the RSPB’s blatant disregard for their members’ and general public opinion,” he told the Sunday Herald.

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.