Rob Edwards

Green watchdog accused of “going soft” on polluters

from Sunday Herald, 06 May 2012

Moves by the government’s green watchdog to half the number of company inspections and cut back on environmental monitoring have prompted accusations that it is “going soft” on polluters.

In order to save money and reduce red tape, the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) is conducting far fewer checks on businesses and has slashed by more than a quarter the samples it takes from rivers. The number of enforcement actions against polluters has also fallen 22% over the last two years. 

Sepa says that it is pursuing “better regulation” that will more effectively target resources to reduce environmental harm, and denies that it is letting polluters off the hook. But its critics say it is just trying to make the best of a bad job.

“Despite protestations to the contrary, evidence shows that less regulation almost invariably leads to companies that pollute escaping detection,” said Professor Andrew Watterson, head of the occupational and environmental health research group at the University of Stirling.

Sepa’s decision to reduce effective oversight of potential polluters was “tragic” because it would lead to weaker protection of human health and the environment, he argued. “Going soft on regulation by having soft regulations and enforcing them softly will lead to greater pollution threats in Scotland.”

Hundreds of sites could be contaminated with radioactive waste, says government report

from The Guardian, 02 May 2012

Hundreds of sites across England and Wales could be contaminated with radioactive waste from old military bases and factories, according to a new government report.

Up to 1,000 sites could be polluted, though the best guess is that between 150 and 250 are, says a report on contaminated land released last month by the Department of Energy and Climate Change.

This is far higher than previous official estimates, with evidence from the Ministry of Defence (MoD) last December suggesting that there were just 15 sites in the UK contaminated with radium from old planes and other equipment.

The MoD has come under fire from the former Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, for trying to evade responsibility for cleaning up the contamination it has caused. His constituency in Fife, north of Edinburgh, includes one of the most notorious examples of radioactive pollution at Dalgety Bay.

In the last year, the MoD has realised that there are others areas of radioactive contamination across the country that may need to be cleaned up, Brown said. “They’ve started to use their lawyers to get out of what is, in the first place, I think, a moral responsibility and in the second place, will become a legal responsibility.”

Revealed: new health fears about radiation at Dalgety Bay

from Sunday Herald, 25 March 2012

Fresh fears about the dangers of the radioactivity contaminating a popular Scottish coastal resort have been revealed in hundreds of internal government emails obtained by the Sunday Herald.

Contaminated shellfish from Dalgety Bay in Fife have been officially condemned as unfit to eat, while a UK government health watchdog has been accused by one of its leading advisers of downplaying the public health risks from the pollution. 

The revelations will be raised by the former Prime Minister and local MP, Gordon Brown, at a meeting with the Defence Secretary, Philip Hammond, in London on Monday. They emerge as decisions on how to clean up the contamination, blamed on old military planes, come to a head in a series of crunch meetings this week.

The Sunday Herald understands that a plan to investigate the contamination until May 2013 is likely to go ahead. But it is still unclear how or when the area will subsequently be cleaned up, as the Ministry of Defence (MoD) is refusing to accept liability.

The Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) will therefore not lift its threat to formally designate Dalgety Bay as Britain’s first radioactively contaminated land if the site is not cleaned up. But it is unlikely to implement the threat in the near future.

Boom in gas exploitation on land running into opposition

from Sunday Herald, 11 March 2012

A boom in exploiting underground gas in Scotland is running into mounting opposition from communities and environmentalists worried about the contamination of water supplies and climate pollution.

An investigation by the Sunday Herald has discovered that there are ten sites across the central belt and in the south west being explored and developed for methane, with the prospect of many more to come. The idea is to extract the flammable gas from deep coal beds by drilling, draining and pumping, perhaps using the highly controversial technique known as fracking.

But critics warn that, whether or not fracking is used, the risks that groundwater will be polluted and public health put at risk are “unacceptable high”. They also fear that exploiting the gas will make it impossible for Scotland to meet its targets to cut the carbon emissions that are disrupting the climate.

Coal bed methane is regarded by some in the energy industry as a potentially huge resource that could help replace dwindling supplies from the North Sea. A major Australian company, Dart Energy, is now behind most of the plans in Scotland. 

It took over the Scottish firm, Composite Energy, a year ago, acquiring a series of exploratory drilling sites in Falkirk, Stirling, Clackmannanshire and Fife (see table below). In recent weeks, it has also taken over licences acquired by another company, Greenpark Energy, in the Canonbie area of Dumfries and Galloway. 

Scotland failing to curb air pollution in cities, warns government agency

from Sunday Herald, 04 March 2012

Many thousands of people are going to be exposed to dangerous levels of air pollution in Scotland’s towns and cities for years to come because of the Scottish government’s failure to cut traffic fumes, ministers have been told.

The Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) has warned that revised targets to reduce air pollution - already postponed for up to a decade - will be breached because not enough is being done to curb exhaust emissions from cars, buses and lorries.

As a result, people in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Dundee and other urban areas will keep breathing in toxic gases, which can damage their lungs, blood and immune systems. According to the Institute of Occupational Medicine, air pollution kills over 600 people a year in the central belt.

An analysis by the Sunday Herald has revealed that European Union (EU) safety limits for nitrogen dioxide, one of the main vehicle exhaust fumes, were breached at 12 sites in urban areas across Scotland in 2011. As well as the four big cities, they included Perth, Paisley, Kirkintilloch, East Kilbride and Broxburn.

The safety limits were first agreed in 2001 and were meant to have been met by 2010. But new official figures show that, averaged out over all of last year, concentrations of nitrogen dioxide in the air near busy roads were often well above the limit of 40 micrograms per cubic metre.

MoD misses more radiation at Dalgety bay

from Sunday Herald, 05 February 2012

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has again missed hundreds of radioactive hotspots contaminating Dalgety Bay on the Firth of Forth, prompting accusations that it cannot be trusted to carry on monitoring.

The Sunday Herald can reveal that in the latest surveys of the Fife foreshore last month the MoD found and removed 83 radioactive particles. A survey of half the same area shortly afterwards by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) found and removed a further 228 particles.

The failure of the MoD to detect most of the contamination was described a “cause for concern” by Sepa. “This reinforces the need to have credible investigation plans in place,” said a Sepa spokeswoman.

In December the Sunday Herald reported that previous monitoring of Dalgety Bay by the MoD had missed 442 radioactive hotspots. If the MoD fails to come up with credible clean-up plans by the end of this month, Sepa has said it will formally designate the bay as Britain’s first radioactively contaminated land in an attempt to force the MoD to act.

Revealed: 15 military sites contaminated by radioactivity

from The Guardian, 20 December 2011

At least 15 sites across the UK have been contaminated by radioactivity from Second World War military activities, according to new disclosures by the Ministry of Defence (MoD).

A dozen of the sites, which include current and former air and naval bases, have not been identified before by the MoD. Some are accessible by the public or being developed for homes or businesses, though the potential risks are unclear.

The contamination comes from radium that was used to coat the dials of aircraft and other equipment so that they could be seen in the dark. It was in scrap burnt and dumped in the 1940s and 1950s, and remains radioactive for thousands of years.

The contaminated sites include the old SAS headquarters at Stirling Lines in Hereford, a former naval air base near Portsmouth, a previous home to the Red Arrows in Gloucestershire and a former RAF base at Machrihanish on the Mull of Kintyre (see table below).

The MoD has revealed the list of sites in response to a series of freedom of information requests in the wake of the discovery of dangerous levels of radium contamination at Dalgety Bay in Fife. It was home to a busy Second World War air base.

Revealed: the dangerous radioactivity that the MoD missed

from Sunday Herald, 04 December 2011

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) is facing a ferocious barrage of criticism for botching its monitoring of Dalgety Bay so badly that it missed more than 400 radioactive hotspots, including some of the most lethal ever found on public beaches.

Former government experts, current government advisors and senior politicians have condemned the MoD’s monitoring of the contaminated Fife foreshore as inadequate, ineffectual and incompetent. According to one of the MoD’s own former radiation scientists, the ministry can no longer be trusted to do the job – though it must pay for it.

“Because of MoD’s failure to properly assess the extent and risks from the contamination, any further surveys or assessments should not be carried out by MoD, or MoD contractors,” said Fred Dawson, who worked for the MoD for 31 years before he left as head of the radiation protection policy team in 2009.

“Nor should MoD, or MoD contractors, be allowed to participate or undertake remediation work. MoD’s role should be limited to providing the necessary finance to remediate the beach.”

Dawson accused the MoD of being persistently blind to the seriousness of the pollution. “It has consistently done all that it can to avoid admitting liability for the contamination, which in all probability it caused,” he told the Sunday Herald.

Time for the Ministry of Defence to pay up

Comment from Sunday Herald, 04 December 2011

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) is turning prevarication into an art form. There are, it seems, few tricks, evasions and deceits that it won’t deploy to try and wriggle out of responsibility for cleaning up the radioactive mess it has made at Dalgety Bay in Fife.

As we report today, its monitoring of the contaminated foreshore in September missed more than 400 radioactive hotspots. Like Admiral Nelson back in 1801, the ministry’s modern-day commanders turned a blind eye in the hope that the problem would disappear.

MoD officials have also suggested that a decision to end monitoring could be kept quiet by the simple device of not telling the media. They have disputed clear evidence from the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) that young children use the beach, with one MoD official telling a meeting in October that “a toddler would not be crawling about the bay”.

At the same meeting officials repeatedly refused to accept responsibility for paying for the clean-up. “MoD need to consider any cost-benefit of any remediation,” said one. “The cost-benefit analysis may suggest it is better to leave the beach closed.”

Crackdown on toxic waste trade that contaminates Africa

from Sunday Herald, 13 November, 2011

More than 40 shipments of toxic waste that could contaminate developing countries have been prevented from leaving Scotland in the latest attempt to crack down on the multi-million-pound criminal trade in waste.

The Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa), the government’s green watchdog, has this year stopped or sent back export containers full of broken TVs, defunct computers, old fridges, contaminated paper, worn-out tyres and even clapped-out cars.

According to officials, the hazardous junk is heading for Africa or Asia, where much is likely to end up being burnt or dumped, triggering the escape of poisonous toxins that will pollute air and water. Sometimes electronic items will be dismantled using child labour, in a business that has links to serious, organised crime, they say.

The illegal trade is driven by the big profits to be made by selling unsafe or polluting equipment abroad, or by extracting valuable components and materials. A Sepa study suggests that traders would be able to make a profit of around £7,000 for every container of old TVs they export.

“Illegal shipments are a way for criminals to make serious money by dumping our waste on other countries,” John Kenny, Sepa’s waste and enforcement manager told the Sunday Herald.

“There are significant risks to the environment and human health as a result. That’s why Sepa is cracking down on those who flout the law by stopping waste, before it leaves Scotland, through intelligence sharing and targeted inspections.”

Plan to test uranium weapons in Scotland again

from Sunday Herald, 06 November 2011

Depleted uranium (DU) weapons are set to be tested in Scotland again in the next two years because they have to be renewed by the Ministry of Defence (MoD), the Sunday Herald has learnt.

The resumption of DU tests at the Dundrennan military firing range near Kirkcudbright on the Solway coast will reignite opposition from the Scottish government and environmentalists worried about pollution and possible health effects.

The revelation comes as politicians and campaigners launch a new drive today to persuade the MoD to drop DU weapons. A motion at Westminster has been backed by Labour, Liberal, Conservative, nationalist and other MPs.

DU is a radioactive and chemically toxic heavy metal produced as waste by the nuclear industry. It has been widely used by UK and US military forces to harden armour-piercing shells fired in the Gulf, Balkans and Iraq wars.

When DU weapons burn, they release a hazardous dust that can contaminate wide areas. Civilians and soldiers exposed to the contamination claim to have suffered from cancers, birth defects and other illnesses as a result.

The secret history of DU testing in Scotland

for Sunday Herald, 06 November 2011

Depleted uranium (DU) weapons were tested in Scotland despite warnings from Ministry of Defence (MoD) scientists that the contamination they would cause could never be cleaned up, government documents reveal.

Fierce opposition to anything nuclear north of the border also caused the MoD to conceal its real intentions on DU testing. In an attempt to defuse public anxiety, MoD officials even proposed giving uranium another name.

Previously secret government records made available in the National Archive give a fascinating insight into the political manipulation and manoeuvring that went on behind the scenes in the 1970s to try and ensure that Scotland didn’t thwart MoD plans to test fire DU munitions at the Dundrennan military range near Kirkcudbright.

An internal MoD memo from 1973 warned that test firing would leave parts of the range contaminated by “very persistent dust”. It added: “It will probably be impossible to remove this completely and initial consideration of this fact is essential.”

Radioactive pollution will harm us but not children on the beach, says MoD

from Sunday Herald, 16 October 2011

Ministry of Defence (MoD) scientists have refused to analyse radioactive contamination from Dalgety Bay in Fife because of the risk it could give them cancer, official minutes of a meeting have revealed.

The MoD has been resisting demands to pay for a clean up of the pollution from old military planes for the last 20 years. It has persistently played down the possible health effects for members of the public.

The revelation that its own scientists are “not particularly keen” to come into contact with the contamination to protect their health will increase the pressure on UK ministers to act. The MoD’s position was condemned last night as “contradictory”, “unacceptable”, and “scandalous”.

The Scottish environment secretary, Richard Lochhead, described the disclosure as “disturbing” and promised he would contact the new defence secretary, Philip Hammond, about it. “Foot dragging by MoD officials must not continue to delay a final clean up,” he told the Sunday Herald.

“Public safety is the number one priority, and the MoD must be completely open and transparent. We absolutely must get to the root cause of this repeated contamination of Dalgety Bay.”

The MoD must now clean up its mess

comment from Sunday Herald, 16 October 2011

The sins of our past will always come back to haunt us. That is true not just for the former defence minister, Liam Fox, but for the sprawling, inefficient and sometimes disastrous ministry that he used to run.

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has an unenviable record on safety, whether on nuclear submarines, on the battlefield in Afghanistan or flying RAF Nimrods. Sometimes of course it may not be entirely to blame, but sometimes it is.

It was old military planes that caused the radioactive pollution at Dalgety Bay in Fife. The thoughtless dumping of the burnt residues of radioactive dials more than sixty years ago has this weekend come back to haunt us with a vengeance.

Public barred from beach by radiation fears

13 October 2011

People have been barred from an area of foreshore at Dalgety Bay in Fife after dangerous levels of radioactive pollution were found there.

The Scottish Environment Protection Agency discovered a highly radioactive lump of metal near a public footpath at the weekend, and yesterday Fife Council cordoned off the area and erected warning signs.

This is the first time such drastic action has been taken to protect the public from radioactive contamination at Dalgety Bay. The pollution comes from the radium on old military aircraft dials that were burnt and dumped as landfill.

Radioactive particles are being washed ashore at the rate of about a hundred a year, Sepa says. In a recent health assessment, the government agency warned that children who ingest them could suffer a significant risk of cancer in later life.

Child cancer risk from radioactive pollution at Dalgety Bay

from Sunday Herald, 09 October 2011

Young children contaminated by radioactive pollution from old military planes at a popular Scottish coastal resort face a “significant” risk of getting cancer later in life, according to a new health study by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa).

Babies or toddlers who accidentally swallow one of the tiny “hot particles” that keep polluting the foreshore near a yacht club at Dalgety Bay in Fife could get radiation doses hundreds of times higher than the maximum permitted from nuclear reactors.

Earlier studies have underestimated health hazards from the pollution, Sepa warned. New tests have shown that more of the radioactive particles are likely to dissolve and stay inside the body than previously thought.

Sepa is upping its pressure on the Ministry of Defence (MoD) to take responsibility for the pollution. That means finding out exactly where the particles are coming from, and paying for them to be cleaned up.

And this weekend Sepa has been backed by a former senior MoD safety official, who accused the MoD of “prevarication”. Fred Dawson, who worked for the MoD for 31 years before he retired as head of the radiation protection policy team in 2009, said public agencies had been playing a game of “pass the parcel” with the Dalgety Bay pollution.

Exposed: the polluters that shame Scotland

from Sunday Herald, 28 August 2011

Over 240 industrial plants across Scotland have been condemned for their “poor” or “very poor” performance on pollution by the government’s watchdog, the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa).

In the biggest-ever assessment of the environmental record of Scottish industry, waste companies, fish farms and Scottish Water’s sewage works have come out the worst. They are accused of frequently breaking pollution rules, causing spills, smells, leaks, breakdowns and a host of other problems.

Major companies like INEOS, Scottish Hydro and Philips have also been singled out for criticism, along with whisky distilleries, a paper mill, an aerospace plant, an aluminium smelter and a cake maker. They have suffered pollution incidents, or failed to follow environment regulations.

Several operators have been named as repeat offenders, with their sites rated as poor for the last two years running. They include Aberdeenshire, Glasgow and North Ayrshire councils, Greenoakhill landfill in Glasgow, Healthcare Environmental in Shotts, SITA’s Binn landfill in Perthshire and The Cheese Company in Lockerbie.

“This is a catalogue of environmental failure across Scotland, and the companies and organisations on this list should hang their heads in shame,” said the Green MSP, Alison Johnstone.

“Year after year we read about spills, pollution, failures to report incidents, and all the rest. We need tougher action from Sepa and SNP Ministers to get industry's house in order.”

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.

Revealed: the errors that plague Scotland’s pollution protection regime

from Sunday Herald, 24 July 2011

A government database meant to ensure that people and the environment are not poisoned by pollution is so riddled with flaws that it is unfit for purpose, the Sunday Herald can reveal.

An investigation has uncovered an alarming litany of major errors in official figures of toxic emissions from Scotland’s industrial plants. Some emissions thousands or even millions of times too high – which, if true, would have presaged environmental disasters – have gone unnoticed on the official record for a year or more.

Experts point out that the government figures are so unreliable that they could also conceal massive under-estimates of hazardous pollution by companies. This, they say, undermines public trust in Scotland’s entire pollution protection regime.

Politicians and environmental groups, shocked by the mistakes that have been admitted, are this weekend demanding that the Scottish Pollution Release Inventory, run for the government by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa), must be reviewed and overhauled.

“Questions have to be asked about why so many errors have been made in reporting discharges but were not noticed,” said Sarah Boyack MSP, Labour’s Shadow Cabinet Secretary for the Environment and a former environment minister.

“The levels are eye watering and should surely have prompted proper checks before now. Sepa is our environmental guardian so for no one to notice that companies’ figures for dangerous chemicals were out by a factor of 1,000 or more is simply not acceptable.”