Rob Edwards

‘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.

Wildcats threatened by Cairngorm go-kart plan

for Sunday Herald, 26 August 2012

One of Scotland’s rarest and most endangered animals, the wildcat, is threatened by plans for a go-kart track and a caravan park in the Cairngorms National Park, according to conservationists.

A local developer is applying for planning permission to build a track for racing karts, a site for 33 caravans and other visitor facilities over four hectares at Granish, just to the north of Aviemore. 

But wildlife groups are concerned that the tourist developments will destroy valuable habitat for wildcats, as well as badgers and bats. They are calling on the Cairngorm National Park Authority (CNPA) to reject the planning applications. 

The wildcat, dubbed the “highland tiger”, was driven to the brink of extinction in Britain by hunters and habitat destruction in the 19th century. It clung on in remoter parts of the highlands, and there are now reckoned to be only about 400 left.

It is a very elusive, mostly nocturnal animal, rarely seen in the wild, and is regarded by some as a highland emblem. The CNPA is leading a project to improve conservation of the species, which are legally protected under the European Union’s Habitats and Species Directive.

Solved: the mystery of the 30,000 plastic toys lost at sea

20 August 2012

It has become a modern-day myth. The fate of almost 30,000 toy ducks, frogs, beavers and turtles lost in an accident at sea in 1992 has intrigued millions around the world.

Stories that they had somehow managed to migrate across the Arctic from the Pacific and circumnavigate the globe have proliferated. There have been numerous reports of them turning up years later on the east coast of the US and in Europe.

The truth, however, is less romantic, and much more disturbing. Along with billions of tonnes of other plastic wastes, they are disintegrating into tiny fragments of “plastic sand” that will pollute the planet for hundreds of years, threatening wildlife and destroying the environment.

That, at least, is the conclusion of Donovan Hohn, a New York author who has spent five years investigating what actually happened to the toys. He is due to talk about his findings at the Edinburgh International Book Festival on Tuesday evening.

“At the outset, I had no intention of doing what I eventually did: quit my job, kiss my wife farewell, and ramble about the Northern Hemisphere aboard all manner of watercraft,” he wrote in his book, Moby Duck.

Revealed: secret plan to dump nuclear submarines at sea

from Sunday Herald, 19 August 2012

Had the Ministry of Defence (MoD) had its way, Britain’s 17 defunct nuclear submarines – seven of which are moored at the Rosyth naval dockyard in Fife – would have been dumped whole into the world’s oceans. 

A secret MoD briefing extracted from the UK National Archives reveals that the ministry’s “technical preference” was to dispose of the radioactive hulks at sea without dismantling them. Dumping radioactive waste in this way would raise “many environmental and other issues”, it said.

Since Britain’s first nuclear-powered submarine, HMS Dreadnought, was taken out of service 30 years ago, the MoD has been trying to figure out how to get rid of its reactor compartment. Over the decades it has been joined at Rosyth by six other retired nuclear submarines, while another ten have been tied up at the Devonport naval base at Plymouth on the south coast of England.

Since 2000 the MoD has conducted a series of prolonged public consultations on what to do with all the submarines’ radioactive remains. The latest in the last year suggested that the reactor pressure vessels should be removed from the submarines at Rosyth and Devonport.

But what would then happen to them is still far from clear. The MoD says it wants to work with the government’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority on whether to build a new waste store on an MoD or commercial site, or to use current or planned stores at nuclear power station sites, like the one at Hunterston in North Ayrshire.

The MoD’s failure to ensure funding for decommissioning the submarines has been repeatedly criticised by its own internal nuclear safety regulator, Commodore David Langbridge. His 2011 annual report highlighted the lack of funding as a “risk to meeting government policy”.

Wildlife wiped out by wet weather

from Sunday Herald, 19 August 2012

Birds, butterflies and cattle have become victims of this year’s summer washout, according to nature conservationists and animal vets across the country.

Ornithologists and landowners are reporting problems for capercaillie, one of Scotland’s most endangered birds, as well as black and red grouse and popular garden birds. Seabirds, like the multi-coloured puffins, could have drowned in their burrows.

Wildlife experts say many butterflies have suffered from prolonged rainy spells, as well as other species. Vets blame persistent damp conditions for cattle contracting more potentially fatal diseases.

The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) reported that capercaillie and black grouse have had a particularly bad year. “The chicks of these species have no ability to thermally regulate until they are about 10 days to two weeks old,” said RSPB Scotland’s James Reynolds.

“If they get persistently wet during this time, then their mortality is increased significantly. We think this is what might have happened this year.

Will wildlife have to pay the price for salmon farming?

from Scottish Wildlife Trust magazine, August 2012

Nearly every day in the summer, David Ainsley takes tourists on his boat, Porpoise II, to look for wildlife amidst the unassuming beauty of water, rock and hill that characterises the west coast of Scotland. If they are lucky, they get to see eagles, goats, seals, dolphins, porpoises and minke whales, as well as the famed Corryvreckan whirlpool.

For more than 20 years, Ainsley has been running a successful wildlife-watching business from his home on the island of Seil, eight miles south of Oban. But now he is worried that the wildlife - and with it his livelihood - could be blighted by the burgeoning billion-pound fish farming industry.

A Polish-owned company, the Meridian Salmon Group, has applied for planning permission to double the production of a nearby salmon farm in the Sound of Seil off Ardmaddy, and move it 900 metres south. This means more shooting and scaring of seals, more pollution and more dangers for the area’s priceless natural heritage, Ainsley fears.

“Salmon farming is an important industry but some farms unnecessarily kill wildlife and affect wildlife tourism,” he says. “The salmon farm at Ardmaddy is a classic example of an inappropriately located farm.” 

In their anxiety to prevent seals from eating salmon, fish farmers sometimes shoot them, or try to frighten them with loud underwater blasts of noise. But according to Ainsley, this can interfere with the echo-sounding vital for dolphin and porpoise navigation. “It’s like blinding them,” he argues.

Disagreement over nuclear power threatens to divide SNP

from The Herald, 14 August 2012

The SNP government’s plan to permit the lives of two ageing nuclear power stations to be prolonged until 2033 has been condemned as dangerous and unnecessary by a powerful group of local authorities, including three run by the SNP. 

The issue is threatening to open another damaging nuclear divide within the SNP, following fierce disagreements over the party leadership’s move to end its decades-long opposition to membership of the Nato nuclear weapons alliance.

An expert report due to be published today by the ten-strong group of nuclear-free councils in Scotland says that Scottish ministers are wrong to try and keep the nuclear reactors at Hunterson in North Ayrshire and Torness in East Lothian running for the next two decades.

The nuclear-free group includes two SNP-led councils, Dundee plus Perth and Kinross, as well as Edinburgh where the SNP is part of a ruling coalition with Labour. Other councils involved are Labour-controlled Glasgow, Fife, Renfrewshire, North Lanarkshire and West Dunbartonshire, along with two independent councils, Western Isles and Shetland Isles.

“There is no need for the Scottish Government to support risky life extensions,” the group’s report concludes. Instead, it says that a combination of improved energy efficiency, combined heat and power schemes and renewables could ensure that Scotland met its energy needs.

Surprise visit by French nuclear submarine prompts safety fears

from The Herald, 13 August 2012

An unannounced visit to the Clyde by a French nuclear submarine has been attacked as “particularly insensitive” and raised fears about the safety of nuclear weapons.

A submarine flying the French flag was towed by tugs into the Faslane naval base on Gareloch on 2 August. It was spotted and photographed from the shore by anti-nuclear campaigners from the Faslane Peace Camp. 

The campaigners identified the boat as one of the four French Triomphant-class that usually carry nuclear weapons. They say that this is the first time a nuclear-armed French submarine has been seen visiting the Clyde.

The first of the class, Le Triomphant, famously collided with the British submarine, HMS Vanguard, which carries Trident nuclear missiles, three years ago. The accident happened somewhere under the Atlantic, but details have been kept secret for national security reasons.

The SNP defence spokesman, Angus Robertson MP, said the French visit prompted serious questions. “Weapons of mass destruction are not welcome on our shores,” he said.

Revealed: Scotland’s ‘nasty’ legacy of toxic sludge lagoons

from Sunday Herald, 05 August 2012 

Water and sewage treatment has left a “potentially nasty” legacy of 26 toxic sludge lagoons scattered around Scotland, an investigation by the Sunday Herald has revealed. 

Tens of thousands of cubic metres of sludge contaminated with aluminium and other pollutants are being stored at sites near Wigtown, Barrhead, Coatbridge, Falkirk, Cupar and Inverness, as well as across Argyll, Aberdeenshire, Sutherland, Orkney and elsewhere (see table below).

An investigation into the safety of the sludge lagoons has been launched by the government company, Scottish Water, while environmentalists are demanding that the sites be cleaned up. 

According to the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa), 18 of the sites are left over from when drinking water was treated with an aluminium compound to remove impurities. The resultant sludges have been contaminated with aluminium, which has been linked to breast cancer, Alzheimer's disease and other health problems.

“There is a possible risk of such aluminium leaching,” Sepa said, though its “binding nature” meant that it was likely to stay in the sludge. Other lagoons contained old sludges from sewage treatment that were “relatively benign”.

Ministers under fire for backtracking on freedom of information

from Sunday Herald, 05 August 2012

Scottish ministers have come under attack for falling behind Westminster by dropping plans to extend freedom of information legislation to cover more public bodies.

The Campaign for Freedom of Information in Scotland (CFoIS) has accused the Scottish government of failing to deliver long-promised legal reforms aimed at strengthening the public’s right to know. “It is very disappointing,” said the campaign’s co-convenor, Carole Ewart.

“Given government principles supporting freedom of information, and the level of public support for extending coverage to all public service providers, the failure to take such an obvious opportunity to extend that coverage is very damaging to our rights.”

The Scottish Parliament’s Finance Committee has invited evidence on the Scottish government’s proposed Freedom of Information (Amendment) (Scotland) Bill before 8 August. CFoIS is launching a campaign to persuade others to back its demands for changes. 

In a submission this week, seen by the Sunday Herald, CFoIS is calling for freedom of information law to cover many more public agencies. These include housing associations, various arms-length organisations set up by local authorities, the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland, the Law Society of Scotland, the Faculty of Advocates and other private and voluntary sector bodies that provide public services.