Rob Edwards

Revealed: the wildlife jewels in Scotland’s crown that are being ruined

from Sunday Herald, 26 May 2013

More than one in five of Scotland’s most precious animals, forests, flowers, firths, lochs, bogs and mountains are neglected or damaged, according to a major new assessment by the Scottish government’s wildlife agency.

Over 1,100 of the nation’s natural treasures have been officially rated as poor because successive governments have failed to protect them from landowners, farmers, the fishing industry, developers, polluters and other dangers.

The species under threat include harbour seals, puffins, natterjack toads, native pines, juniper trees, the alpine sow thistle and the small blue butterfly. Amongst the protected sites that have been spoiled are the Cuillins, Ben Nevis, Glen Coe, Loch Lomond, the Firth of Forth and the River Tweed.

Conservation groups condemn the damage to the “jewels in the crown” of Scotland’s environment as “totally unacceptable”. They are demanding urgent action from government ministers, who insist they are working hard to tackle the problems.

Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) has released its latest assessment, revealing the state of 5,367 designated “natural features” contained in 1,872 legally protected areas across the country. Altogether, 21.9% of the species and habitats are classified as “in unfavourable condition” as at 31 March 2013.

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 millions of metallic particles inhaled on the Glasgow subway

from Sunday Herald, 19 May 2013

Environmentalists are demanding urgent investigations into air pollution on the Glasgow subway after a snapshot survey by the Sunday Herald’s New Era magazine discovered that passengers were breathing in tens of millions of tiny metallic particles that might damage their health.

We found levels of pollution by microscopic particles on the subway - known in the city as the Clockwork Orange - up to ten times higher than on the streets outside and up to eight times above the World Health Organisation’s recommended daily limit.

Experts estimate that passengers on the subway for 45 minutes could each inhale at least 60 million particles. Anyone spending the same amount of time at one of Scotland’s busy railway stations could breath in 10 million particles, or 2.5 million on a train journey between Glasgow and Edinburgh.

Because the particles in the electric-powered subway are likely to be mostly iron oxide from the grinding of wheels against rails, they may not be as dangerous as the sooty particles emitted by trains or cars driven by diesel engines. But experts and campaigners all agreed that the risks required serious examination.

Dr Richard Dixon, the director of Friends of the Earth Scotland described the concentrations of particle pollution on the subway as “alarming”. He called on Strathclyde Partnership for Transport (SPT), which runs the subway, to take the results very seriously.

“This problem urgently needs further investigation," he said. "Confirmation of these results would require decisive action to reduce pollution.”

Air pollution: the mass killer that keeps on killing

from Sunday Herald New Era magazine, 19 May 2013

It’s everywhere, and it kills thousands of people every year in Scotland. But despite more than a decade of efforts to reduce it, it seems worse than ever.

Air pollution is one of the plagues of the modern age. The fumes that spew from vehicle exhausts, the tiny particles disgorged by diesel engines and the dust and grime of urban living make life much less pleasant - and much more dangerous.

Yet over the last ten years governments, councils and regulatory agencies seem to have made little difference in reducing the toxins we breath in. On the streets of towns and cities across the country, on bikes and in cars, trains, buses and taxis, we are exposed to concentrations of pollutants that could damage our health.

Today New Era publishes the first ever maps showing the pollution street-by-street in Glasgow, Edinburgh and Perth (see below). Based on government monitoring for the toxic gas, nitrogen dioxide, these reveal the pollution hotspots that those with heart or lung conditions, or who are generally worried about their health, might want to avoid.

We also publish a map showing the 13 places with air pollution problems – or “air quality management areas” - identified by local authorities, along with the names of the most polluted streets. As well as the big cities, these include towns such as Dunfermline, Falkirk, Paisley and Bearsden (see below).

Taking the subway through clouds of pollution

from Sunday Herald New Era magazine, 19 May 2013

by Rob Edwards and Colm Currie

Pollution is not always where you expect it. A unique and pioneering survey carried out by New Era has found worryingly high levels of air pollution at railway stations and in the Glasgow subway.

We teamed up with Dr Sean Semple, a leading air pollution expert from the University of Aberdeen, to take portable, state-of-the-art monitors to record concentrations of tiny particles in the air during a journey through Scotland last Thursday and Friday. The results were eye-opening.

The problem with the official monitoring network is that it is based on static samplers, which simply measure pollution at a particular place. The portable monitors enable scientists for the first time to get a more accurate estimate of the pollution to which people on the move are actually exposed.

We started our journey at Aberdeen University. There were a couple of small pollution spikes in a taxi on the way to the railway station, but the pollution didn’t get serious until we arrived at the station, where levels of tiny particles on a platform rose up to twice as high as the daily limit recommended by the World Health Organisation (WHO).

After a few smaller spikes during the train ride to Edinburgh, the next big dose of particulate pollution was at Waverley station. The next day returning to Waverley saw another peak, confirming the Sunday Herald’s revelations in December about high levels of pollution at the station.

Babcock demands public funding for Rosyth inquiry costs

from Sunday Herald, 19 May 2013

The £40 billion engineering giant, Babcock, is demanding up to £500,000 from the Scottish government’s wildlife agency because it opposed the company’s plans for a major new freight terminal in Fife.

Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) argued at a public inquiry that the terminal proposed at Rosyth could threaten vital bird colonies in the Firth of Forth. Now Babcock is demanding that SNH use taxpayers’ money to help pay the firm’s expenses at the inquiry. 

The defence, energy and transport multinational has been accused by environmentalists and local residents of trying to “punish” SNH for doing its job. SNH says that it is “robustly contesting” Babcock’s claim.

Babcock, which manages the Faslane nuclear submarine base on the Clyde as well as Rosyth dockyard, has applied for permission to build an international container terminal. This requires a 9.5 metre channel to be dredged in the Forth to allow ships to berth.

SNH argued that the dredging could damage nearby mudflats protected under European law because of their importance for wigeon, shelduck, curlews, oystercatchers and other birds. Babcock, it argued, had to conduct a proper assessment of the environmental risks.

Nuclear submarines banned from lochs because of safety fears

from Daily Record, 16 May 2013

The Royal Navy’s fleet of nuclear submarines has been banned from using berths in two of Scotland’s lochs because of official doubts over whether the public and sailors would be safe in the event of an accident.

We can reveal that three exercises to test emergency responses to simulated submarine accidents in March and April failed assessments by government safety regulators because of a series of “inadequate” preparations.

As a result the Ministry of Defence’s internal watchdog, the Defence Nuclear Safety Regulator (DNSR), has prohibited nuclear submarines from berthing in Loch Goil, near the Faslane naval base on the Clyde, and in Loch Ewe, off Poolewe in Wester Ross.

DNSR has also ordered an emergency exercise at the nuclear weapons depot at Coulport on Loch Long to be rerun as part of a “get well plan” for the site. Exercise Sheetband on 21 March is said to have “failed in a broad range of areas” and now must be “redemonstrated”.

The Royal Navy currently has 11 nuclear submarines, including four Vanguard-class boats carrying Trident nuclear missiles and two new Astute-class nuclear-powered submarines operating out of Faslane. They have designated berths in eight locations around the UK, concentrated at Faslane and naval bases in the south of England.

RBS under fire for backing coal companies that blast away mountaintops

from Sunday Herald, 12 May 2013

The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) is under fierce attack for investing hundreds of millions of pounds in US companies that blast away the summits of mountains to uncover coal.

Over 500 mountaintops have been eradicated by explosives in the Appalachians in West Virginia over the last few years, releasing toxic wastes into streams, polluting the air and threatening the health of local communities. Burning the coal that’s extracted also helps disrupt the climate.

RBS has been named in a report as the world’s seventh biggest financial backer of mountaintop removal (MTR), with £235.6 million ($362.5m) worth of lending and underwriting in 2012. The major US coal companies that benefited from the money are Arch Coal and Alpha Natural Resources.

RBS is going to come under fire from protestors for funding such large–scale environmental destruction, as its annual general meeting takes place at Gogarburn in Edinburgh on Tuesday. Campaigners will be calling for RBS to pull out of MTR.

“Despite years of greenwashing, RBS is still financing corporations which undertake horrific operations like MTR, threatening the local environment and adding to climate change globally,” said Paul Daly, corporate accountability campaigner at Friends of the Earth Scotland.

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.