Rob Edwards

Government breaking the law on ‘corkscrew’ seal deaths, say wildlife groups

from The Guardian, 26 February 2014

Ministers are breaking environmental law by failing to prevent harbour seals from being sliced to death by ships’ propellers, according to a coalition of 13 wildlife and conservation groups.

The groups have written to the UK and Scottish governments demanding immediate area bans on the covered propellers blamed for inflicting horrific “corkscrew” injuries on hundreds of seals and porpoises around the country.

More deaths could wipe out declining populations of harbour seals on the east coast of Scotland, they warn. This would expose ministers to multi-million pound fines for breaching the European habitats directive, which gives the seals legal protection.

Over 80 seals have been confirmed killed by corkscrew injuries in Scotland, 67 of them between 2010 and 2012, plus four porpoises. Of the total, 32 were harbour seals and 48 were the more common grey seals.

The National Trust has also seen over 50 seals killed by corkscrew injuries washed up at its Blakeney national nature reserve on the north Norfolk coast in recent years, including six in December and January.

Scientists suspect, however, that there are many more victims whose bodies are never found. All the deaths are caused by a characteristic deep gash in the flesh spiraling around the body.

Nuclear bomb plant facing crackdown for failing to make radioactive waste safe

24 February 2014

The government’s nuclear safety watchdog is threatening to crack down on the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) at Aldermaston for failing to make 1,000 drums of its most dangerous radioactive waste safe. 

The Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) is considering enforcement action against AWE, which designs and makes Britain’s nuclear bombs at its site in Berkshire, because it missed a legally-binding deadline set seven years ago. The action could range from a formal warning letter to a prosecution and a fine.

ONR issued a licence instrument in March 2007 ordering AWE to repackage and reduce the volume of “higher activity” wastes by February 2014. According to ONR, the aim was to ensure that 1,000 drums of the “hazardous material” ended up being stored in “a passively safe form”.

“The licence instrument has now expired without its requirements being met,” said a statement posted online by ONR. “ONR will investigate the licensee’s failure to meet the requirements of the licence instrument and will consider enforcement action.”

ONR described the current storage of the wastes as “acceptable in the short term”, but made clear that it was concerned about their medium and long term management. The wastes will have to be stored above ground for at least the next 50 years while the government tries to find a site for an underground repository.

Complaint on BT aid for drone strikes rejected

for Sunday Herald, 23 February 2014 

The UK government has rejected a formal complaint against the British communications giant, BT, alleging that its technology was aiding lethal US drone strikes on Yemen and Somalia.

The human rights group, Reprieve, had complained that a $23 million contract between BT and the US government’s Defense Information Systems Agency had helped connect a US drone base in the East African republic of Djibouti to RAF Croughton in Northamptonshire, which serves as a major US communications base.

The group claimed that this breached guidelines on responsible business behaviour drawn up by the 34-country Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) because it enabled the drone strikes, which have been blamed for killing hundreds of people since 2002.

Community wins £13m deal from French wind power company

from Sunday Herald, 16 February 2014

Local communities have won a record-breaking £13 million deal from a French multinational company planning to build a wind farm near Edinburgh. 

A healthy slice of the profits from 22 wind turbines proposed for Fauch Hill in West Lothian will be shared by surrounding towns and villages – plus all the profits from an additional turbine that will be wholly owned by local residents.

The deal, agreed after long and hard negotiations, is reckoned to be one of the best ever won from a wind power developer, and could have major implications for other communities that are considering hosting wind farms in Scotland.

The 69-megawatt wind farm is being proposed by the Louis Dreyfus Group, a privately owned company founded in 1851 in Alsace, France. Two opinion polls have suggested that the farm is supported by around 60 per cent of local residents.

But the development has been opposed by some environmental groups, and was rejected by West Lothian Council in 2012. Last year it was the subject of a public inquiry, and is now awaiting a decision by Scottish ministers.

Gamekeeper in row over call to ‘destroy’ pine martens and sea eagles

from Sunday Herald, 16 February 2014

A leading gamekeeper has come under fire for seeming to back a call for two of Scotland’s iconic wild animals - pine martens and sea eagles - to be wiped out.

A letter published in The Scottish Farmer last week from Donnie Ross of Leault in Kincraig, near Aviemore, argued that sea eagles should be killed off because they preyed on lambs. “Nothing short of complete eradication will do, and it is the same for the pine marten - both should be absolutely destroyed,” he wrote.

Ross’s outburst was recommended on the social media website, Facebook, by George Macdonald, the training and education officer for the Scottish Gamekeepers Association (SGA). “More people need to speak out,” he said. “Mr Ross of Leault is absolutely correct with his observations.”

Sea eagles and pine martens are rare and legally protected species. But they both prey on a wide variety of animals, and have been blamed by gamekeepers for taking game birds like grouse that could be shot for sport.

How pine martens save red squirrels – instead of eating them

from Sunday Herald, 16 February 2014               

It’s not often that an animal that eats you turns out to be your saviour, but that’s exactly what scientists say pine martens are for red squirrels.

According to a new study, pine martens prefer to eat grey squirrels, the red’s great rival. So much so, that populations of the greys crash, while their red cousins thrive.

Grey squirrels are fatter and slower than the nimble reds, so make a more attractive and easier meal for the martens, which are known to be opportunistic predators.

Greys, an invasive species introduced from North America in the 19^th century, have squeezed out the native reds by eating their food and giving them a fatal pox. As a result, reds are now at risk of extinction, with only 121,000 left in Scotland.

Wildlife groups have banded together to try and save the reds by trapping, killing and shooting thousands of the greys. But now they say they have a new friend in the pine marten.

50 universities are helping to develop nuclear weapons, says study

from The Guardian, 11 February 2014

Britain’s secretive nuclear weapons research organisation gives over £8 million a year in research funding to more than 50 universities, according to documents released under the Freedom of Information Act.

The Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE), a private consortium that runs nuclear bomb plants at Aldermaston and Burghfield in Berkshire for the Ministry of Defence (MoD), puts most of the money into five of the UK’s leading universities with which it has formed “strategic alliances”.

They are Imperial College in London, and the universities of Cambridge, Bristol, Heriot-Watt in Edinburgh and Cranfield in Bedfordshire and Wiltshire. The money helps fund research into plasma physics, high performance computing, materials science and hydrodynamics, all of which are important for designing and making nuclear weapons.

The report, which is being launched on 12 February at University College London, claims to be the first to expose the extent of AWE’s links with universities. It is based on responses under freedom of information law from the MoD and universities.

It is being published by two groups campaigning for nuclear disarmament, Nuclear Information Service (NIS) and Medact, which brings together health professionals. They accept that not all of the research will directly help the UK’s nuclear weapons programme, but say that much of it will.

3,600 tonnes: the huge radioactive waste problem faced by Rosyth

from Sunday Herald, 09 February 2014

A Ministry of Defence (MoD) plan to start dismantling seven defunct nuclear submarines at Rosyth in Fife will produce over 3,600 tonnes of radioactive waste – but no-one knows where it will all end up.

Babcock, the British multinational than runs Rosyth dockyard for the MoD, has disclosed how much contaminated metal and equipment will be created when it takes apart the old reactor-driven submarines that have been berthed near the Firth of Forth since the 1990s.

But agreement on where hundreds of tonnes of the most radioactive waste will be stored is years away, prompting accusations that the company has “jumped the gun”. And although UK ministers have said the waste will not remain at Rosyth, one expert fears it will - posing a “ticklish” problem should Scotland vote for independence.

The MoD has been trying to decide for more than a decade what to do with the seven submarines tied up at Rosyth, as well as others at Devonport on the south coast of England. Its latest plan is to dismantle them at the two dockyards, and then move waste to stores elsewhere. 

But the MoD hasn’t yet announced the shortlist of potential sites for the most radioactive waste. Due later this month, the list will comprise five sites, expected to include the nuclear complexes at Sellafield in Cumbria, Aldermaston in Berkshire and possibly Hunterston in North Ayrshire.

Government marine plan will end 300-year right to fish, claim fishermen

from Sunday Herald, 09 February 2014

A new national marine plan for Scotland has come under fierce attack from fishermen who claim that it could destroy the sea fishing industry.

In outspoken responses to an official consultation, they have accused Scottish ministers of wanting to remove their 300-year-old right to fish, and of threatening the livelihoods of communities around the coast.

But some of their arguments have come under attack as “very misleading” by a leading academic expert. And environmental groups have called on ministers to reject “shortsighted” fishing in breach of ecological limits. 

Ministers are developing a national marine plan to enable the “sustainable economic growth” of fishing, renewable and other marine industries. But their approach has been angrily rejected by the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation (SFF), in a submission posted online.

"Sea fishing, which has a tradition almost as long as the existence of the nation, deserves protection in the planning process in the same way as protection in the terrestrial planning process is granted to agriculture,” it says.

UK and France boost collaboration on nuclear weapons

06 February 2014

The United Kingdom and France are planning to deepen their nuclear relationship by collaborating on laser research into the physics at the heart of nuclear explosions. 

Hidden in the small print of the agreements published in the wake of last week’s summit between the British Prime Minister, David Cameron, and the French President, François Hollande, is a promise to work together on nuclear weapons lasers.

The research will be carried out at the Atomic Weapons Establishment’s Orion facility at Aldermaston in Berkshire and at Le Laser Mégajoule, operated by the French nuclear science agency, CEA, near Bordeaux. This is the first time the two countries have collaborated in this way, and is regarded as a significant expansion of their ‘Entente Nucleaire’.

Collaboration began with an agreement signed at Lancaster House in London in November 2010. This centred on the Teutates project, which pooled resources on x-ray radiography to keep nuclear stockpiles safe at Aldermaston and at CEA’s nuclear weapons plant at Valduc north west of Dijon.

The new defence and security declaration posted online on Monday revealed that Cameron and Hollande had agreed “to conduct joint research at the laser facilities located at AWE Orion and CEA”.

Push for liquid air batteries to help meet energy needs

from The Herald, 03 February 2014

Scottish ministers are coming under pressure to launch a £1.5 billion programme to store energy using ‘liquid air’ batteries and other technologies to help meet future power needs.

An expert report published this week by the left-leaning Jimmy Reid Foundation calls for a “radical rethink” by the Scottish government. It should adopt “a much more ambitious strategy” on energy storage to create jobs, wealth and exports, the report says.

The idea has been backed by a leading Scottish Nationalist, the renewables industry and environmentalists. The Scottish government accepts that the opportunities for energy storage will be “a key part of our future low carbon heat supply”.

Electricity supply and demand fluctuate, and one of the challenges for managers of the national grid is to try and keep them matched. One solution is to store more power that can be tapped when needed.

This is already done with pumped storage schemes like that at Ben Cruachan in Argyll, where water is pumped uphill by surplus electricity and then allowed to run down again to generate power when it’s required.

Scotland needs an Arctic policy after UK snub, say experts

from Sunday Herald, 02 February 2014

The Scottish government should develop its own policy on the Arctic after it was snubbed by Westminster, say experts and environmentalists.

Scottish ministers were not consulted by the UK government when it drew up its first strategy on conservation and development in the Arctic last year. Now they are coming under growing pressure to come up with their own. 

Tensions between the need to protect the polar region’s fragile environment and the demand to exploit its valuable resources are increasing as global warming melts the ice cap. Last week the UK oil giant, Shell, shelved controversial plans to drill in the Alaskan Arctic this summer.

The UK government produced its Arctic strategy in October after five years of consultation. It endorsed plans to exploit oil, gas and other minerals, but said there should be high environmental standards.

But now the strategy has come under fire for being “overly timid” so as not to offend other countries. In a paper published today by the Scottish Global Forum think tank, former British diplomat, Professor Alyson Bailes, highlights “weaknesses” in the UK approach.