22/01/2007
New camp to stop the LNG gas pipeline
Little coverage so far of this new camp near Milford Haven, where a footpath is being used to block work on the 120-mile LNG pipeline across south Wales.
Plans are also afoot for a similar LNG exercise at Amlwch on Ynys Môn - although this pipeline will run under the sea to Lancashire. The initial idea was to land the LNG at Fleetwood, Lancashire, but local opposition was too fierce. The multinationals must see Welsh communities as a soft touch - or is easier to buy off Welsh councils with the promise of jobs?
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28/11/2006
Safety lapses in gas pipeline exposed
Protesters who took over a section of the 120-mile gas pipeline across south Wales have exposed potentially disastrous safety lapses. Tonight's Y Byd Ar Bedwar (the World on Four) programme on S4C had exclusive footage of campaigner Jim Dunckley revealing what they found while down the pipeline.
Welders have confirmed that marks on the exterior of the pipeline indicate pinholes that have been repaired - a concern given that the gas will be pumped through the pipe at 94 bar. This is higher than any other major pipeline in the UK.
Inside the pipes, welds were flaking and badly corroded with rust eating away at the inner casing.
On a normal engineering project this would not be such a concern, but the pipeline has the capacity to blow. Indeed one engineering expert Dr Richard Furness estimates that over 30 years one serious accident will occur.
The pipeline's owners, National Grid, have carried out an Environmental Impact Assessment that shows no danger to the public, even from blasting away at rock at Trebanos in the upper Swansea valley. Local people were horrified because the land is prone to subsidence due to previous mining - 10 houses in the village have been demolished due to subsidence. In addition, local people are unable to have gas pumped to their homes because the land is deemed unstable. But a 48-inch pipe could be placed in a 15-metre trench in the same area without risk apparently.
However, during the protest, the Department of Trade and Industry announced that it was suspending blasting and insisted that the trench was dug manually to avoid possible landslips - a minor victory but a symbolic one for the campaigners.
National Grid has a track record of poor safety - in 1999 it was fined £15m for a gas pipeline explosion in Scotland that killed four people. That was with 2-bar pressure.
A larger explosion in Russia killed 650 people when odourless LNG seeped out of a pipeline and was sparked by a passing train.
Do we have to wait for a disaster to occur before we say "enough", as with Aberfan? Or do we insist that the people's voice is heard and the pipeline is halted? This has not been approved by local councils, it has been pushed through by big business interests and the DTI. The protesters spoke for the people and highlighted the need to move away from finite fossil fuels towards renewables.
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21/11/2006
A pain in the gas for Transco
Eight days on and the pipeline protesters are still there - causing Transco many headaches.
They've been joined by another group of protesters down in Pembrokeshire and have done a lot to highlight the doubts many people have about the pipeline. Here's a video of the activists explaining their actions.
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15/11/2006
Company's shellfish decision
Here's a company relocating its business to save money - cutting 120 jobs in Scotland. But there's a twist. Young's the seafood company is moving work to Thailand, where low wages mean that prawns caught in Scotland can be hand-peeled before making the 12,000-mile round trip back to Scotland to be turned into breaded scampi.
Currently the prawn shells are removed mechanically at Young's plant in Annan but the company said that shelling by hand produces a superior quality scampi and cannot be carried out in Scotland because of prohibitive wage costs.
The plan to ship more than 500 tonnes of the shellfish around the world will generate a weight of carbon dioxide which is almost half the weight of the seafood itself.
Duncan McLaren of Friends of the Earth Scotland said transporting the langoustines over such a distance would He added: "This for us sums up the madness of contemporary globalisation. It makes economic sense but makes absolutely no environmental sense."
It may make "economic sense" under free-market capitalism because it boosts profits but socialists and environmentalists must make common cause to show the harm such moves do to workers and the environment.
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13/11/2006
Protesters halt gas pipeline work
A dozen campaigners have halted work on the 120-mile LNG pipeline across Wales with a sit-in on diggers and pipes. Construction work, which means tearing a 20-metre ditch across Wales from Milford Haven to Gloucester, has been stopped at Trebanos in the Swansea Valley and the protesters are talking of sleeping in the pipes overnight.
There have been numerous concerns about the pipeline's safety, especially in the Trebanos area where there are fears of landslips similar to Aberfan due to the blasting that takes place on site. There are also fears that the pipeline will be too close to a school and housing.
The size of the 48" pipe and pressure of the gas is a first in the UK. Campaigner Jim Dunckley said: "The companies involved seem to have spent more on spin doctors than on safety."
He also pointed out on the live BBC Wales news coverage that this is a fossil fuel and that money should be invested in renewable energy rather than tearing up the Welsh countryside for a finite energy product.
Local councils appear to have made some strange planning decisions regarding the pipeline - Neath Port Talbot's planning committee was apparently counted wrongly and Swansea council refused to hear an amendment put by Plaid Cymru's group leader against the pipeline.
The campaign so far has been a localised grassroots affair but there seems to be added momentum now to highlight the bigger picture.
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29/10/2006
Tax the rich (for their flights)
A chilling report that says that the British Isles could lose the benefits of the Gulf Stream due to climate change. Call me parochial, but cooling of up to 4-6 degrees in the next 20 years is astounding and very worrying. That's on top of the more devastating side effects of global warming - such as the flooding of low-lying areas and increased weather extremes.
Which is why the reaction to talk of moderate "green" taxes by the Tories and Lib Dems is so bizarre. The "right" to have cheap flights to Europe now apparently outweighs the quality of life for billions of people.
While many benefit short-term from the flying cattle trucks masquerading as Ryanair and EasyJet, the real winners are the affluent upper and middle classes who can afford to fly regularly. A third of people in the UK don't have holidays - abroad or otherwise - but the rich have made the most of the cheap airlines to buy holiday homes in France and Spain. Taxing them would be a pleasure.
As someone who's done more flying than ever this year (partly due to low prices), there may be an element of hypocrisy in this. But can someone explain to me how it's cheaper to fly from Liverpool to Barcelona than catch a train from North Wales to Cardiff?
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12/10/2006
Labour u-turns over Hafod
Labour's performance over the Hafod landfill scandal has veered from the inept and apathetic to the condescending and panicky. Local AM Karen Sinclair and MP Martyn Jones managed all these yesterday as a busload of Hafod campaigners went to the Assembly to demand the landfill is stopped by Labour minister Carwyn Jones.
A fuller report can be found at the scurrilous Hafod blog but suffice to say that Carwyn Jones has now performed two u-turns on Hafod.
After saying he would not meet protesters in case they "prejudice" his findings, he found time to meet six of them.
He had also said that he would not visit Hafod because he was aware of the situation. But yesterday he u-turned and agreed to pay a private visit.
The fact that Martyn Jones could come from London to Cardiff for the day (but still can't find the Hafod picket line) showed how desperate he is to align himself with the protesters. Karen "it's THAT thick" Sinclair also tried to win over the campaigners but it's way, way too late for these Bisto kids, who are too in love with the gravy train to understand the real anger and concern people have about the abuse of democracy and the threat to their health and the environment from this landfill site.
Mersey Waste are dumping all sorts of waste at the site without proper paperwork and supervision, which is why Carwyn Jones has one last u-turn to perform - to stop the landfill and listen to an entire community.
Otherwise he will find that the community will punish him and his party at next May's elections.
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11/09/2006
Murkyside faces £30m fine over landfill
New Hafod information blog here - latest news is that Mersey Waste is facing a £30 million fine if it doesn't reduce its landfilling by 2010... so it's trying to get other councils interested in dumping their waste in Johnstown.
Plaid Cymru MEP Jill Evans was at the site today and more than 150 local campaigners turned up to support her call for the site to be closed down.
The local press are still bottling it over "naming and shaming" the Dirty Dozen. Sorry that's not news, it's just the sad reality of the mainstream media.
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08/09/2006
Hafod's dirty dozen
A dozen councillors decided Hafod's fate this week. Eleven voted to allow Mersey Waste to carry on dumping while Andrew Bailey went home early. This Dirty Dozen will not be forgotten:
Andrew Bailey, Gresford
Neville Price, Minera
Barbara Roberts, Dyffryn Ceiriog
David Broderick, Llay
Gerry Craddock, Garden Village
Gwyneth Roberts, Grosvenor
Howard Moysen, Cefn Mawr
Lloyd Kenyon, Overton
Mike Edwards, Marford and Hoseley
Mike Morris, Holt
Ron Davies, Little Acton
Terry Evans, Chirk S
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30/08/2006
Protesters stop landfill lorry
More than 70 protesters gathered outside the Hafod quarry entrance this morning and stopped a landfill lorry by lying in the road.
The protest against Liverpool councils dumping their waste in Wales was called by local councillors Dave Bithell and Mark Pritchard and was supported by local activists as well as campaigners from Plaid Cymru, Cymuned and Balchder Cymru (Pride of Wales).
More protests are planned for tomorrow and Friday, with campaigners also planning to take their message to Liverpool on Friday, where Mersey Waste Disposal Authority is meeting at the Pierhead building at 2pm.
Campaigners are also focussing on Wrexham Council's planning committee meeting at 6.30pm on Monday, which can decide to modify or revoke the planning permission for the landfill site.
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29/08/2006
Gas pipeline targetted by activists
A massive scheme to build a gas pipeline across South Wales has sparked mounting opposition from activists.
The 48" pipeline will transport Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) from terminals in Pembroke to England. The pipeline will go through heavily populated areas as well as national parks.
One activist explained: "In Trebanos and Pontardawe, they are running this pipeline through a landslip area which is classed by the British Geological survey as a high-risk area. The ground is unstable and over 16 homes on the mountain have been demolished over the last 10 years or so. The ground is moving. In this area they aim to blast with explosives to take the pipe down vertically 100ft. They will then bend it 90 degrees where it will run under a road and through leisure centre playing fields. Directly under these fields is a geological faultline.
"We have held them up for two months while they negotiate a Blast Management Plan with the local council. This has bought us time to hold public meetings and raise awareness in the area."
He refutes accusations of NIMBYism against a major strategic energy project: "Is this Nimbyism? If they haven't done the proper surveys here, where else haven't they done them? It's local pressure and campaigning which has brought these facts to the surface and ensured SOME degree of democracy while a proper public debate is undertaken."
This opposition has seen direct action already being taken against pipeline machinery, which was trashed on the night of 21 August in the area between Pontardawe and Cilfrew.
The terminals at Milford Haven are already being built, although there is opposition to the dangers of collision in the busy Haven waters. No less than eight ex-pilots in the Haven have come out and expressed fears of a possible collision at the jetty, which is in the middle of the UK's fourth busiest port.
An extraordinary court decision last month means that the local county council will not be allowed to see the port authority's LNG risk assessment. Even more bizarrely the council leader John Davies welcomed the judge's ruling!
There is, as always, a national dimension to this. Wales is an energy-rich nation that doesn't need to import gas. But England does and the UK government is riding roughshod over Welsh communities to secure its energy supplies.
The Assembly is desperately trying to avoid taking responsibility for this issue. As one campaigner said: "If the Assembly "called in" this project (which they can), the only authority that can overrule them is the DTI. If the DTI overruled the Assembly's decision it will destroy the credibility of the Labour administration in the Assembly and, by extension, the Assembly itself. The UK establishment and the Welsh establishment want to maintain the pretence that we have a democracy in this country. That pretence will be totally destroyed.
"We will then be back to where we were in the 60s with Tryweryn. The only power that will then be able to stop the project will be the people of Cymru, through mass civil disodedience."
The pipeline will pass through the Brecon Beacons National Park, conveniently bypassing the large Sennybridge military training range.
A growing coalition of local groups is coming together to oppose this pipeline, suggesting that gas supplies will continue to be a problem for the UK government for some time to come.
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28/08/2006
Berni's bolt over Hafod
Councillor Berni Turner is proving to be an invaluable ally in the fight to stop Liverpool councils from dumping their rubbish in the Hafod quarry. This Liverpool councillor has been outspoken in her support and outraged at the behaviour of her own council's waste disposal firm.
Favourite quote: "I find it absolutely unacceptable for Merseyside to be dumping our crap in Wales. The whole point of the landfill reduction scheme is to reduce the amount of landfill - not to move it all to another country."
Read the full article in the Liverpool edition of the Daily Post - http://icliverpool.icnetwork.co.uk
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25/08/2006
Follow the Leader...
The Wrexham Evening Leader finally caught up with this blog tonight - splashing on the views of Liverpool councillor Berni Turner that dumping the city's waste in the Hafod quarry was "unacceptable". She's now planning to raise the issue at next Friday's Mersey Waste Disposal Authority meeting. Let's hope Liverpool councillors realise how strongly people feel about this dumping.
Mersey Waste Holdings is becoming increasingly twitchy. Calls to the MWH HQ on Pierhead Liverpool are being met with increasingly irate and rattled staff. An insider at the company tells me that managing director Rob Allen is frantically calling local politicians begging them to stop the calls.
A mass blockade has been called at the site from 7am on Wednesday (30 August). There's also a mass protest planned outside Wrexham's Guildhall from 6pm on Monday (Sept 4), when the council planning committee meets to decide whether to modify or revoke planning permission for dumping on the site's Special Area of Conservation.
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24/08/2006
Hafod quarry latest
Maurice Jones is led away after trying to block a lorry getting into Hafod quarry
An early-morning picket of Hafod quarry near Wrexham today failed to stop two wagons go in, despite attempts by protesters to block the access to the landfill site. Campaigners were dragged away by police as they stopped lorries on the approach road to the Johnstown site.
Mersey Waste Holdings are sending lorryloads of rubbish from Liverpool to the quarry despite a Judicial Review in favour of local residents opposed to the dumping. It's thought the company, owned by five Merseyside councils, is desperate to establish a precedent for dumping before a Wrexham council planning meeting on Monday, September 4.
The pickets will continue on a daily basis for the coming week with a big protest expected this Saturday.
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23/08/2006
EXCLUSIVE: Mersey Waste keep board members in the dark
The company dumping waste from Liverpool has kept its own board members in the dark over its plans for Hafod Quarry near Johnstown, Wrexham. A local protester e-mailed to the company's board members - who include councillors from five Merseyside boroughs - for their views on the recent dumping.
Astoundingly one responded by saying "I did not and will not support this, in fact I was not advised of this. It's unacceptable!"
Councillor Berni Turner is a Liberal Democrat member on Liverpool City Council and recently became a board member with Mersey Waste Disposal Authority, which wholly owns Mersey Waste Holdings.
She further responded to questions about what she could do by saying: "No one told me, I will do what I can but it's a Labour-controlled authority and I doubt they have any intention of reversing their decision."
She is now looking to mobilise support to raise the matter with the company's directors.
22:35 Posted in Amgylchedd - Environment | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this
Urgent - join the protest at Hafod Quarry
Mersey Waste Holdings have started dumping waste from Liverpool in Hafod Quarry, Johnstown, Wrexham today - the site was blockaded for some time by local activists. There are now plans to turn up in greater numbers tomorrow from 7-9am. If you can make it please come along...
The company, which is run by 5 Merseyside councils, is dumping in landfills because it's cheaper than recycling. It would not be allowed to dump this waste in England but can do so in Wales (ain't devolution great? ) and is jumping the gun because there's a council planning meeting on Sept 4.
The Hafod Action Group have done everything by the book and won the legal battle via Judicial Review but still the company have continued with their plans under an old planning application. This can be stopped with your help.
If you can't make it tomorrow, there will be pickets on the gate at various times over the next fortnight. Please make an effort to stop this becoming Tryweryn Mk 2. Tryweryn was drowned by Liverpool Corporation for its own selfish gain, Hafod is being dumped on by Liverpool councils for their own selfish gain. Never again!
DIRECTIONS
Come off the Wxm by-pass (A483) at the Johnstown turnoff and head for Johnstown. Within 100m you'll see the main entrance to the quarry on the left. A couple of dozen people are enough to blockade the site.
FOR MORE DETAILS CONTACT 01978 810 275
PLEASE PASS THIS MESSAGE ON
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21/08/2006
Reason 93 for independence
Taken from Wales on Sunday (13.8.06)
FIVE ENGLISH councils could be dumping millions of tonnes of rubbish in Wales within days, we can reveal. The Merseyside local authorities have bought an old quarry near Wrexham to use as a landfill site, side-stepping government directives to cut down on waste-tipping in England.
Ironically, it comes just a year after Liverpool Council apologised to Wales for drowning Tryweryn in 1965 to provide water for Merseysiders.
New Westminster guidelines limit the amount of waste that can be dumped in landfill sites in England. But they do not apply to Wales - meaning Mersey Waste Holdings, a company owned by the five Merseyside councils, is free to bury theirs in Hafod Quarry, Johnstown.
Operations were due to begin on Friday but have been put back as Environment Agency Wales has asked for a final report into the landfill's environment impact. If they are happy with it, work could start by the end of the week with lorries driving to and from a dirtroad to the quarry for the next 55 years.
Clwyd South MP Martyn Jones last night fumed: "Somehow, because Merseyside local authorities intend to landfill their rubbish in Wales, this somehow lets them 'off-the-hook'.
"They are trying to be clever by side-stepping policy directives. Well, it's simply not good enough."
Long-running and complex arguments over the quarry have been going on for 11 years. Permission for landfilling has existed at the site in Johnstown since 1995, since when ownership has changed hands several times, but no tipping has taken place.
Pauline Smout, local resident and chair of the Hafod Environmental Group, said the site was an area of special scientific interest because great crested newts live there. It is also only 150 metres from a housing estate, she added.
"We've already lived with landfills in the immediate area, and apart from the terrible, terrible smell, which made people sick in the street, the worst thing is the noise," she said.
"The reversing noises of the lorries nearly drive you out of your mind from first thing in the morning until the last thing at night.
"My mother was blind and she couldn't come to visit us any more because all she could experience was the smell and noise."
Gwyneth Jones, a 55-year-old librarian, lives just 100 yards away from the site.
"We're going to have smells, noise, traffic," she said. "Anyone who thinks Johnstown will be a better place with a landfill site must be out of their mind."
Another resident, grandmother Ella Charlton, said house prices in the area were already being hit by the development.
She said: "People can't sell them. Who wants to live near a landfill site? I live a mile away and they say you'll be able to smell it three miles away.
"At my age, I've worked hard to build up what I have, I've been a good taxpayer all my life and then big business comes in and runs roughshod over everybody."
A report by Westminster's spending watchdog, the National Audit Office, has warned that the UK already sends a much higher proportion of waste to landfill sites than any other European country.
A review is due to be published stressing that using landfills should only be a last resort after reducing waste, recycling, reusing and recovering energy.
But Rob Allan, managing director of Mersey Waste Holdings, said: "We are developing Hafod Quarry to accommodate the current and future requirements of its customers.
"There is of course an ongoing requirement for waste disposal authorities to target reductions in the quantities of municipal waste landfilled.
"The site is being developed in full knowledge of those targeted reductions.
"Members of the public can be reassured that there is no intention to commence landfilling operations in advance of the approval of the relevant statutory bodies. Approval is expected shortly."
Environment Agency Wales said the go-ahead could be given this week.
A spokesman said: "We are expecting a report from Mersey Waste Holdings on Monday which will hopefully answer the further questions that we have.
"If we're happy with what's in the report - and it's a big if - a decision could be made within days."
A HISTORY OF DUMPING
WALES is the rubbish tip of the world, with nearly a million tonnes of international waste dumped here every year.
England exports more than 800,000 tonnes of trash while 120,000 tonnes come from as far afield as South America.
More than half of England's waste goes straight to landfill sites which are paid to dispose of it. Less than a quarter is recycled. In August 2003, Wales on Sunday revealed (pictured) that countries including Brazil, South Africa, Ireland, the Netherlands, Egypt sent 120,000 tonnes of waste to Wales in 2001 - five times the amount we exported abroad that year.
The National Assembly maintains the rubbish is imported here because we have the best facilities to dispose of it.
But Friends of the Earth Cymru says Wales barely has room for its own rubbish and the sites will reach bursting point in a matter of years.
11:28 Posted in Amgylchedd - Environment | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this
30/07/2006
Landmarks of radical history
The Guardian newspaper has launched a campaign to highlight various radical landmarks in British history. The only Welsh example they chose was the 1919 race riots in Cardiff's docklands. Not exactly representative of Welsh history but what do you expect from a London-based paper with no Welsh correspondents.
The campaign got me thinking about the forgotten history of Wales, specifically the radical aspects. Where, for example, are the monuments to the Rebecca Riots or the Merthyr Rising?
The Merthyr Rising's 175th anniversary passed last month with a mention in the local paper, a few voluntary commemorations and a big fat silence from the mass media. It deserved far more. See http://merthyrrising.blogspirit.com for more information.
Other potential landmarks are the Carmarthen workhouse, where the Rebecca Rioters carried out one of their most daring raids after years of rural resistance to tollgates in the mid-19th Century.
As history is told by the victors, the struggles of the working class, the peasantry and the oppressed are often forgotten. It's time we found out more about the Scotch Cattle, an underground movement that mobilised thousands of workers across the Valleys.
The Chartist Rising of Newport in 1839 was another significant episode in our history - now commemorated with the naming of a shopping centre in Newport after one of the organisers! The Chartists were intent on an armed rising to create a "Silurian republic" (to quote noted socialist historian Ivor Wilks) in South Wales, but the Chartists have been appropriated by such sickening people as Neil Kinnock, who has addressed meetings in memory of these radical pioneers. Time to reclaim the Chartists, perhaps?
More recent - yet unrecognised - historic landmarks in Wales should include
• Frongoch - a former whisky distillery (now there's an irony) used to house 1800 Irish republican inmates after the failed Easter Rising in 1916. It was here Michael Collins and others formulated their plans to fight for a republic. Lyn Ebeneser has written a new book on the subject, to be reviewed here soon.
• Tryweryn - perhaps more than anywhere else, the drowning of this valley and a thriving Welsh community in the teeth of parliamentary opposition forged a new sense of Welsh national identity. It was evident that the British political system (where all but one Welsh MPs opposed the flooding) was failing Wales and a new militant republican movement emerged to bomb the dam. MAC was soon suppressed but the growth in consciousness it spurred helped Plaid Cymru become a major player and eventually forced concessions by the British State to head off demands for independence. Would we have an Assembly if not for Tryweryn?
• Pont Trefechan, Aberystwyth - the symbolic blocking of this bridge by Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg (the Welsh Language Society) in 1962 was the start of a decades-long campaign for language equality. It was about far more than bilingual signs and forms - it was about reviving a language on the verge of extinction. Seven hundred court appearances later, the campaign goes on but the language has come a long way since Trefechan.
Where would you put a radical history landmark in Wales?
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15/07/2006
Talking bull...
Adrian Bull was the guest speaker at Wrexham Trade Union Council's public meeting on "energy for the future". Although he talked about the need for a "balanced" energy future, the thrust of his talk was that we needed nuclear energy as part of that balance.
Not surprising when you consider his job as advisor to the Nuclear Industries Association and past work with British Nuclear Fuels Ltd. What might be more surprising is that he was invited by the Wrexham TUC in the first place until you realise the Labour credentials of its key movers.
Bull's advocacy of nuclear managed to gloss over the terrorist threat that is apparent to all in this post-9/11 era. He also made the big mistake of claiming that speedier planning solutions were needed because the Sizewell B planning inquiry had lasted six years - big mistake because Hugh Richards of the Welsh Anti-Nuclear Alliance was in the audience and attended the Sizewell B inquiry. He told the audience that the inquiry lasted 341 days over two years. Bull made an immediate retraction and things went down hill for him from then on.
Bull was joined on the platform by local trade unionist Peter Strong who spoke persuasively about renewable energy while Liz Lewis, of the TGWU, was reduced to parroting her union's line about a "balanced" energy portfolio - i.e. also a pro-nuclear standpoint. Liz Lewis also stressed the need for nuclear to maintain manufacturing industry, claiming that Anglesey Aluminium was dependent on Wylfa as it uses 12% of total Welsh electricity consumption. An astonishing total, given that steelworks also use enormous amounts of electricity to maintain a constant temperature in the smelters. But this dependency, as a contributor from the floor pointed out, was not true as Anglesey Aluminium had continued to operate quite happily while Wylfa was closed for two years due to safety problems with its reactor in the 90s.
The audience was made up of local trade unionists, among whom were several anti-nuclear activists. The questions after the talk highlighted the scepticism towards nuclear power, not least the failure to deal with the radioactive waste.
Bull's response was interesting - the proposed new nuclear reactors will only contribute another 10% on top of the existing waste the UK has to deal with, implying this is no problem. Perhaps he and his nuclear buddies need reminding of the saying - "when you're in a hole, stop digging".
Thankfully few were convinced by the nuclear industry's spokesman, with far more enthusiasm being shown for more local initiatives and renewables such as hydro, offshore wind, solar panels (produced in Llay!) and a general reduction in our energy consumption.
The dangers of nuclear power are particularly acutely felt in North Wales due to the high levels of cancer, the radioactive Irish sea and the ongoing legacy of contaminated sheep (whether due to Chernobyl or more localised factors is still debatable).
The input from the private sector in this key matter of energy policy is not trusted, given capitalism's short-termism when what we need is a long-term strategic approach to our energy needs that puts people before profits and need before greed.
22:29 Posted in Amgylchedd - Environment | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this
09/07/2006
Brushed under the carpet
Tony Blair’s developing a knack of brushing inconvenient facts under the carpet. That's when he's not inventing them to suit his needs, of course.
The inconvenient fact of nuclear safety and nuclear waste in the past would, you'd imagine, be a concern when reviewing the future of energy production in the Disunited Kingdom.
Dr Colin Mitchell, a manager of nuclear policy at the Department of Trade and Industry in London, has decided that there's nothing to be gained from studying history. This is what he wrote last month when he turned down a request for information on the review.
“I have spoken directly with the team carrying out the energy review and they have informed me that in-depth research into the past performance of the nuclear industry is not required to carry out the review,” he said. “The past performance, when the nuclear industry was establishing itself, has little correlation to the future performance.”
So history is, er, history. There's no need to learn from the mistakes of the past because the past is not related to the future. If you're about to do something stupid, this is a very handy notion.
When the Prime Minister’s review finally sees the light of day this week, its headline conclusion will contain no surprises. As ministers have been signalling for months, it will endorse a programme of new nuclear power stations to replace those that are due to close down.
The only way for Blair to do this without flinching is to ignore the history of nuclear power over the last 50 years. Because if he remembered the mountains of radioactive waste, the companies that have gone to the wall and the billions of pounds wasted, he would choose another way.
Unfortunately, the leaders who will be joining Blair at the G8 summit in St Petersburg next weekend look like they are going to make a similar mistake. They're planning a major worldwide expansion of nuclear power to ensure “global energy security”. The also want to revive the fast breeder reactor, which depends upon plutonium, the raw material of the atomic bomb.
Blair and the other G8 leaders might prefer to ignore history but its lessons are very clear. In the past, spreading civil nuclear technology has often led to the spread of military nuclear technology, thereby making the world a less safe place. Previous efforts to develop the fast breeder reactor have also failed: more than £2 billion was spent on it at Dounreay before it was dropped as too costly.
Too many memories are too short. Blair's legacy if he fails to learn from history, could mean that we are forced to repeat it.
08:10 Posted in Amgylchedd - Environment | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this
16/06/2006
Why saving playing fields is so important
This article by grassroots activist Lynne Hayes in today's Western Mail should shame the Assembly Government into action.
Wales, nobody knows just how many playing fields have been lost because there is no legislation in force in order to monitor the situation. Our losses need to be monitored and far greater protection afforded to existing spaces.
In a study carried out for National Play Day in August, 2005, the National Children's Bureau found that children said that poor provision of play spaces - and the fear that the outdoor world is unsafe - leads them to stay indoors.
Other supporting facts and figures produced at this time include:
Fears for children's safety have increased. The radius around the home in which children are allowed to roam has shrunk to a ninth of what it was in 1970. In 1971, 80% of seven and eight -year -olds walked to school alone; in 1990 the figure had fallen to just 9%;
For every acre of play space there are 80 acres of golf club;
Playing fields have been lost at a rate of one a day for the past eight years.
I am a member of The National Playing Fields Association (NPFA) and founder of Save Open Spaces Wales (SOS Wales), a group set up to try to stem the systematic sell offs of playing fields. In Wrexham, during the past four years I have either led or supported campaigns to prevent no fewer than seven applications to build on playing fields or open spaces.
This is not, however, a localised issue; the sell off of playing fields continues throughout Wales.
At present there are campaigners trying to save fields at Willow Park, Hope, Flintshire; County Field, Cefn Coed, Merthyr Tydfil; Caldicot comprehensive school, Monmouthshire; Fleming Crescent, Haverfordwest; Prospect Green, Treorchy; Conway Road playing field, Pontypool; Llanishen reservoir, Cardiff; St Ilan comprehensive school; Caerphilly; and Stirling Road playing field; Barry.
These are just some of the campaigns that I know of.
My campaigning has led me to study regulations that govern playing-field disposals and it may come as a surprise to you that in primary schools, when working out the minimum team games area required for school fields, only the over eights are taken into consideration.
I am not proud to live in a country where we have a regulation that does not give an inch of playing space to schoolchildren under the age of eight.
What kind of example is that setting, particularly in view of the obesity epidemic?
Our playing fields are being nibbled away at the edges, getting smaller and smaller.
Things need to change.
In order to try to obtain greater protection of Welsh playing fields, I have worked closely with Rhodri Edwards of NPFA Cymru and with Dr John Marek AM, a long-standing supporter of playing field campaigners.
I am delighted that there is a Statement of Opinion, which was tabled in February 2006 by Dr Marek for Assembly Members consideration and support.
It is my hope that readers will lobby their AM to support the Statement.
For me, both the support and lack of support from each political group is very telling.
NPFA Cymru wrote to every Assembly Member personally to enlist their support and I have written to the Welsh Assembly on quite a few occasions only to be told that, "In Wales, playing field disposal is not an issue of concern".
Try telling that to the many people of Wales who take part in mass demonstrations in order to try to save their much-loved and valued playing space.
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29/05/2006
Socialists target McDonalds
Customers looking up from their "happy meals" at the Wrexham branch of McDonald's on Saturday, 27 May, found themselves face to face with a giant banner alerting them to the destruction of the Amazon rainforest, which McDonald's contributes to by allowing animals fed on rainforest soya to be used in its meat products. After criticism of its use of cattle reared on cleared rainforest, McDonald's now advertises that it uses British beef and chicken in its meals, but neglects to mention that these animals are still fed on soya from the Amazon.
The rainforest is being destroyed at an alarming rate - an area the size of six football pitches is being lost every single minute of every day. Over 20% of the rainforest has already been cleared. Much of the land is being used to grow soya which is then fed to animals across the US and Europe. Greenpeace - www.greenpeace.org.uk/mcdonalds - has traced the soya fed to poultry used in McDonald's chicken McNuggets back to the Amazon. The Amazon rainforest is home to many indigenous tribes and to many millions of species of flora and fauna. As the land is cleared, often illegally, people, animals, birds, plants and insects lose their homes. The rainforest plays an important part in keeping the climate stable, and its loss is contributing to climate chaos.
Two protesters hung the banner from the roof of the shops opposite McDonald's, while others outside the fast food outlet displayed placards and handed out leaflets. These explained McDonald's contribution to the destruction of the rainforest, as well as pointing out the health risks of eating at the fast food giant.
The peaceful protest involved members of Wrecsam Socialist Forum, Wrexham Peace & Justice Forum, Plaid Cymru including Welsh Assembly member for North Wales Janet Ryder, along with a number of local teenagers.
Siôn Aled Owen, of Plaid Cymru, said: “Companies like McDonald’s who can have such an influence on children and young people have a particular obligation to behave responsibility – including regarding the environment. They have the power of mass advertising to spin their message, so people like us need to be there, as we were in Wrexham on Saturday, to let them know the truth behind McDonald’s make-up.”
Genny Bove, Wrexham Peace & Justice Forum: "We were really pleased with the positive response from the public to our action. After the success of films like 'Supersize Me' and the embarrassment of the long-running McLibel trial, people know that McDonald's food is unhealthy, but many people were not aware of the Amazon connection. We urge McDonald's to clean up its act and stop contributing to the destruction of the rainforest."
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10/03/2006
Timid Little Britain or Brave New World?
Sweden plans to stop using oil within 15 years...
Brazil intends to power 80% of its transport using sugar cane ethanol within five years...
Iceland will be powering all its cars and boats with hydrogen created by renewable sources by 2050...
Little Britain "aims" to generate 10% of its electricity using renewables by 2012.
As ambitions go, it's pretty limited. But timid little Britain's energy policy is much worse than that. Its government is still debating whether to return to the bad old days of nuclear energy after its mad dash for gas while the rest of the world is actively investing in renewable, clean energy sources.
Wales, with the potential to be a self-sufficient energy-rich country, is tied up with this timid approach - we need to break free and start providing for our energy - and those of others - with innovative new schemes. One is the bio-mass scheme being investigated by Tower Colliery - if 400 miners at the top of end of the Valleys can develop an ambitious plan for long-term energy, why the hell can't the Assembly Government. Oh sorry, forgot it's still under the thumb of timid little Britain.
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07/03/2006
Jumping on bandwagons
There are plans to build 40 houses on the Meadow View playing field on Tanyfron's Bryngwyn Road, despite the fact that there are 400 homes being built on the reclaimed Brymbo steelworks site nearby.
It's yet another example of Wrexham Council selling off land for needless property development and short-term financial gain. Last time it was Labour, now it's the Lib Dems.
Local residents say they weren't told of the plans, which are now out to tender, and are furious that their field is being sold off to property developers. So they've organised a protest this Saturday @ Meadow View, Tanyfron @ 11am.
What makes this protest different is that a Labour politician will be attending to voice her opposition. Nice to see Karen Sinclair AM for Clwyd South jumping on this particular bandwagon. She was silent when there were moves to sell off Nine-Acre Field, silent when Barker's Lane School playing field was being sold but has suddenly found her voice now.
Why? Perhaps it's because those were sold off by Labour and it's now a Lib Dem council in charge. To add to the hypocrisy of this senior Labour politician, she's part of the ruling party in Cardiff Bay that has failed to offer any safeguards for playing fields in Wales. Little wonder the National Playing Fields Association is tearing its hair out in Wales, where there is less protection for playing fields than in England.
All communities have the right to a certain level of open spaces according to the number of children but, scandalously, the Assembly Government does not count under 8s in this calculation!
Make sure hypocritical Labour politicians aren't allowed to jump on this bandwagon without getting a mouthful.
Join the protest @ 11am, Saturday 11 March 2006 @ Bryngwyn Rd, Tanyfron, Wrexham.
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08/02/2006
A role for coal
The future of the 200 million tonnes of coal lying beneath Welsh soil sparked a fascinating debate on Wales@Work on Radio Wales tonight.
The two key voices were those of Phil White, a life-long NUM activist at Tower Colliery, and Gordon James, of Friends of the Earth Cymru. Both spoke sense, both were opposed to nuclear power as an energy of the future and both agreed on the need for coal in the medium future energy plan for Wales and the UK.
Crucially, both saw the need for energy conservation as a starting point - we all need to use less fuel to conserve finite and renewable energy sources. Phil White was particularly impressive in outlining Tower's ongoing research and development into innovative uses of biomass with coal to produce a cleaner and more efficient fuel.
Tower Colliery has a problem - it has only 2-3 years of work on its existing faces and needs a £30m investment to develop new faces and drifts. It can only do that with certainty about the coal underground and wants £5m to bore test holes in about six locations in the southern coalfield. Two new pits would create 1500 jobs, matching the 1500 allegedly at risk from closing the ageing Wylfa power station.
[As an aside, why is Anglesey Aluminium at risk from Wylfa's closure? When Wylfa was shut down for two years, how did Anglesey Aluminium get its power?]
Gordon James would rather have all-renewable energy sources - quite right too. But he's also pragmatic enough to realise that this will take 20-30 years to achieve. In the meantime we have to ensure that coal, which currently provides 30% of Welsh energy, gets cleaner and makes use of the imaginative biomass alternatives as suggested by Phil White. Miners and environmentalists must also make common ground to ensure that the menace of nuclear power - a fuel so expensive to produce and dispose of its waste that no private industry will touch it - is buried once and for all.
For once, a thought-provoking debate that provided answers as well as questions.
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05/02/2006
We're not paranoid - capitalism is out to get us!
Socialists can often come across as conspiracy theorists who believe that evil capitalists are consciously planning the destruction of our planet, bleeding the last penny of profit from workers.
There's the tale of a blueprint for super-efficient car that could run for 70 years with non-rusting parts that is locked in a vault because no car company would want to lose money in the maintenance or spare parts market. It's probably an urban myth but we all know that consumer goods these days are built to fall apart and our affluent throwaway society often replaces rather than repairs.
Worse still is the revelation that fuel consumption of cars was better in the days of Henry Ford's Model T car than today's sleek aerodynamic monsters. What have all those car experts been doing for the last 80 years? Watching Top Gear and slavering over turbo-charged widgets?
Maybe us socialists are right... capitalism is out to make profit and doesn't care if it destroys the planet in the process.
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25/01/2006
No nukes is good news
A flurry of spin has seen nuclear power become a hot news topic again after years in the doldrums.
Here are a few arguments for nuclear power that have been churned out in the last few weeks...
• it doesn't contribute to global warming (it certainly warmed a few million sheep in North Wales after Chernobyl)
• it's clean (unless you include the waste - which can't be "cleaned")
• it's cheap (unless you include the waste disposal, which in Trawsfynydd's case will last 135 years after the plant stopped producing waste)
• it will safeguard us against dodgy supplies of gas from Russia (but not against terror attacks)
• it's renewable (until the uranium runs out)
• it works when the wind doesn't blow (but not for two years after a problem in the core reactor at Wylfa)
And that's about it... because of global warming, nuclear power has once again been touted as a saviour. Except that this time round we know what happens when a power plant closes. It continues to be a massive problem in terms of radication waste.
At stake are massive profits for the nuclear industry, the military interests of plutonium production and Blair's obsession with big projects rather than the little things that really make a difference.
The Labour government's three-month consultation period will see the PR onslaught continue and we better start fighting back because they want to site one of these babies in Wales.
First off the mark is CND Cymru Caerffili branch, which will be campaigning against the proposed new nuclear power plants on Saturday (28th January) opposite Sainsbury's Queen St, Cardiff from 11-30am-12-15pm and opposite the indoor market, The Hayes 1pm-2pm.
There are a thousand and one things we can do before resorting to nuclear power to halt global warming - better insulation, no tellies on standby, renewable energy sources, clean coal technology...
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24/11/2005
Blair mocks "planned economy"
UK politics is becoming more and more surreal. Prime Minister's Questions yesterday saw Tony Blair mock Tory leader Michael Howard over his demand for government intervention on soaring gas prices. Blair said it sounded as if the Tory leader wanted a "planned economy", intimating that this was Soviet-style collectivism.
Blair, like all the establishment politicians, is putting his faith in market traders and commodity brokers who can spot an easy profit when they see one. They have no long-term perspective, no sense of what is best for the environment, health or wealth creation beyond their own tiny privileged class. For Blair to effectively hand over his energy policy to these overpaid baboons is nothing new - he's done the same with the railways and wants to do the same with hospitals and schools.
The free market cannot be trusted to do anything but turn a profit, even if that means cutting corners with pay, workers' safety, people's health and environmental damage. But profits come before people in Blair's "UK plc" (what is it about that phrase that makes me want to retch?)
The idea of a planned economy with stability, long-term perspectives and the will to buck market trends (e.g. the mad housing market) is why we bother with governments at all. Otherwise all the government becomes is a grant machine for even more free-market madness...
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15/11/2005
Oil, gas, nuclear, coal, windfarms, hydro
Wanted: an energy policy for Wales
First things first... you won't get an energy policy for Wales by looking to London.
London governments have squandered the North Sea oil reserves on tax cuts, war and fat profits for oil multinationals.
London politicians have closed the Welsh coal industry without considering the social and economic consequences.
London politicians have given the go-ahead for multinationals to build 40% of all the UK's windfarms in Wales - thanks.
London politicians plonked two nuclear power stations in rural Wales and don't know what to do with them now they're closed or closing. Except build more.
Wales is already a net exporter of energy but, like water, has higher bills than many other parts of the disUnited Kingdom. Another consequence of being an appendage of London.
So an energy policy for Wales must come from Wales (although we can nick good stuff from elsewhere of course). It won't be privately owned - it must be community controlled at all levels.
Here's the step-by-step guide to a Welsh energy policy for the 21st Century (this Chavez thing is catching)
Step 1 - reduce energy needs... improve insulation in existing homes, build better insulated new homes and public buildings that contribute to the Grid via solar panels and Combined Heat and Power schemes
Step 2 - increase small-scale renewables with a proven track record... hydro-electric schemes, offshore lagoons and barrages and community-controlled windfarms
Step 3 - introduce clean coal technology and survey remaining coal reserves for possible use
Step 4 - develop a renewable manufacturing industry, making solar panels, turbines and train a new generation of engineers, designers and technicians.
Step 5 - no nukes... no need!
Step 6 - develop Oil and gas reserves in the Irish Sea - ah, the tricky one's left til last. Do we need to exploit these now? No. There may come a time when it's inevitable but a sustainable energy policy cannot exist on oil and gas that will run out in 20 years.
Step 7 - develop a research facility in our universities that takes hydrogen cell fuel and other radical renewable ideas seriously.
None of this will happen while the free market dominates not only the energy industry, but the higher education sector too. None of this will happen while politicians of all colours keep making short-term decisions based on winning the next election. None of this will happen unless we want it to.
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11/11/2005
Protest outside incinerator plant
Protesters will be outside the Crymlyn Burrows incinerator/recycling plant near Swansea today to make sure councillors are reminded of the many mistakes already made at the site.
The Portuguese company running the site, HLC, has gone into administration with debts of £40m. The site has now been bought by Neath-Port Talbot Council in what can only be described as a desperate move to cover up their previous mistakes.
The waste recycling centre has never functioned fully since catching fire during its commissioning trials. Ironically it wasn't the incinerator but a fault in the composting side of things that went wrong.
Rather than owning up to the fact that they've backed a dud, the council has opted to persevere with an outdated incineration process and a dirty, smelly recycling centre.
Financial problems mean that it needs waste from other areas to make ends meet - so today at 11am Swansea Councillers are visiting the site.
Campaigners say the plant is incapable of burning within its IPPC licence and will almost certainly cost any new partners millions in continuing losses, so if Swansea buys in, citizens there will get polluted and taxed for the privilege!
The same HLC company is still involved in the planned waste recycling plant at Wrexham, although it has now been forced to drop the incinerator component after massive local pressure.
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09/11/2005
Welsh action on climate change
Wales will have its own part to play in the worldwide mobilisation on climate change on December 3.
On this Worldwide Day of demonstration against the destabilisation of our climate marches are taking place in capital cities around the world.
We are having a Climate Demonstration in Aberystwyth (with the theme of Climate Justice). Speakers will include Simon Thomas, Molly Scott Cato and John Kanahan from the Beic Grwp.
on behalf of
Gweithredu Hinsoddol Ceredigion Climate Action
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28/10/2005
More questions than answers for Wrexham Council
(text of campaign leaflet after Wrexham council's u-turn over the waste incinerator)
Labour’s plans go up in smoke!
The stunning reversal over the incinerator by Wrexham Council is to be welcomed. Labour first backed this outdated and dangerous scheme nine years ago. Since then it’s spent a staggering £1.5million on consultants and legal fees on this project - for nothing. Yet we’re told the council can’t afford traffic wardens due to a lack of funds!
Labour councillors who backed the incinerator should hang their heads with shame. The new council regime deserves credit for finding an alternative.
But what of Plan B? True, it’s an improvement on Plan A but it still leaves many unanswered questions.
• Waste pellets will be produced on site - who will burn them? If it’s Castle Cement’s kiln at Padeswood is that an improvement either for the people of Wrexham or the people of Flintshire? Why are we opting to export our problems just like Liverpool is doing by dumping waste in Johnstown?
• Is there any guarantee that an incinerator won’t be built on the site in the future? The size of the building remains the same as with Plan A.
• Why is HLC still involved, despite its sister company HLC Neath Port Talbot going into administration because of ongoing problems at the Crymlyn Burrows waste recycling plant near Swansea?
• Has the council examined the record of the Waste Recovery Group?
• Plan B will still mean a Private Finance Initiative, where public money will pay for massive private profits over a 25 year period.
When will the public of Wrexham get value for money from their council?
We have consistently opposed the incinerator schemes proposed by Labour in Wrexham and Neath. Plan C, a zero waste policy that recycles comprehensively and minimises landfill, is yet to be tried.
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26/10/2005
Incinerator u-turn victory
A victory for people power
Nine years ago, Wrexham Council was recycling just 3% of its household waste. Faced with growing pressures to stop landfilling it decided that the best alternative was to incinerate thousands of tonnes in an expensive 25-year Private Finance Initiative deal with a Portuguese company that had at the time never run an incinerator.
The council, then Labour run, chose HLC to be its preferred bidder in 1998. Since then a mass mobilisation of people power has seen the first incinerator scheme put forward and withdrawn, a second pyrolysis scheme put forward and now withdrawn - purely because the council knew it couldn't win the day. Instead the council, now run by a Lib Dem-independent coalition, has opted for more recycling at kerbside and a commitment to create a RDF fuel from waste that will be used outside the borough.
It's fair to say that the council would have been happy to ignore the will of the people, as it did for six years. But a significant extra stumbling block was the decision by Kelloggs and other major food plants near the proposed incinerator site on the Industrial Estate to threaten a pull-out if the scheme went ahead.
This is a major victory - a major change of position in the face of huge pressure and six years of inertia from the council. Wrexham taxpayers have paid £1.5m to consultants and lawyers for a scheme that will never happen. The National Assembly Government backed the Labour council's scheme to the hilt and civil servants in Cardiff Bay were drooling at the prospect of a regional incinerator facility for North Wales.
Things are not perfect. HLC, although now downgraded to a secondary partner with Waste Recycling Group, are still involved. It's not yet clear whether the PFI scheme will go ahead.
Another issue that brought the whole matter to a head was the ongoing failure of HLC's Crymlyn Burrows incinerator - which has been at the commissioning stage for three years and has yet to finally be commissioned. The company running that disastrous plant, HLC Neath-Port Talbot, has finally given up the ghost and gone into administration after it was revealed that it was only recycling 3% of waste rather than the promised 20%.
Campaigners in Wrexham have highlighted the Neath fiasco for years and yet not one councillor from Wrexham even visited Neath to find out what was happening.
So it's 1-0 to the people on the incinerator issue in Wrexham - and a lot of red faces among council officials, Labour councillors and AMs who backed the hare-brained scheme.
Full details will hopefully emerge in an extraordinary general meeting of the council on 31 October.
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29/09/2005
Blair goes nuclear
Tony Blair's recent conference speech, in which he said nuclear power must be considered as a means of securing our energy supply will have the private energy companies rubbing their hands with glee.
Since privatisation by the Tories, the nuclear power industry has seem billions of pounds of taxpayers' money being poured into private companies. Despite that, in 2003 British Nuclear Fuels effectively went bankrupt because if faced £41bn's worth of liabilities, around £30bn of it at Sellafield.
This forced the government to step in. BNF hopes to become the management company to carry on the clean-up, which will run for the rest of this century. In total, including the Ministry of Defence's problems, the taxpayer faces a nuclear clean-up bill of £100m.
The cost of cleaning up radioactive sites would be bad enough if it was just financial. But, as the people living around Trawsfynydd can tell you, the legacy of a nuclear power station is one of illness and death. There is a ten-fold increase in cases of child leukaemia near Sellafield, an eight-fold increase near Dounreay, and a discernable increase near every source of radioactive pollution in Europe (See www.llrc.org.uk for more details).
The idea that nuclear power can answer the very real challenges of global warming and climate change is laughable. The astronomical costs of a new nuclear power programme would divert money away from creating a low-carbon economy, the real solution to global warming. A single power station costs billions to build, run and decommission, and has to run for seven to ten years before it creates enough energy to cancel out the energy used just to establish it.
This is assuming nothing goes wrong. If something does go wrong, then we're in big trouble. Even if nothing much goes wrong, nuclear power plants can be shut down for years on end as Wylfa was because of safety considerations. This is no way to plan for a future energy policy, but Blair (and some blinkered trade unions) have been lobbied relentlessly by the industry. That lobby will not have mentioned that the Dounreay treatment plant in Scotland had to be closed just last Monday after a leak... it's not safe folks!
There are plenty of proven sustainable alternatives, particularly in a country blessed with as much wind and rain as Wales, to provide enough energy for our own needs and to export the rest. It is not too late to make renewable energy a powerful weapon against climate change. It is safe, economical, quickly built, and doesn't leave us
with piles of nuclear waste. We just need the political will.
(a lot of this info came from the Green Party)
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26/09/2005
School dinners - still a scandal
The e.coli outbreak across the Valleys raises more questions about the quality of school dinners.
SEReN has always been a supporter of the Free School Meals Campaign for Wales, which would ensure all school children got free and nutritious school dinners rather than Labour's ill-judged plan to deliver free breakfasts.
The campaign was launched last year in the Assembly with the support of AMs, doctors, the farming unions, the catering staff association and many parents and food producers. The aims were simple: to ensure our kids got locally sourced, organic (where possible) healthy food that was free for all rather than means tested.
This simple goal - which councils in Hull and Glasgow have already introduced - has immediate as well as long-term benefits. Free school meals - which mean that the overwhelming mass of pupils would take up the offer - would mean a generational improvement in diet. It is well within the remit of the National Assembly and would cost - it's estimated - about £100m a year. Contrast that with the hundreds of millions it costs to treat the consequences of obesity, heart disease and other diet-related illnesses on the NHS.
Cardiff University's Prof Kevin Morgan, a leading light in the campaign for better school meals, has raised questions regarding sourcing food for school dinners. The same should apply in old people's homes and hospitals, where equally vulnerable members of our society need the best quality food.
Catering staff are tearing their hair out because they want to provide good food but can't do it with a standstill budget imposed by councils and their paymasters in Cardiff and London. It needs a political will and political vision to deliver this goal.
Whether or not a particular supplier is responsible for the current outbreak, it's vital that - as with the BSE and foot-and-mouth epidemics - that cutting costs does not come first. People should always come before profits.
Other politicians have only been interested in scoring points at the expense of the children's plight. It's vital that an alternative is sought to the current situation - as proposed by Kevin Morgan and Leanne Wood AM.
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27/02/2005
No nukes is good news
Report on the anti-nuclear conference in Aberystwyth on 19 February 2005
There has been a steady drip, the last six months of pro-nuclear spin in the press and on television, claiming (often in sensationalist terms) that the only way through the global warming crisis is by renewing our commitment to nuclear power. Sadly the Wales TUC joined the pro-nuclear campaign and even some environmentalists seemed to lose the plot.
So it was refreshing to hear the counterblast blowing up a storm along the prom in Aberystwyth on 19 February. Activists from PAWB (Pobl Atal Wyfa B/People Against Wylfa B), had coordinated an all-Wales conference to examine the arguments anew and to launch a Nuclear-Free Future campaign. This was held under the auspices of the Welsh Anti-Nuclear Alliance and CND Cymru and chaired by Deilwen Evans of CADNO, the Trawsfynydd-based anti-nuclear group. The conference received messages of support from six political parties and from environmental groups as far away as Germany and Finland.
The conference could not have been more timely. In the previous week there were reports that if Blair wins the next general election he plans to proceed with plans for 10 new nuclear power stations. There was also the news that a Sizewell audit had revealed a considerable amount of missing plutonium.
Dr Chris Busby talked of his research into childhood cancer occurrence in Wales, with special reference to the Menai Straits and discharge from Sellafield. He described low-level radiation effects on human tissues and of offical attempts to discredit and cover up his findings. He also talked about the big picture: how the World Health Organisation was being prevented from criticism of the policies of the international atomic agencies of the UN (as one UN agency is legally banned from attacking another).
Lobbying by BNFL and its nuclear affiliates, as well as by the US government, is fuelling the calls for a programme of new UK nuclear reactors. Hugh Richards of WANA discussed the new generation of nuclear reactor designs, the severe flaws in their safety standards and their economic problems. BNFL is pretending that its Generation III pressurised water reactor the Westinghouse AP1000 is 'ready for deployment' (although as yet unbuilt and untested) and that a new reactor programme will prove an economically attractive way for the UK to produce some of its electricity. WANA is calling on BNFL "to put up or shut up" - apply for the operating licence and put up the money. Now is the time to call their bluff.
Why was this conference relevant to Welsh peace campaigners? One need look no further than the situation in Iran and North Korea or the terrorism/nuclear power station questions. (No reactor has been designed to meet the possibility of a fully loaded airline being flown into it on purpose). Rod Stallard of CND Cymru talked of the long-standing connection between civil and military use of nuclear power. He also discussed depleted uranium weapons.
The positive way forward was made plain by Neil Crumpton of FoE Cymru, who gave a wide-ranging and up-to-date scientific review of alternative renewable energy sources (tidal, wind, solar etc) and fuels. He delved into costs, states of development and timetabling, and environmental and political considerations.
He also raised issues such as energy conservation. He compared the nuclear option with the renewable alternatives and successfully demolished the argument that the nuclear route was now the only way to deal with the crisis in global warming. This talk raised much informed scientific debate from the floor. Of course the picture is complex, but the conclusion was inescapable. A coordinated policy of renewables plus conservation is viable and competitive and (trade unions please note) offers safe jobs and a boost to local economies.
Dylan Morgan of PAWB concluded with the launch of a new campaign: to make renewables and the nuclear option a focus of debate at the next election and beyond: lobbying, questioning candidates, mobilisation of support, petitions, media campaigns. The conference sent forward a message from Wales to the Nuclear-Free Local Authorities conference at Drogheda, Ireland, in March 2005.
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14/12/2004
Pyrolysis = incineration by another name
Wrexham Council and a Portuguese multinational called HLC (www.grupohlc.com) want to build a "waste recovery centre" to increase the borough's recycling rate. The same company is responsible for the ongoing fiasco at Crymlyn Burrows near Swansea, where an incinerator was built more than two years ago but has still not recycled anything due, in part, to a raging fire in the compost unit.
The Wrexham scheme was rejected first time round by popular protest and the Assembly calling the scheme in under pressure. But Wrexham County Borough Council is determined to press ahead with this expensive and needless scheme under a Private Finance Initiative (PFI) scheme that will see them locked into a 25-year contract with HLC. This is an impossibly long-term contract given the likelihood of tougher environmental regulations making it necessary to recycle and reduce waste at source.
This is the third planning application by HLC - the first one was for an incinerator. The second one was for pyrolysis but on a site they didn't own! This latest is on a new site and using a new, untried technology called pyrolysis, which claims to "bake" rather than "burn" the waste that cannot be recycled and re-used.
This is, to use a technical phrase, utter bollocks.
The heat at which the waste is baked produces toxic gases as well as leaving a toxic waste residue. The gases have to go somewhere - i.e. the atmosphere - and the residue has to go to a hazardous waste site, which is more expensive than a normal waste disposal site. It is incineration by another name.
It is also 400m from the nearest primary school at Isycoed, a small village on the edge of Wrexham industrial estate.
Last time round, 13,000 people signed a petition opposing the plan.
See the photo album for a cartoon on this.
16:30 Posted in Amgylchedd - Environment | Permalink | Comments (2) | Email this