|
NEWS July 19th 2001
|
||
|
Comment This is just one of many continuing outrages caused by the insane mishandling of the foot and mouth epidemic. If you are involved in, or know of, local campaigns against foot and mouth policies, or of cock-ups by MAFF or its unholy offspring DEFRA, which the mainstream media is too bored and London-centric to cover, contact news@corporatewatch.org and we’ll be keen to hear about them. |
Campaigns - Policy that stinks With foot and mouth disappeared from the mainstream media – cases continuing at the same level as just before the election no longer ‘count’ it seems – the slaughter policy is still spreading its poison around the country. Despite official massaging of the figures, the carcasses continue to mount up – and many of them are being dumped in County Durham, on a site just outside Tow Law, near Bishop Auckland, where a former open-cast mine, restored to nature a few years ago and rapidly becoming a haven for wildlife, has been dug up again to provide a burial site for 300,000 carcasses. Only 10% of the planned number has so far been buried, but locals (who opposed the plan as soon as they knew about it – some time after the digging started) are already suffering the effects of 30,000+ rotting dead animals on the edge of the town. Rotting bodies produce H2S (hydrogen sulphide) – a toxicgas. It has already been found in the primary school 100 yards from the site. The legal site limit is 10 parts per million in the air - 14ppm has been recorded in one of the sealed pits. Workers on sites where the gas is present are supposed to carry beepers and oxygen escape hoods - if it reaches 10ppm the beepers sound, the hoods go on and a wind sock is raised to show wind direction - you have 5 minutes to evacuate the area. Teams stand by to recover and resuscitate fallen men. They have no such safety measures on the burial site for the workers or for the thousands of people living nearby. The site is on top of 78 mine shafts dating back to 1830. They are riddled with faults and filled with water that runs into rivers and streams before joining the River Wear. Interestingly enough, the risk assessment on the site (done after construction started, according to local campaigners) was carried out by the opencast company (Banks) which sold the site to MAFF – maybe they forgot to mention the possibility of decomposing corpses leaking fluids into local watercourses and air – or maybe MAFF didn’t care. A local campaigner writes ‘The smell from tens of thousands of festering corpses is at times unbearable. Children have fled into their homes vomiting more than once. The smell worries us because we believe it must carry bacteria and possibly toxic gases. People are already ill with headaches, nausea, sore throats, aching limbs, breathing difficulties etc... we believe this to be consistent with general immune system challenge by bacteria.’ Euro MP Stephen Hughes (Labour) is challenging the site in Europe for breaking 5 European laws. Tow Law Council has declared the site illegal as it is also in breach of a number of UK laws and has demanded its immediate closure. Strangely, the local MP (Labour chief whip Hilary Armstrong) has been silent on the issue. Protests have been going on since early April – armed with the council’s condemnation of the site, one man challenged the police to stop lorries entering in order to prevent an illegal act; when they refused he handcuffed himself to a lorry and was promptly arrested, as were a number of other people taking part in a sit-down blockade. Eight were charged, including two teenage girls, though charges against the girls have since been dropped. Daily pickets at the site continue and locals are appealling for support. The campaign is currently selling a video to raise funds - £6, cheques to Newlittlebighorn defence fund, 3 Elm Park Terrace, Tow Law, Bishop Auckland, Durham, DL13 4NH. Contact: Newlittlebighorn@aol.com or (01388) 731577 |