SITE MONITOR’S REPORT Friday 29 June 2001

The Site Monitor visited the site between 1.30 pm and 3.00 pm and was accompanied by Andrew King, National Assembly representative.

BURIAL SITE

The fenced off area has been reduced to 92 yards from plantation to road, along road edge and back again by contractor Ian Matthews assisted by David Jones and two other men. Within the area is one bore hole and the sump hole. The bore hole casing has been damaged by contractors, Greyhound, when excavating but King said that it would be repaired. The sump hole is still uncovered. The double gates had not yet been hung so our Monitor asked for orange netting to cover the opening until it was secure in case sheep wandered in. Major Vaughan, Colonel Llewelyn, Mary Davies, budget manager of Sennybridge camp plus Wyn Edwards, Greyhound site manager.arrived to inspect the site whilst our Monitor was there.

DIXES CORNER

Steelbac (construction clay for lining pit) and Bentonite, which had been stored in the sheds, had been removed. Rolls of plastic liner were still present in the yard outside. New load of snowflake sawdust had turned up yesterday, presumably by mistake. King is to enquire. Monitor said they should move it to the barracks as no lorries from Libunus should be allowed on to the Epynt as there were no proper disinfecting facilities there any more.

BURN SITE

About three quarter of the pyre is still smoking and hot. However, it is shrinking and collapsing in on itself. Old animal bones and fleeces are now exposed. Also redstone, plastics, sleepers and coal could be seen. The half eaten carcasses, which had been lying on the hardcore for about a month, were no longer visible.

King confirmed that they will start removing the ash as soon as it is cool enough.and a safe way is found to transfer the ash into the sealed sea containers which will be used to transport it away from the site. An experiment is planned for Tuesday, 3 July, on the lower pyre which is much cooler than the rest of the pyre. The length of the lower pyre is 46 yards x 7 yards. They plan to move it 35 metres, in small amounts at a time, across to a pit which is 1.5 metres deep and has a 30 metre long gradual slope at a 1 in 40 gradient. The pit will be lined with builders damp course plastic. Scalpings and fine stone will be brought onto site again - we assume to go on top of the plastic. King showed our monitor two cradles attached to a JCB for the men to stand in so they can hose down the ash to prevent dust particles from being disbursed into the air when they move it as well as to reduce the temperature. A lagoon is to be built below this new pit to catch the water before it goes into the Gleslynen brook which feeds the Gwyderrig (tributary of the Towy). Apparently the pyre on Epynt is different to other pyres because it was built straight onto the hardcore so there is no place for the ash to drop through to.

The wheelwash, which had been removed last week, has been returned for vehicles dealing with the ash removal.

NATIONAL FOOT & MOUTH MEETING WILL TAKE PLACE THIS SUNDAY, 1 JULY AT THE BRITANNIA HOTEL, WOLVERHAMPTON.... start 2.30 p.m.

Drinks and refreshments will be available as well as lunches/dinners for those travelling some distance. The hotel is in the town centre next to the Grand Theatre which is signposted.

"PLEASE.....PLEASE LET US KNOW YOU ARE COMING AND SPREAD THE WORD AS FAR AND WIDE AS YOU POSSIBLY CAN ........WE HAVE THE ROOM ....... YOU HAVE THE ENTHUSIASM AND WORKING TOGETHER WE HAVE THE STRENGTH TO STOP THE UNNECESSARY SLAUGHTERING". National Foot & Mouth Group

Contact: tonyyork@pigparadise.com

Focus - Britain went for overkill to fight foot-and-mouth

28/06/01 16:35

By Elizabeth Piper

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain needlessly slaughtered hundreds of thousands of animals to combat foot-and-mouth disease, and a misguided government strategy may have encouraged the spread of the epidemic, analysts say.

Britain's struggle since February to contain the livestock disease has provoked rage in the countryside over the cull of healthy animals considered to be at risk of infection.

Almost 3.5 million animals have been killed under different policies --two of most controversial being the slaughter of animals on farms neighbouring those with the disease and of all livestock in a three km (1.8 mile) zone around infected premises.

Some scientists advising the government said such policies had failed to curtail the spread of the disease and instead caused unnecessary hardship for the rural community.

"The key success measure in controlling foot-and-mouth disease is bravery in leadership. You have to say ruthlessly that animals have to die. But I think in hindsight there has been overkill," Dick Sibley, president of the British Cattle Veterinary Association, told Reuters.

Sibley, who now sits on the government's scientific advisory group, said the computer models used to develop the extended culling policy were based on faulty data.

INACCURATE MODEL

"The extended cull was based on a mathematical model and our problem was...that the data may have been inaccurate. The data weren't correct from the field because they were collected under duress and with a lot of difficulty," he said.

"The model was created using data that were generated mostly from Cumbria (in northwest England) because at that time Cumbria was the major part of the outbreak. It reflected the way the disease was being propagated in one small region and then generated a policy to be mapped onto the country."

"We did not know if the other outbreaks were following the same pattern," he said.

Sibley said the agriculture ministry failed to employ the new policy of slaughtering at neighbouring farms -- the so-called contiguous cull -- in Cumbria, but the disease died down there.

Other places, like Devon in southern England, were still getting cases when the contiguous cull was in place, he said.

Scientists say the ministry overplayed the risk of airborne spread of the highly infectious disease, and adopted strategies in a knee-jerk fashion.

Some policies may have helped spread the disease, which has cost the food, agriculture and tourism industries billions of pounds.

Neil Ferguson of London's Imperial College School of Medicine, who advised the government to adopt the contiguous cull, agreed that models used to support this extended slaughter programme might have been short of reality.

"All models are simplifications...and there is a real dearth of critical experimental epidemiological data to put in lots more detail," he said, adding that he urged an earlier start to the contiguous cull.

Ferguson, whose models shaped government policy, said other culls should not have been adopted and only led to the unnecessary slaughter of healthy animals.

"My personal view is that the three km and local sheep culls had some effect but were not particularly efficient policies," he said.

"They could have had the same effect more efficiently by concentrating on the contiguous cull and slaughtering fewer animals...I would say that a lot of that culling was not recommended at the committee on which I sat."

Ferguson said the ministry should have concentrated on killing animals on infected farms more quickly and taking out neighbouring premises -- which would have saved more than 50 percent of the total number of animals slaughtered.

Ferguson and Sibley said the government might now be encouraging new outbreaks of the disease by relaxing strict animal movement restrictions to appease the farming community.

"You cannot afford to relax and that is what is happening. People are getting complacent," Sibley said.

"There is a sting in the tail."

SITE MONITOR’S REPORT

Friday, 22 June 2001

The site visit by the Epynt Action Group monitor took place from 1.30pm to 3.30pm. She was accompanied by Mr Andrew King, Welsh Assembly official.

BURIAL SITE They first of all visited the burial site. No disinfecting procedure was in place and both wheelwashes had been removed.

The entire site is covered over by subsoil and 2/3rds of it has been layered with peat and vegetation to a depth of eight inches and has gone off very hard. An odour of heated compost and rotten material was noticed. All boreholes are now sealed and soil samples seen on previous visits had been removed . The sump hole is still open, liquid in it was reduced and a foul smell is still present in the pipe. As promised last week, King had made enquiries about the disappearing borehole (see last report) and confirmed that this had now been filled and would not be used for monitoring. (Our monitor had been looking for it on the previous visit to check if it was still giving off a bad smell as it had the week before.)

Pieces of plastic liner are still visible throughout the whole area.

Our monitor was informed by King that fencing tenders had been issued to local contractors for work in reducing the size of the site. The new compound would be fenced in from the corner of the forestry plantation towards Llywel up to the main road with two gates inserted at the entrance of the hardcore standing, enabling monitors access to two boreholes and sump hole for sampling. The fence would continue along the road until it reached the 4x4 track on left side of road and back down towards plantation. All other boreholes will be out on open hill.

The Environment Agency would continue sampling for another 2 weeks, assisting Morgan, the borehole contractors, and they would take over duties after that on all boreholes and stream points. Leeds University will sample private water sources and Liverpool University will be sampling the vegetation surrounding the burial pit and pyre.

Sampling of vegetation has already taken place from the forestry to the top farm fields and the range around the pyre six weeks ago. Our monitor requested a copy of that report. King said he would try to get one.

The monitor and King made their way to the burnsite.

On the way over they stopped at Dixie’s Corner to inspect the contents of the sheds. A small amount of Bentonite and Steelbac are still on pallets and a greyhound worker was moving it to the outside for a lorry to haul it up from there. Our monitor was informed that the Commandant wants the sheds back by 1 July and that the plastic liners will remain to be used for lining lorries which will be hauling away the ash at a later date.

BURN SITE

On arrival at the burn site King and our monitor saw the wheelwash being dismantled and loaded onto a lorry for removal. Immediately King telephoned Wyn Edwards, Operations Manager of Epynt, informing him a wheelwash had to be left here for lorries to disinfect while removing the ash.

Our monitor asked King if he had spoken to Carwyn Jones, Rural Affairs Minister at the Welsh Assembly, regarding the ash and restrictions placed on the area. King had spoken to him last Friday and confirmed that the ash would be removed when cool enough for transportation. King also said that tenders are now being issued for tarring roadways and replacing damaged culverts on route 60 (Pwlldu-Bryntirmawr gravel road). Work will commence when it was known how and when the ashes would leave the range. The two possible routes are via Church Hill or through the forestry.

The Camp Commandant wants the range back by 30 September and he has an agreement with Greyhound Contractors for an extended runway to the end of the fir trees heading towards Tirabad. The army would supply a special matting to be placed under the topsoil enabling the runway to be solid. Greyhound will carry out the work as a kind of gesture. MAFF has refused to fund the project and will only be prepared to pay for replacing the area the pyre is on.

The Forestry Commission has so far refused permission for transportation over forestry roads.

The whole pyre was quiet with just a little smoke visible in certain areas. About two and half of the four sheep carcasses, which had been lying on the hardcore for several weeks now, had been moved to the side of the pyre. They were smelling, had blowfly on them and were mostly eaten. The remainder had been covered over with sawdust and were still on the hardcore. Our monitor was still unable to find a pallet of 20 rolls of plastic liner which she noticed at the pyre site a few weeks ago. There had been a pallet of 16 rolls and a pallet of 20 rolls. Only 16 rolls remained.

Sent: Sunday, June 24, 2001 11:53 AM

Subject: Why there is no independent inquiry- FMD - Telegraph

Christopher Bookers notebook - Telegraph

Why there is no independent inquiry?
IT may not have made headlines, but last week another 93,000 animals were slaughtered as the foot and mouth epidemic continued on its way. This may be by far the worst catastrophe ever to hit Britain's countryside, inflicting damage on the nation's economy estimated at £20 billion. However, it was hardly surprising that ministers should have confirmed last week that the Government has no plans to commission a proper independent inquiry into this disaster, similar to the one that followed the much smaller outbreak in the 1960s, because it could not dare allow such a thing.

For a start, such an inquiry would have to ask why all the conclusions reached by that 1969 report were ignored, not least because ultimate control over foot and mouth policy had been handed over to the European Union.

It would have to investigate why the British Government itself then turned the 2001 epidemic into such an obscene shambles; why running of the crisis was handed over from vets to unqualified scientists and political spin-doctors; why the Government shamelessly fiddled the figures for electoral purposes; why officials were allowed to break the law on such a colossal scale, not least in killing millions of healthy animals under the "contiguous cull" policy; why, as Roger Windsor, a council member of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons, recently told his colleagues, vets were routinely blackmailed by ministry officials into breaking their professional code of conduct; above all why 95 per cent of all this chaos, horror and misery could have been avoided if the Government had heeded almost every leading foot and mouth expert in the world and switched, as soon as it was clear the epidemic was out of control, from mass slaughter to mass vaccination.

It was one thing for Mr Blair to spend £27 million on the largely pointless Phillips Inquiry into BSE, with its convenient cut-off date of March 20, 1996, so that any blame would attach to the previous Tory government. It would be quite another to allow a truly independent enquiry into what has been one of the worst acts of maladministration on record, for which no one was ultimately more responsible than Mr Blair himself.

A MEETING HAS BEEN CALLED FOR AN UPDATE ON THE EPYNT AND WILL TAKE PLACE AT TRECASTLE COMMUNITY CENTRE ON MONDAY EVENING, 25 JUNE, AT 8PM.

LATEST NEWS 25 JUNE 2001

WHAT ARE THE COSTS TO THE TAXPAYER FOR THE ABORTED BURIAL AND THREE MONTH PYRE ON THE EPYNT?

We don’t know the costs of preparing the aborted burial site and burn site and all the ancillary activities such as cleaning lorries and pumping out contaminated boreholes, the cost of transporting carcasses, coal (2 months at about 120 tons per day), sleepers, plastic linings, the cost of JCBs and other equipment, disinfectants such as Vercon S, contractors such as Greyhound and Morgan, monitoring equipment, manpower. However, we do know that the total cost of Operation Epynt to the Police Authority alone at 18 June was £626,268. Therefore the total cost of this terrible mistake to use the Epynt for carcass disposal must run into many millions of pounds of our money. On top of this is the human cost. This is likely to be increased if they leave the 6,000 tons of ash on site which will not be known fully for 20 to 30 years. It is the children who may suffer! This ash is controlled waste and we believe must be removed under sections 59 of the environmental protection act 1990 as it was deposited there without a Waste Management Licence and under section 33 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 involving controlled waste. We must keep our guard up to ensure the ash is removed – it may be necessary to resort once again to Law – we cannot rely on the Environment Agency to bring the action as they did in a recent case against an individual in Brecon, since they have been instrumental in providing most of the advice which resulted in the pollution disaster at Epynt in the first place. It would be interesting to know how many carcasses were actually buried at the site and whether any of the cattle burnt were over 30 months given that the Environment Agency have been testing for BSE prions.

SMELL OF BURNING FLESH ON EPYNT REPORTED 40 MILES AWAY

A farmer ploughing at Boncath near Cardigan, contacted the Epynt Action Group to say he could smell burning flesh from the Epynt all day one day when he was ploughing on high ground when the wind was coming from Llandovery. He said that the smell kept coming and going throughout the day. Boncath is about 40 miles from the Epynt!

Powys County Council’s air quality monitoring of the Epynt refers to elevated levels of PM10s (fine particles) on 10-12 May and 25-26 May. Their comment is that the PM10 monitoring site in Swansea also recorded elevated levels and therefore they considered it a "regional increase and not directly related to the Epynt pyres." This assumes of course that the extent of the pyre on the Epynt did not lead to the regional pollution. On 31 May Powys County Council also stated that although the pyres are now extinguished monitoring will continue until pyre ash has been removed from site. The pyre continues to smoulder and we hope that the pyre ash will indeed soon be removed.

Latest News
15 June 2001 Site visits by our monitor have been reduced from every three days to once a week – normally on a Friday.

The whole area today was very sodden after heavy rainfall and no work was going on. Bone and pieces of plastic are still visible throughout the burial site and a small section of the site had been covered with top soil containing vegetation. The week before our monitor had found foul smells and fluid in two of the boreholes by the burial site. However, she was unable to check them this week as the one which had a pump working in it last week had been sealed with a locked manhole cover and the other had been covered up with soil! National Assembly representative, Andrew King, who was accompanying our monitor, was shocked and said he would look into it. There was no tanker present on site. One of the sump holes was holding liquid and giving off a bad smell. The other two sump holes had been covered with scalpings. Our monitor was concerned that a hardcore area had been laid for military manoeuvres. She felt that heavy artillery would undermine the ditch and pipes so that any pollution would flow straight down into the Gwydderig (tributary of the River Towy).

Our monitor and King then made their way to the burn site. There was no disinfecting of vehicles between the burial and burn site anymore and white suits were optional at the burn site. The rain had sealed the surface of the pyres, but some smoke and flames were still present. The heat had been greatly reduced by the large amount of rain. Our monitor noticed a large amount of standing water in the whole area. Four sheep carcasses had been lying around the burn site for several weeks now and one had been dragged 16 feet towards Bwlchgwyn area, the other three had been partly eaten.

Copies of site reports are available from the Resource Centre.

From the DAILY EXPRESS, 25 May 2001 DON'T DRINK THE WATER EXCLUSIVE: Humans in foot-and-mouth areas now face CJD, warns government scientist

The government's top BSE adviser admitted last night that he would not drink tap water near foot-and-mouth burial sites.
Professor Peter Smith warned that there was a risk of devloping the human form of mad cow disease by drinking contaminated water.
Villagers living near the burning sites said they were horrifed to learn their water could be unsafe to drink.
There are 90 sites across the country where cattle more than five years old - the highest BSE risk - have been buried.
Professor Smith estimated that the risk of developing CJD from contaminated water could be as high as one in 200,000 in burial pits where older cattle have not first been incinerated.
In other sites where older cattle have been burned and then buried, the contamination risk is around one in a million. He also confirmed that ash from the fires could spread contaminated particles.
The Ministry of Agriculture and the Department of Health last night said that they had not ruled out digging up burial sites after urgent risk assessment checks had been carried out. The warning came on the day it was revealed that CJD had claimed its 100th victim. (Copyright DAILY EXPRESS 25.05.01)