-Caveat Lector-
From
http://www.guardian.co.uk/footandmouth/story/0,7369,658606,00.html
}}}>Begin
Water supplies could be contaminated
Peter Hetherington, regional affairs editor
Wednesday February 27, 2002
The Guardian
Water supplies in several parts of Britain could be contaminated from hundreds of
thousands of animals buried and burned during last year's foot and mouth epidemic,
government advisers warn today.
In an assessment of the continuing fall-out from the crisis, which probably led to the
slaughter of 10m sheep and cattle, the environment agency said it could not rule out
long term impact on groundwater from the burial of carcasses and from pyre ash.
Detailed monitoring of supplies in Cumbria, Northumberland, and parts of Yorkshire,
Lancashire, Wales and the west country would be needed over a considerable period
because of the "potentially dangerous" consequences from burying animals in
sensitive areas.
Already contractors working for the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural
Affairs have dug up at least 160 sites where livestock was dumped and removed ash
and carcasses to landfill quarries in Buckinghamshire and west Cumbria at a cost of
�30m. But 10 other sites have yet to be tackled.
Today the agency warns in a report that the impact on groundwater from the burial of
carcasses and from pyre ash "could take time to materialise".
After an extensive risk assessment, it said that while no serious consequences had
so far been detected, sites where large numbers of carcasses or ash were buried
would nevertheless need careful attention.
Sir John Harman, the agency chairman, said: "Overall, the immediate impact of the
foot and mouth outbreak appears to have been limited, but we are left with a legacy
of mass burial sites that will require management and monitoring well into the future."
Trying to put the scale of the problem into perspective, the agency said while many of
the animals destroyed last year went to rendering plants, 61,000 tonnes of carcasses
were dumped at four mass burial sites, while more were destroyed on 950 pyre sites.
It recorded over 200 water pollution incidents, with three classified as serious.
An agency spokesman said the risk from contaminated groundwater could be
"potentially dangerous".
Geoff Bateman, who leads its foot and mouth task group, said mass burial sites - at
Great Orton in Cumbria, Tow Law and Widdrington in the north-east, Worcester and
mid-Wales - would need to be carefully monitored over at least a 10 year period.
Bore holes would be drilled near aquifers to ensure that water supplies were safe.
While Defra has officially played down fears that some of the buried cattle over 30-
months-old may have been susceptible to BSE, it has privately raised concerns.
In a letter to one Northumberland farmer it said it had asked the environment agency
for a risk assessment "on the chance that cattle with BSE could have been buried on
[a particular] site".
It then adds: "Using the assessment you gave ... on the source of the animals the
veterinary assessment was such that it would be better to remove the ash."
The letter also raised the possibility of "toxic material leaking from the site and
entering ground water".
It said this was not an issue of the foot and mouth virus "but the possible other
contaminations that may be in the ash".
The scale of the operation became apparent yesterday on the Belsay estate in
Northumberland, where the remains of almost 1,000 cattle were buried from six
farms.
The manager, Sue Bolam, said Defra contractors began work to remove animals
from a long pit two weeks' ago and she expected the exercise to last four months,
with lorry convoys leaving the site daily. "I am still very angry and I have not had a
satisfactory explanation of what is going on," she said.
They had been told that if ash was not removed the land would be branded
contaminated. "They first said there was a very faint risk of BSE, but now they are
talking of contamination."
Guardian Unlimited � Guardian Newspapers Limited 2002
End<{{{~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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