BVFoE NEWSLETTER                               WINTER 2000

During the discussion on the application Charlie Fraser-Fleming (Lib-Dem) was one of the few councillors to speak against the application (Patrick Kirby refusing to take part in the debate as he didn’t feel the council was ready to vote on such a major decision).

The application that Swiss based TAG Aviation had put forward was for 6% of movements to be up to 80 tonnes maximum take-off weight (MTOW). This was going against the new Rushmoor Local Plan that had only just been approved by John Prescott and clearly stated that the MTOW should be 50 tonnes.

Fraser-Fleming asked for the vote on the application to be split so that the weight issue was voted on separately from the general flying question. Before the chairman and councillors could discuss this request, the council solicitor, Mr Lawther, sensationally interjected to say that he had learnt from TAG that they would walk away from the application altogether if they did not get their own way! The unelected solicitor had no right to interrupt the councillor’s debate, which as a result of his interference meant that Fraser-Fleming’s request was not even then discussed, and the vote for the application as a whole then went ahead and was voted through. As the application went against the Local Plan it had to go to John Prescott at the DETR for his approval, and although many of the group wrote to him asking for a Public Inquiry he routinely rubber-stamped it through "as it had no national or regional grounds for a public inquiry".

The majority vote for the application means that we will now be legally having up to 1500 movements of Airbus 319 (MTOW 68t) and Boeing Business 737 Jets (MTOW 77t) flying over our heads as part of the 28,000 total movements that the Local Plan allows them. As many local campaigners had pointed out over the campaign, the position of the airfield situated in a natural hollow, makes it very dangerous for aircraft movements and is now an accident waiting to happen. Even the Local Plan Inspector, Mr Simpson, realised this two years ago when he wanted the 1 in 100,000 risk factor contained within the airfield boundary. If the council had taken aboard his recommendation then this would would have meant a total number of movements far below what TAG wanted and they would have walked away.

Instead the council stated that "economic and employment benefits" of the proposals meant that safety and pollution considerations should be overridden, even though as TAG have admitted, the development will only create another 150 jobs in 10 years (15 jobs per year!).

The council and majority of councillors have clearly put the profits of multi-national TAG before the interests of the local people that they have been voted in to look after. A sad day for the local people and their environment.

Besides the safety aspects of this development, our group is very concerned by the effect of this number of movements on the air quality which is already not on target to meet DETR limits due to the large increase in traffic in the area. This is not going to helped by the large habitat destruction at either ends of the runway that will have to take place in order for the Civil Aviation Authority to give TAG an operator licence. In the east, in South Farnborough, up to 150 trees will be either cut down or lopped for this development. In the west it is even worse, work has just started on the Bourley and Long Valley SSSI (part of the Thames Basin Heath Special Protection Area) which will permanently destroy the landscape and habitat of the area. The work will involve deforesting 170 acres of the SSSI and lowering the tops of three hills which involves removing 50,000 m3 of earth. If this is not, in TAG's words "adequately managed", this earthworks will cause siltation of the SSSI of Fleet Pond. Due to the recent heavy rain we have been having there is a distinct possibility that this siltation will occur. The work is being performed by the MoD without any planning permission because of Crown immunity. However both BVFoE and Hants Wildlife Trust had previously advised Rushmoor Borough Council that the large nature of the works, involving mineral extraction, waste disposal and engineering works should have meant that a specific planning application was put forward by TAG. This application was not forthcoming and neither Rushmoor or Hart have objected to the MoD performing the work!

BVFoE would like the opportunity to thank all members who have supported the airfield campaign over the past two years. Rushmoor received 1220 letters of objection over the application, by the council’s own admission at least 500 of these were due to the group’s leaflet, distributed by many volunteers over the locality last year.

This rally will be to publicise the damage being done to the SSSIs, particularly Bourley and Long Valley where work has already started, and to highlight the need for the Countryside and Rights of Way Bill. This Bill will, if passed, make owners of SSSIs responsible and could therefore prevent such destruction to SSSIs happening in the future.

• In particular, the port will be designed to handle the world’s largest container ships (up to 6 at any one time), carrying over 7000 containers.
• There will be 2.1km of quay, plus large areas for container storage, railway marshalling yards, support services and administration.
• Off-site development will consist of road and rail links through the New Forest Heritage Area; level-crossing/bridge at Totton and extensive intertidal and seabed dredging.

More specifically, the foreshore forms part of the Solent and Southampton Water Special Protection Area; the area is also a classified Ramsar Site (Wetland of International Importance); it also adjoins the proposed Solent and Isle of Wight Maritime Special Area of Conservation and forms part of the Hythe to Calshot Marshes Site of Special Scientific Interest. It also forms a "strategic gap" between Hythe and Marchwood and is one of the few remaining undeveloped areas on Southampton Water.

• Irreparable damage to nationally and internationally designated wildlife sites, including the adjoining New Forest Heritage Area ( a proposed National Park).
• Total loss of the foreshore mudflats
• Total loss of grazing marsh and of the "strategic gap"
• An estimated 6100 vehicle movements per day with all the resulting traffic congestion, air pollution noise and vibration. A lot of these lorries will use the M3 increasing road congestion, and making air and noise pollution worse in the Blackwater Valley.
• An estimated additional 46 train movements per day by 2011, with massive implications for Totton/Marchwood communities. These freight trains will pass across the Bournemouth - London line on their way up north. This line is already up to its capacity, and this increase will seriously effect the passenger service through Farnborough.
• 24 hours a day, 365 days a year operation
• coastal erosion from the dredging
• increased disturbance to flora and fauna of the New Forest
• immense disturbance to local communities, especially during the construction phase, lasting no less than 10 years
• noise and light pollution from port operation
• increased contamination and pollution caused by fuel spillage and leaks, dumping of oil and ballast water, and leachate from anti-fouling paints

To: Tony Springthorpe, DETR Ports Division, Zone 2/29

Great Minster House, 76 Marsham Street, LONDON SW1P 4DR

What is the connection between two current campaigns of our neighbouring groups, Guildford and Godalming FoE‘s fight against the incinerator planned for Slyfield, and Alton FoE’s fight against the landfill planned for Grooms Farm in Bordon? The obvious answer would be that they are both alternative ways of waste disposal, but in this case this would be the wrong answer as they are mutually dependent on one another.

The planning application for the Slyfield burner has been put in by Thames Waste Management (TWM) for a massive 225,000 tonnes, over twice the size of the Chineham (Basingstoke) burner that Hampshire won planning permission for last year. However, as the new technology incinerators flue emissions are admittedly cleaner than the old ones (that is not to say they are safe, though) this means that what doesn’t get out the chimney stays inside either in the fly ash in the chimney scrubbers or the bottom ash at the base of the burners. As TWM will not be sorting out the waste before they burn it, there will be all sorts of nasty chemicals present in the incinerator fuel, ranging from broken mobile phones containing nickel-cadmium batteries to old central heating thermostats containing mercury. The fly-ash is therefore a concentrated dangerous mixture which will have to be disposed as toxic waste. This is where the Grooms Farm application comes in. Hampshire County Council is considering an application by Grundon to remove most of a hill in open countryside north of Bordon in order to create a void to take 1.8 million cubic metres of hazardous waste including asbestos, contaminated soils, etc. In particular it will take nearly 1 million tonnes of incinerator fly ash from the incinerators planned in the area, namely Chineham and Guildford. The landfill is necessary as otherwise the nearest one that takes toxic ash is in Buckhamshire, again owned by Grundon (who incidentally got fined recently by the Environment Agency [EA] for mismanagement of it). Both Hants and in particular Surrey (who have not yet definitely gone on the incinerator route) can justify burners easier by ironically claiming they have a nice sustainable local dump for the toxic ash.

Alton FoE and friends managed to collect over 6,000 signatures against the landfill. These were presented in July to the EA at Frimley, who have made no recommendation yet to Hants Council but have recently admitted that they still have particular concerns about the impact on water quality; the suitability of this site for the type of waste to be deposited; and the impact on wildlife and habitats.

The fight against the Guildford incinerator has just started. Hundreds of objections have been received by the EA for the operating licence and by Surrey County Council regarding the planning consent. A decision by Surrey Council on the application may be made in November.

Meanwhile BVFoE has recently made a detailed comment to Surrey on the Waste Local Plan review. We want the three Rs (Reduce, Re-use, Recycling) to be put before landfill, and for this obsession with incineration to be dropped by the county.

At a recent meeting, we held a letter writing session to lobby our MPs to support the Organic Targets Bill. This is a Bill that aims to have 30% of farmland in England and Wales in organic production by 2010. The demand for organic food, particularly fresh fruit and veg, has rocketed over the past couple of years as people are becoming increasingly aware of the amount of chemicals used on crops, chemicals that we consequently go on to ingest as we take a bite of our seemingly 'healthy' food.

If you have bought organics from a supermarket, however, you have probably noticed firstly the higher price and, secondly, that most of it (about 80% in fact) is imported. This is what the Bill aims to change. Many UK farmers would like to convert to organic farming because they see that's where the future lies, but the Government has, to date, allocated only limited funding to help farmers during the conversion phase when they are in most need of financial support. It is estimated that to implement the Bill's call for 30% of farmland in England and Wales in organic production by 2010 would cost a paltry 5% of the total £3 billion currently being spent on agriculture. If more UK farmers are helped financially to convert to organic growing, more home grown produce would be the ultimate result which, in turn, should hopefully bring prices down although farmers do need to receive a fair price for their products. An added bonus would be reduction in the amount of pollution generated in transporting produce. Freighting carrots, potatoes and apples to us from half way round the world, whether they are organic or not, is incredibly polluting, and why should it need to be done at all when those commodities can be grown here?

Organic growing also has the beneficial knock-on effects of less pesticide-laced run off washing into our rivers and streams, attracting birds and wildlife that had been driven away by the intensive use of chemicals and producing food that is more nutritious than its chemically doused counterpart, not just as a result of the absence of pesticides/herbicides etc, but also indirectly because as it not a necessity to peel organics the trace nutrients that are found just under the skin are retained. (Organics should always get a quick wash, however, just to remove any surface soil or manure).

To date, the campaign for this Bill has the support of over sixty organisations including Friends of the Earth, Soil Association, Christian Ecology Link, Compassion in World Farming, Unison, Marks & Spencer, ASDA, Waitrose, WWF and Women's Environmental Network. The Bill was due for its third chance for a Second Reading in the House of Commons in July but unfortunately ran out of time before the summer break, and consequently we now need to let our MPs know that their constituents support more organic farming and, in particular, the targets proposed by this Bill so that they will give their full support when the Bill reappears in the next Parliamentary session. (We’re hopeful that it will be taken up by one of the MPs chosen in the November ballot of backbench MPs.) Please write and let our MPs know that the time is definitely right to push for more organic growing in the UK, perhaps citing some of the reasons given above.

Our local MPs are: For Fleet / Church Crookham - James Arbuthnot; For Mytchett, Ash, Camberley, Bagshot - Nick Hawkins; For Rushmoor – Gerald Howarth. Letters should be sent to (your MP), House of Commons, London, SW1A 0AA. We will be publishing  the names of those MPs chosen in the November ballot to enable you to lobby them directly to take up this Bill. So keep watching our Home Page

If you would like more information , please contact me on 01252 510424, or Sustain on 020 7837 1228 or look it up on their website www.sustainweb.org. This Bill has the potential to help farmers, consumers and the environment.....for once everyone could be a winner!                                                                                                                                  Julie

HELP!! We’re holding a Real Food Campaign/Awareness tabling on Saturday 4th November, probably in F‘Boro – can you help out for a short while?

We also have a few copies of ‘The Real Food book’ published by FoE available at a special price of £2.00.

For more info on either of the above, please contact Julie

The aim of the campaign? To make people aware that products used on a daily basis by many of us, including fragrances, may contain hormone disrupting chemicals (endocrine disruptors). Boots was chosen by National FoE because they were the only large 'drugstore' chain which had refused to supply information to show what was contained in the products that they sell. Had you decided to live dangerously and tested one of our spoof perfumes, the only chemical you would have applied to yourself was water but in reality we may be taking in far more harmful substances. If you look at the ingredients lists for perfumes and so on, most of the chemicals are listed but then there is that vague ingredient 'Parfum' or 'Fragrance'. It is the chemicals making up the parfum or fragrance, which by current law do not have to be specified, that are causing concern because many of them have been shown to have hormone disrupting properties.

As we're all aware, hormones are found in humans and wildlife and are vital in regulating bodily functions. They act as chemical messengers and are produced by a variety of hormonal glands, including the testes, ovaries, thyroid and adrenal glands. The messages these hormones carry tell cells what to produce, how and when to grown and even when to switch off and die. They also have a key role in directing the sexual development of the embryo and developing foetus and help to form the nervous system, liver, kidneys, brain and other vital organs. Hormone disrupting chemicals interfere with the messages sent to all these vital organs. They do so by mimicking naturally-occurring hormones or by activating or blocking hormone receptors or hormone production. Just as natural hormones can have significant effects at surprisingly low concentrations, man-made contaminants that act as hormone disrupting chemicals can take effect at very low doses.

Man-made chemicals have been released into the environment for many years. Recently, however, a wide range of abnormalities have been found in wildlife that demonstrate the threats posed by hormone disruptors, including: feminised male fish such as trout, roach and flounder in many UK rivers and estuaries; female dogwhelks growing penises and becoming sterile in UK coastal areas; damage to the immune systems of North Sea seals and Mediterranean dolphins leading to viral epidemics; and female polar bear cubs with genital deformities involving a stump-like penis.

Since there is little fundamental difference between the human hormone system and that of other animals humans are more than likely affected too. Because we aren't too good at breaking down these man-made, hormone disrupting chemicals they build up in our bodies (bioaccumulate). The British government and various scientific institutions are studying the following effects on humans: declining sperm counts and semen quality; deformities of male and female reproductive organs; increasing evidence of childhood hyperactivity, learning disorders and impaired mental development; and climbing rates of breast, testicular and prostate cancers. On this last point, any of you that read the Ecologist magazine will probably have seen the feature article this month about cancer funding and the fact that despite the millions and millions of pounds that have poured into the major cancer charities, none of them has ever seriously undertaken studies of the chemicals to which we are exposed on a daily basis. Cynical though it may sound, the article asks whether this may be because the very companies that produce and market these chemicals are also, in many cases, the same companies that fund the existing treatments for many cancers. FoE is campaigning against hormone disrupting chemicals because, in addition to being potentially harmful to our health, they also widely pollute the general environment.

The campaign day was carried out by FoE groups all around the country outside their local Boots stores. In addition to having some fun with our spoof fragrances, we collected about 70 signed postcards from people in Fleet calling for Boots to remove hormone disrupting chemicals and replace them with safer alternatives, which do already exist. The cards have been sent to Boots Head Office in Nottingham, along with those from other local FoE groups and it is hoped that once Boots realises the strength of consumer feeling, the issue of hormone disrupting chemicals will be discussed at management level, ideally leading to a change in company policy. Major competitors The Body Shop and Superdrug are already actively seeking alternatives to hormone disrupting chemicals for their own products.

As more is becoming known about the possible effects of hormone disrupting chemicals, the more we can do to limit our exposure to them. Hormone disrupting chemicals are found in a wide range of products; in plastics (you may have heard that some companies are now starting to remove these chemicals from baby toys), food packaging, paints, cosmetics, etc. The Worldwide Fund For Nature has produced an excellent booklet, entitled 'Reducing Your Risk - A UK guide to Avoiding Hormone Disruptors', from which some of the above information was taken, and Friends of the Earth is putting together an action pack. If you would like a copy of the (free) WWF booklet, please contact me, details below. Also, why not join FoE's Safer Chemicals campaign?? BVFoE will be taking part in as many campaigns, such as the Boots day, as we are able. Campaign days can be a fun and effective way of getting the environmental message across .....and we're always grateful for more help. Please let me know if you're interested in taking part -- don't worry if you don't consider yourself an 'expert' on the subject, enthusiasm and a bit of spare time are all you need!                                                 Julie

If you want to read more about this issue, a really excellent book is 'Our Stolen Future' by Dr.,Theo Colborn, Dianne Dumanoski and Dr. John Peterson Myers (published by Abacus). The first few chapters are a bit 'X-Files' ish, but overall this book gives an excellent and easily readable account of endocrine disruption.

For a free copy of the booklet 'Reducing Your Risk....' please contact Julie Kimber on 01252 510424 or e-mail julie or send an SAE (at least 21 x 10cm) to 32 Alder Close, Ash Vale, GU12 5QS

National FoE campaigners put president of arrogant US bog-destroying corporation Scotts on the spot recently, presenting him with an award for the company's: "special contribution to corporate environmental irresponsibility". Scotts is responsible for damaging the UK's largest lowland peatland SSSI at Thorne Moor and Hatfield Moor in Yorkshire and Wedholme Flow in Cumbria for peat-based garden compost products. Scotts is based in Ohio and has its UK HQ in Godalming, Surrey.

While speaking at a conference proclaiming the quality of the Scotts brand, Charles M Berger chairman of the massive US corporation was ambushed by campaigners. Scotts is especially irresponsible because it has claimed that the sites are not important for wildlife and that its operations -which strip-mine layers of peat - are not damaging.

Last month the sites were further proposed as candidate Special Areas of Conservation under the European Habitats Directive which introduces an improved level of legal protection and opens up the prospects that Scotts' damaging activities will be halted because the sites will be recognised as being among Europe's internationally important wildlife areas. Yet Scotts has stated it currently intends to continue damaging the sites!!!

The views expressed in this newsletter are not necessarily representative of Blackwater Valley Friends of the Earth (BVFoE) or Friends of the Earth England Wales and Northern Ireland (FoE EWNI).