You have to hand it to Natural England. Their timing of their authorisation for 2014 badger cull was nothing short of extraordinary.

It comes just as the High Court ponders its judgment on the legality of the cull, following a Judicial Review hearing last week called by the Badger Trust.

It also pre-empts the outcome of a criminal investigation by Gloucestershire Police following serious revelations by a whistle-blowing monitor employed by the Animal Health and Veterinary Laboratories Agency (AHVLA).

As reported on 14th August by The Ecologist, the monitor revealed that last year’s pilot badger culls were not only badly organised – they were also full of dishonesty on the part of all those setting up and running the culls, and criminal behaviour on the part of the contractors doing the killing, seriously threatening the safety of the public.

Why the 2014 cull is unlawful

The Badger Trust set out a powerful case in the High Court last week, on 21st August, that any further culling must have independent monitoring and assessment, and would be unlawful in its absence.

This service was provided in the 2013 cull by the Independent Expert Panel (IEP) – but Defra decided against asking them back this year. Instead, Defra has stated it will proceed with the culls without them, and that “lessons have been learned” – so no more monitoring is necessary.

How much time the Defra barrister had to present its defence is not clear. The hearing was scheduled to take a day and as this was just before a Bank Holiday weekend, no one would want it to run over time, including the man who has to decide on the case, Mr Justice Kenneth Parker.

During the morning session, it was clear that the Trust’s barrister was making extensive use of Defra’s own documentation on the culls. Was there anything left for Defra to use in its defence? And could any other facts affect the judgment that will come in due course? As it happened, yes.

The whistle blower report raises serious questions – and a criminal investigation

The very day after the High Court hearing the news was released that Gloucester Police were setting up a criminal investigation, following the claims made by the whistle-blower, more details of which are gradually being released.

If anything should demand proper independent monitoring, it is surely the kind of behaviour that the monitor reported to Defra, which appears to have taken little or no action over the claims.

The Badger Trust had written to Environment Secretary Liz Truss when the whistle-blower report first came out. Like everyone, they want some answers:

“As you will be aware, this article was based on information provided by a whistle blower who worked as a cull monitor for AHVLA during the 2013 pilot culls. It raises serious concerns about the behaviour of both badger cullers and AHVLA contractors, which call into question the safety of the cull as well as the monitoring of its effectiveness.

“We would be grateful if you could confirm if you were aware of these allegations and identify what steps Defra took at the time this information was provided to investigate, including whether it was passed to the Independent Expert Panel for consideration? Please also confirm what measures have been put in place to prevent any such occurrences happening again?”

The Trust is still waiting for answers, but Gloucester Police are finally taking some action over the public safety issue. What took them so long?

Only protestors were arrested – but none charged

Gloucester Against Badger Shooting (GABS) sent them a ‘specimen’ list of 26 incidents of wrongdoing by culling contractors in January.

The list details trespass, physical harassment of protesters (including at least one case of bodily injury) by contractors, and several firearms offences and gun licence infringements. Many of these were reported at the time of the offence to the police.

Gloucester Police did make 39 arrests during the cull, all of them involving protesters, none of whom ended up in court. The same unbalanced policing occurred in Somerset.

Were any contractors in either county arrested, questioned and charged? Not as far as we know. And serious questions have to be asked. As Dominic Dyer of the Badger Trust says:

“The AHVLA monitor provided a full report on the serious public safety breaches by the cull contractor to Defra in January and met with Defra officials to discuss its key findings.

“Did Owen Paterson see this report and if so why did he not bring it to the attention of the Independent Expert Panel and Parliament? Was it covered up to ensure the pilot culls could continue despite the serious risk to public safety?”

Anti-cull campaigners have often said that they feel the police were very uninformed over what contractors could or couldn’t do, what constituted ‘crimes’ and ‘offences’ and when they could, for instance, make arrests.

But as The Ecologist has made clear, this is a serious public safety issue, and one that needs to be urgently addressed before any more culling takes place.

SABC – police and Natural England must review the evidence

In their press release about the criminal investigation, Somerset Against the Badger Cull (SABC) say they are now asking both Avon and Somerset Police and Natural England to “review all the video, audio and written recordings from the AHVLA monitors from last year.” They feel, as many do, that the government is not to be trusted over the safety issue.

SABC “congratulates Gloucestershire police in taking this matter seriously and urges Avon and Somerset Constabulary to apply the same rigour before shooters such as these are let loose in our countryside again.”

Avon & Somerset have already announced that in future culls representatives of the National Farmers Union and the culling company HNV Associates Ltd will not be present in the police control room, something that caused outrage when it became known.

But it was one more sign that the setting up of the culls had been a shambles; that the people involved were poorly trained; that no proper safety assessments had been done; and very that little thought had been given to the role the police were expected to fulfil.

The police have failed – so far

The police are there to prevent crime, to investigate wrongdoing and arrest the perpetrators, and to protect the public from criminal behaviour.

They had been given so little information that they were unable to perform any of these duties during the cull. Adding to the problem they had received the impression (from both Defra, the NFU and the contracting companies) that anything the contractors did was lawful.

The second phase of the badger culls was supposed to have started this week. Things are on hold. The culls cannot be policed because of the NATO summit in Newport, which will require 9,000 of their officers to be on duty.

And will the government be foolhardy enough to go ahead without waiting for the result of the Judicial Review? Given their sheer arrogance, they may go ahead. But a wise man or woman, which the government apparently lacks, would wait.

And now Natural England gives the go-ahead

Surely now, before any further badger culling takes place, the issue of public safety must be faced and addressed by the government.

To have irresponsible gunmen, using high-powered rifles with bullets that can travel up to a mile with lethal effect and with little apparent knowledge of either our wildlife or the terrain within which they are operating, arrogantly bumbling out of control in the dark is simply not to be allowed.

Under such circumstances the police cannot ensure public safety and they need to make that clear to the government before someone gets shot.

And now that Natural England has issued its authorisations for the 2014 culls in Somerset and Gloucestershire, that could be sooner than we thought.

NE insists that Defra and the AHVLA have developed a robust monitoring regime. They appear not to have noticed that the whistle-blower was employed by the AHVLA.

To announce this just after the whistle-blower revelations; while the Judicial Review judgment is still to come; and when the police investigation has only just started demonstrates all too clearly how keen Natural England, Defra and their affiliates are to kill, regardless.

It’s enough to make me weep.

Lesley Docksey is a freelance writer who writes for The Ecologist on the badger cull and other environmental subjects.

See her other articles for The Ecologist.

As aftershocks of the 6.0 Napa earthquake that occurred Sunday in California continued, the Associated Press revealed a secret government report pointing to major earthquake vulnerabilities at the Diablo Canyon nuclear plants which are a little more than 200 miles away and sitting amid a webwork of earthquake faults.

It’s apparent to any visitor to the stretch of California where the two Diablo Canyon plants are sited that it is geologically hot. A major tourist feature of the area: hot spas.

“Welcome to the Avila Hot Springs”, declares the website of one, noting how “historic Avila Hot Springs” was “discovered in 1907 by at the time unlucky oil drillers and established” as a “popular visitor-serving natural artesian mineral hot springs.”

Nevertheless, Pacific Gas & Electric had no problem in 1965 picking the area along the California coast, north of Avila Beach, as a location for two nuclear plants.

Geology rocks!

It was known that the San Andreas Fault was inland 45 miles away. But in 1971, with construction already under way, oil company geologists discovered another earthquake fault – the Hosgri Fault, just three miles out in the Pacific from the plant site and linked to the San Andreas Fault.

In 2008 yet another fault was discovered, the Shoreline Fault – just 650 yards from the Diablo Canyon plants.

The Shoreline Fault, and concerns about the vulnerability of nuclear plants to earthquakes in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi disaster, are integral to a 42-page report written by Dr. Michael Peck.

For five years Peck was the lead inspector on-site for the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission at Diablo Canyon. He’s still with the NRC, a trainer at its Technical Training Center in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Peck’s report was obtained by the Associated Press, which has done excellent journalism in recent years investigating the dangers of nuclear power, and they issued their story on Monday. In the report

Peck writes: “The new seismic information resulted in a condition outside of the bounds of the existing Diablo Canyon design basis and safety analysis. Continued reactor operation outside the bounds of the NRC approved safety analyses challenges the presumption of nuclear safety.”

“The Shoreline [Fault] Scenario results in SSC [acronym in the nuclear field for Structures, Systems and Components] seismic stress beyond the plant SSE [Safe Shutdown Earthquake] qualification basis. Exposure to higher levels of stress results in an increase[d] likelihood of a malfunction of SSCs. The change also increases the likelihood of a malfunction of SSCs important to safety…”

A ‘reasonable assurance of safety’?

Peck notes that the “prevailing” NRC staff view is that “potential ground motions from the Shoreline fault are at or below those levels for which the plant was previously evaluated and demonstrated to have a ‘reasonable assurance of safety’.”

He disagrees, noting that the NRC staff “also failed to address the Los Osos and San Luis Bay faults”, faults that the Shoreline Fault are seen as potentially interacting with, and that “new seismic information” concludes that “these faults were also capable of producing ground motions.”

In addition, “The prevailing staff view that ‘operability’ may be demonstrated independent of existing facility design basis and safety analyses requirements establishes a new industry precedent. Power reactor licensees may apply this precedent to other nonconforming and unanalyzed conditions.”

“What’s striking about Peck’s analysis”, says AP, “is that it comes from within the NRC itself, and gives a rare look at a dispute within the agency. At issue are whether the plant’s mechanical guts could survive a big jolt, and what yardsticks should be used to measure the ability of the equipment to withstand the potentially strong vibrations that could result.”

It continues: “Environmentalists have long depicted Diablo Canyon – the state’s last nuclear plant after the 2013 closure of the San Onofre reactors in Southern California – as a nuclear catastrophe in waiting.

“In many ways, the history of the plant, located halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco … and within 50 miles of 500,000 people, has been a costly fight against nature, involving questions and repairs connected to its design and structural strength.”

Nuclear secrecy

Calling the Peck report “explosive”, the environmental group Friends of the Earth this week described it as having been “kept secret for a year.”

According to Damon Moglen, senior strategy advisor at Friends of the Earth, “Inspector Peck is the canary in the coal mine, warning us of a possible catastrophe at Diablo Canyon before it’s too late. We agree with him that Diablo Canyon is vulnerable to earthquakes and must be shut down immediately.”

“Given the overwhelming risk of earthquakes, federal and state authorities would never allow nuclear reactors on this site now. Are PG&E and the NRC putting the industry’s profits before the health and safety of millions of Californians.”

“Rather than the NRC keeping this a secret, there must be a thorough investigation with public hearings to determine whether these reactors can operate safely.”

Can Diablo Canyon survive an earthquake?

Michael Mariotte, president of the Nuclear Information & Resource Service, commented Monday that in “plain English” what Peck’s report acknowledges is:

“The NRC does not know whether Diablo Canyon could survive an earthquake, within the realm of the possible, at any of the faults around Diablo Canyon. And the reactors should shut down until the NRC does know one way or the other.

“Of course, if the reactors cannot survive a postulated earthquake, the obvious conclusion is that they must close permanently. The question is whether the NRC will ever act on Peck’s recommendation or whether the agency will continue to sit on it until after the next earthquake.”

Mariotte adds: “The irony is that this should have been the big news a year ago; Peck wrote his recommendation – in the form of a formal Differing Professional Opionion – in July 2013. And the NRC still hasn’t taken action or even responded to it.”

In his report Peck also states that the NRC is supposed to be committed to a “standard of safety” and “safety means avoiding undue risk or providing reasonable assurance of adequate protection for the public.”

PG&E’s response? Apply to extend the licenses

Meanwhile, PG&E has not only been insisting that its Diablo Canyon plants are safe, despite the earthquake threat, but has filed with the NRC to extend the 40 year licenses given for their operations another 20 years – to 2044 for Diablo Canyon 1 and to 2045 for Diablo Canyon 2.

An analysis done in 1982 by Sandia National Laboratories for the NRC, titled ‘Calculations for Reactor Accident Consequences 2‘, evaluated the impacts of a meltdown with “breach of containment” at every nuclear plant in the US – what happened at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plants as a result of an earthquake.

For the Diablo Canyon nuclear plants, it projected 10,000 “peak early fatalities” for each of the plants and $155 billion in property damages for Diablo Canyon 1 and $158 billion for Diablo Canyon 2 – in 1980 dollars.

Karl Grossman is professor of journalism at the State University of New York/College at Old Westbury, and the author of ‘Cover Up: What You Are Not Supposed to Know About Nuclear Power’ and host of the nationally-aired TV program ‘EnviroCloseup‘.

You have to hand it to Natural England. Their timing of their authorisation for 2014 badger cull was nothing short of extraordinary.

It comes just as the High Court ponders its judgment on the legality of the cull, following a Judicial Review hearing last week called by the Badger Trust.

It also pre-empts the outcome of a criminal investigation by Gloucestershire Police following serious revelations by a whistle-blowing monitor employed by the Animal Health and Veterinary Laboratories Agency (AHVLA).

As reported on 14th August by The Ecologist, the monitor revealed that last year’s pilot badger culls were not only badly organised – they were also full of dishonesty on the part of all those setting up and running the culls, and criminal behaviour on the part of the contractors doing the killing, seriously threatening the safety of the public.

Why the 2014 cull is unlawful

The Badger Trust set out a powerful case in the High Court last week, on 21st August, that any further culling must have independent monitoring and assessment, and would be unlawful in its absence.

This service was provided in the 2013 cull by the Independent Expert Panel (IEP) – but Defra decided against asking them back this year. Instead, Defra has stated it will proceed with the culls without them, and that “lessons have been learned” – so no more monitoring is necessary.

How much time the Defra barrister had to present its defence is not clear. The hearing was scheduled to take a day and as this was just before a Bank Holiday weekend, no one would want it to run over time, including the man who has to decide on the case, Mr Justice Kenneth Parker.

During the morning session, it was clear that the Trust’s barrister was making extensive use of Defra’s own documentation on the culls. Was there anything left for Defra to use in its defence? And could any other facts affect the judgment that will come in due course? As it happened, yes.

The whistle blower report raises serious questions – and a criminal investigation

The very day after the High Court hearing the news was released that Gloucester Police were setting up a criminal investigation, following the claims made by the whistle-blower, more details of which are gradually being released.

If anything should demand proper independent monitoring, it is surely the kind of behaviour that the monitor reported to Defra, which appears to have taken little or no action over the claims.

The Badger Trust had written to Environment Secretary Liz Truss when the whistle-blower report first came out. Like everyone, they want some answers:

“As you will be aware, this article was based on information provided by a whistle blower who worked as a cull monitor for AHVLA during the 2013 pilot culls. It raises serious concerns about the behaviour of both badger cullers and AHVLA contractors, which call into question the safety of the cull as well as the monitoring of its effectiveness.

“We would be grateful if you could confirm if you were aware of these allegations and identify what steps Defra took at the time this information was provided to investigate, including whether it was passed to the Independent Expert Panel for consideration? Please also confirm what measures have been put in place to prevent any such occurrences happening again?”

The Trust is still waiting for answers, but Gloucester Police are finally taking some action over the public safety issue. What took them so long?

Only protestors were arrested – but none charged

Gloucester Against Badger Shooting (GABS) sent them a ‘specimen’ list of 26 incidents of wrongdoing by culling contractors in January.

The list details trespass, physical harassment of protesters (including at least one case of bodily injury) by contractors, and several firearms offences and gun licence infringements. Many of these were reported at the time of the offence to the police.

Gloucester Police did make 39 arrests during the cull, all of them involving protesters, none of whom ended up in court. The same unbalanced policing occurred in Somerset.

Were any contractors in either county arrested, questioned and charged? Not as far as we know. And serious questions have to be asked. As Dominic Dyer of the Badger Trust says:

“The AHVLA monitor provided a full report on the serious public safety breaches by the cull contractor to Defra in January and met with Defra officials to discuss its key findings.

“Did Owen Paterson see this report and if so why did he not bring it to the attention of the Independent Expert Panel and Parliament? Was it covered up to ensure the pilot culls could continue despite the serious risk to public safety?”

Anti-cull campaigners have often said that they feel the police were very uninformed over what contractors could or couldn’t do, what constituted ‘crimes’ and ‘offences’ and when they could, for instance, make arrests.

But as The Ecologist has made clear, this is a serious public safety issue, and one that needs to be urgently addressed before any more culling takes place.

SABC – police and Natural England must review the evidence

In their press release about the criminal investigation, Somerset Against the Badger Cull (SABC) say they are now asking both Avon and Somerset Police and Natural England to “review all the video, audio and written recordings from the AHVLA monitors from last year.” They feel, as many do, that the government is not to be trusted over the safety issue.

SABC “congratulates Gloucestershire police in taking this matter seriously and urges Avon and Somerset Constabulary to apply the same rigour before shooters such as these are let loose in our countryside again.”

Avon & Somerset have already announced that in future culls representatives of the National Farmers Union and the culling company HNV Associates Ltd will not be present in the police control room, something that caused outrage when it became known.

But it was one more sign that the setting up of the culls had been a shambles; that the people involved were poorly trained; that no proper safety assessments had been done; and very that little thought had been given to the role the police were expected to fulfil.

The police have failed – so far

The police are there to prevent crime, to investigate wrongdoing and arrest the perpetrators, and to protect the public from criminal behaviour.

They had been given so little information that they were unable to perform any of these duties during the cull. Adding to the problem they had received the impression (from both Defra, the NFU and the contracting companies) that anything the contractors did was lawful.

The second phase of the badger culls was supposed to have started this week. Things are on hold. The culls cannot be policed because of the NATO summit in Newport, which will require 9,000 of their officers to be on duty.

And will the government be foolhardy enough to go ahead without waiting for the result of the Judicial Review? Given their sheer arrogance, they may go ahead. But a wise man or woman, which the government apparently lacks, would wait.

And now Natural England gives the go-ahead

Surely now, before any further badger culling takes place, the issue of public safety must be faced and addressed by the government.

To have irresponsible gunmen, using high-powered rifles with bullets that can travel up to a mile with lethal effect and with little apparent knowledge of either our wildlife or the terrain within which they are operating, arrogantly bumbling out of control in the dark is simply not to be allowed.

Under such circumstances the police cannot ensure public safety and they need to make that clear to the government before someone gets shot.

And now that Natural England has issued its authorisations for the 2014 culls in Somerset and Gloucestershire, that could be sooner than we thought.

NE insists that Defra and the AHVLA have developed a robust monitoring regime. They appear not to have noticed that the whistle-blower was employed by the AHVLA.

To announce this just after the whistle-blower revelations; while the Judicial Review judgment is still to come; and when the police investigation has only just started demonstrates all too clearly how keen Natural England, Defra and their affiliates are to kill, regardless.

It’s enough to make me weep.

Lesley Docksey is a freelance writer who writes for The Ecologist on the badger cull and other environmental subjects.

See her other articles for The Ecologist.

As aftershocks of the 6.0 Napa earthquake that occurred Sunday in California continued, the Associated Press revealed a secret government report pointing to major earthquake vulnerabilities at the Diablo Canyon nuclear plants which are a little more than 200 miles away and sitting amid a webwork of earthquake faults.

It’s apparent to any visitor to the stretch of California where the two Diablo Canyon plants are sited that it is geologically hot. A major tourist feature of the area: hot spas.

“Welcome to the Avila Hot Springs”, declares the website of one, noting how “historic Avila Hot Springs” was “discovered in 1907 by at the time unlucky oil drillers and established” as a “popular visitor-serving natural artesian mineral hot springs.”

Nevertheless, Pacific Gas & Electric had no problem in 1965 picking the area along the California coast, north of Avila Beach, as a location for two nuclear plants.

Geology rocks!

It was known that the San Andreas Fault was inland 45 miles away. But in 1971, with construction already under way, oil company geologists discovered another earthquake fault – the Hosgri Fault, just three miles out in the Pacific from the plant site and linked to the San Andreas Fault.

In 2008 yet another fault was discovered, the Shoreline Fault – just 650 yards from the Diablo Canyon plants.

The Shoreline Fault, and concerns about the vulnerability of nuclear plants to earthquakes in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi disaster, are integral to a 42-page report written by Dr. Michael Peck.

For five years Peck was the lead inspector on-site for the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission at Diablo Canyon. He’s still with the NRC, a trainer at its Technical Training Center in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Peck’s report was obtained by the Associated Press, which has done excellent journalism in recent years investigating the dangers of nuclear power, and they issued their story on Monday. In the report

Peck writes: “The new seismic information resulted in a condition outside of the bounds of the existing Diablo Canyon design basis and safety analysis. Continued reactor operation outside the bounds of the NRC approved safety analyses challenges the presumption of nuclear safety.”

“The Shoreline [Fault] Scenario results in SSC [acronym in the nuclear field for Structures, Systems and Components] seismic stress beyond the plant SSE [Safe Shutdown Earthquake] qualification basis. Exposure to higher levels of stress results in an increase[d] likelihood of a malfunction of SSCs. The change also increases the likelihood of a malfunction of SSCs important to safety…”

A ‘reasonable assurance of safety’?

Peck notes that the “prevailing” NRC staff view is that “potential ground motions from the Shoreline fault are at or below those levels for which the plant was previously evaluated and demonstrated to have a ‘reasonable assurance of safety’.”

He disagrees, noting that the NRC staff “also failed to address the Los Osos and San Luis Bay faults”, faults that the Shoreline Fault are seen as potentially interacting with, and that “new seismic information” concludes that “these faults were also capable of producing ground motions.”

In addition, “The prevailing staff view that ‘operability’ may be demonstrated independent of existing facility design basis and safety analyses requirements establishes a new industry precedent. Power reactor licensees may apply this precedent to other nonconforming and unanalyzed conditions.”

“What’s striking about Peck’s analysis”, says AP, “is that it comes from within the NRC itself, and gives a rare look at a dispute within the agency. At issue are whether the plant’s mechanical guts could survive a big jolt, and what yardsticks should be used to measure the ability of the equipment to withstand the potentially strong vibrations that could result.”

It continues: “Environmentalists have long depicted Diablo Canyon – the state’s last nuclear plant after the 2013 closure of the San Onofre reactors in Southern California – as a nuclear catastrophe in waiting.

“In many ways, the history of the plant, located halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco … and within 50 miles of 500,000 people, has been a costly fight against nature, involving questions and repairs connected to its design and structural strength.”

Nuclear secrecy

Calling the Peck report “explosive”, the environmental group Friends of the Earth this week described it as having been “kept secret for a year.”

According to Damon Moglen, senior strategy advisor at Friends of the Earth, “Inspector Peck is the canary in the coal mine, warning us of a possible catastrophe at Diablo Canyon before it’s too late. We agree with him that Diablo Canyon is vulnerable to earthquakes and must be shut down immediately.”

“Given the overwhelming risk of earthquakes, federal and state authorities would never allow nuclear reactors on this site now. Are PG&E and the NRC putting the industry’s profits before the health and safety of millions of Californians.”

“Rather than the NRC keeping this a secret, there must be a thorough investigation with public hearings to determine whether these reactors can operate safely.”

Can Diablo Canyon survive an earthquake?

Michael Mariotte, president of the Nuclear Information & Resource Service, commented Monday that in “plain English” what Peck’s report acknowledges is:

“The NRC does not know whether Diablo Canyon could survive an earthquake, within the realm of the possible, at any of the faults around Diablo Canyon. And the reactors should shut down until the NRC does know one way or the other.

“Of course, if the reactors cannot survive a postulated earthquake, the obvious conclusion is that they must close permanently. The question is whether the NRC will ever act on Peck’s recommendation or whether the agency will continue to sit on it until after the next earthquake.”

Mariotte adds: “The irony is that this should have been the big news a year ago; Peck wrote his recommendation – in the form of a formal Differing Professional Opionion – in July 2013. And the NRC still hasn’t taken action or even responded to it.”

In his report Peck also states that the NRC is supposed to be committed to a “standard of safety” and “safety means avoiding undue risk or providing reasonable assurance of adequate protection for the public.”

PG&E’s response? Apply to extend the licenses

Meanwhile, PG&E has not only been insisting that its Diablo Canyon plants are safe, despite the earthquake threat, but has filed with the NRC to extend the 40 year licenses given for their operations another 20 years – to 2044 for Diablo Canyon 1 and to 2045 for Diablo Canyon 2.

An analysis done in 1982 by Sandia National Laboratories for the NRC, titled ‘Calculations for Reactor Accident Consequences 2‘, evaluated the impacts of a meltdown with “breach of containment” at every nuclear plant in the US – what happened at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plants as a result of an earthquake.

For the Diablo Canyon nuclear plants, it projected 10,000 “peak early fatalities” for each of the plants and $155 billion in property damages for Diablo Canyon 1 and $158 billion for Diablo Canyon 2 – in 1980 dollars.

Karl Grossman is professor of journalism at the State University of New York/College at Old Westbury, and the author of ‘Cover Up: What You Are Not Supposed to Know About Nuclear Power’ and host of the nationally-aired TV program ‘EnviroCloseup‘.

You have to hand it to Natural England. Their timing of their authorisation for 2014 badger cull was nothing short of extraordinary.

It comes just as the High Court ponders its judgment on the legality of the cull, following a Judicial Review hearing last week called by the Badger Trust.

It also pre-empts the outcome of a criminal investigation by Gloucestershire Police following serious revelations by a whistle-blowing monitor employed by the Animal Health and Veterinary Laboratories Agency (AHVLA).

As reported on 14th August by The Ecologist, the monitor revealed that last year’s pilot badger culls were not only badly organised – they were also full of dishonesty on the part of all those setting up and running the culls, and criminal behaviour on the part of the contractors doing the killing, seriously threatening the safety of the public.

Why the 2014 cull is unlawful

The Badger Trust set out a powerful case in the High Court last week, on 21st August, that any further culling must have independent monitoring and assessment, and would be unlawful in its absence.

This service was provided in the 2013 cull by the Independent Expert Panel (IEP) – but Defra decided against asking them back this year. Instead, Defra has stated it will proceed with the culls without them, and that “lessons have been learned” – so no more monitoring is necessary.

How much time the Defra barrister had to present its defence is not clear. The hearing was scheduled to take a day and as this was just before a Bank Holiday weekend, no one would want it to run over time, including the man who has to decide on the case, Mr Justice Kenneth Parker.

During the morning session, it was clear that the Trust’s barrister was making extensive use of Defra’s own documentation on the culls. Was there anything left for Defra to use in its defence? And could any other facts affect the judgment that will come in due course? As it happened, yes.

The whistle blower report raises serious questions – and a criminal investigation

The very day after the High Court hearing the news was released that Gloucester Police were setting up a criminal investigation, following the claims made by the whistle-blower, more details of which are gradually being released.

If anything should demand proper independent monitoring, it is surely the kind of behaviour that the monitor reported to Defra, which appears to have taken little or no action over the claims.

The Badger Trust had written to Environment Secretary Liz Truss when the whistle-blower report first came out. Like everyone, they want some answers:

“As you will be aware, this article was based on information provided by a whistle blower who worked as a cull monitor for AHVLA during the 2013 pilot culls. It raises serious concerns about the behaviour of both badger cullers and AHVLA contractors, which call into question the safety of the cull as well as the monitoring of its effectiveness.

“We would be grateful if you could confirm if you were aware of these allegations and identify what steps Defra took at the time this information was provided to investigate, including whether it was passed to the Independent Expert Panel for consideration? Please also confirm what measures have been put in place to prevent any such occurrences happening again?”

The Trust is still waiting for answers, but Gloucester Police are finally taking some action over the public safety issue. What took them so long?

Only protestors were arrested – but none charged

Gloucester Against Badger Shooting (GABS) sent them a ‘specimen’ list of 26 incidents of wrongdoing by culling contractors in January.

The list details trespass, physical harassment of protesters (including at least one case of bodily injury) by contractors, and several firearms offences and gun licence infringements. Many of these were reported at the time of the offence to the police.

Gloucester Police did make 39 arrests during the cull, all of them involving protesters, none of whom ended up in court. The same unbalanced policing occurred in Somerset.

Were any contractors in either county arrested, questioned and charged? Not as far as we know. And serious questions have to be asked. As Dominic Dyer of the Badger Trust says:

“The AHVLA monitor provided a full report on the serious public safety breaches by the cull contractor to Defra in January and met with Defra officials to discuss its key findings.

“Did Owen Paterson see this report and if so why did he not bring it to the attention of the Independent Expert Panel and Parliament? Was it covered up to ensure the pilot culls could continue despite the serious risk to public safety?”

Anti-cull campaigners have often said that they feel the police were very uninformed over what contractors could or couldn’t do, what constituted ‘crimes’ and ‘offences’ and when they could, for instance, make arrests.

But as The Ecologist has made clear, this is a serious public safety issue, and one that needs to be urgently addressed before any more culling takes place.

SABC – police and Natural England must review the evidence

In their press release about the criminal investigation, Somerset Against the Badger Cull (SABC) say they are now asking both Avon and Somerset Police and Natural England to “review all the video, audio and written recordings from the AHVLA monitors from last year.” They feel, as many do, that the government is not to be trusted over the safety issue.

SABC “congratulates Gloucestershire police in taking this matter seriously and urges Avon and Somerset Constabulary to apply the same rigour before shooters such as these are let loose in our countryside again.”

Avon & Somerset have already announced that in future culls representatives of the National Farmers Union and the culling company HNV Associates Ltd will not be present in the police control room, something that caused outrage when it became known.

But it was one more sign that the setting up of the culls had been a shambles; that the people involved were poorly trained; that no proper safety assessments had been done; and very that little thought had been given to the role the police were expected to fulfil.

The police have failed – so far

The police are there to prevent crime, to investigate wrongdoing and arrest the perpetrators, and to protect the public from criminal behaviour.

They had been given so little information that they were unable to perform any of these duties during the cull. Adding to the problem they had received the impression (from both Defra, the NFU and the contracting companies) that anything the contractors did was lawful.

The second phase of the badger culls was supposed to have started this week. Things are on hold. The culls cannot be policed because of the NATO summit in Newport, which will require 9,000 of their officers to be on duty.

And will the government be foolhardy enough to go ahead without waiting for the result of the Judicial Review? Given their sheer arrogance, they may go ahead. But a wise man or woman, which the government apparently lacks, would wait.

And now Natural England gives the go-ahead

Surely now, before any further badger culling takes place, the issue of public safety must be faced and addressed by the government.

To have irresponsible gunmen, using high-powered rifles with bullets that can travel up to a mile with lethal effect and with little apparent knowledge of either our wildlife or the terrain within which they are operating, arrogantly bumbling out of control in the dark is simply not to be allowed.

Under such circumstances the police cannot ensure public safety and they need to make that clear to the government before someone gets shot.

And now that Natural England has issued its authorisations for the 2014 culls in Somerset and Gloucestershire, that could be sooner than we thought.

NE insists that Defra and the AHVLA have developed a robust monitoring regime. They appear not to have noticed that the whistle-blower was employed by the AHVLA.

To announce this just after the whistle-blower revelations; while the Judicial Review judgment is still to come; and when the police investigation has only just started demonstrates all too clearly how keen Natural England, Defra and their affiliates are to kill, regardless.

It’s enough to make me weep.

Lesley Docksey is a freelance writer who writes for The Ecologist on the badger cull and other environmental subjects.

See her other articles for The Ecologist.

The Coca-Cola company has been forced to abandon a $25 million newly built bottling plant in Mehdiganj, Varanasi, India as the result of a sustained campaign against the company’s plans.

The $25 million plant – which was a significant expansion to its existing plant in Mehdiganj – had already been fully built and the company had also conducted trial runs, but could not operate commercially as it did not have the required permits to operate.

Coca-Cola required permissions, or ‘No Objection Certificate’ (NOC), from the Central Ground Water Authority (CGWA) – the national groundwater regulatory agency, and the Uttar Pradesh Pollution Control Board (UPPCB) – the statewide pollution regulatory agency.

The Central Ground Water Authority rejected Coca-Cola’s application to operate for its new facility on July 21, 2014, and had sought time till 25th August 2014, to announce its decision before the National Green Tribunal (NGT), India’s ‘green’ court.

Coke ‘withdraws’ days before the announcement

Somehow having learnt that its application had been rejected, in order to save itself major embarrassment, Coca-Cola sent a letter to the CGWA on Friday, August 22, 2014 – two days before the rejection was to be made public on Monday, August 25, 2014 – stating that it was “withdrawing” its application.

Bizarrely, Coca-Cola blamed “inordinate delays” by the authority as the reason for its “withdrawal” just two days before the decision was to be made public.

The campaign has worked for the last two years to ensure that the regulators were made aware of the problems being created by Coca-Cola’s existing bottling facility, and the reasons why a five-fold increase in groundwater allowance that Coca-Cola had sought for its new facility would further deteriorate the conditions in the area.

The Uttar Pradesh Pollution Control Board (UPPCB) had also shut down Coca-Cola’s plant on June 6, 2014 because it found the company to be violating a number of conditions of its license, including a lack of NOC from the Central Ground Water Authority (CGWA).

Coca-Cola was able to obtain a stay order from the NGT that allowed it to temporarily re-open its existing plant on June 20, 2014

Groundwater shortages followed Coke’s arrival

The groundwater conditions in the Mehdiganj area have gone from ‘safe’ category, when Coca-Cola began operations in June 1999 to ‘critical’ in 2009.

As a result, severe restrictions have been placed by the government on groundwater use by the community and farmers.

“Coca-Cola is a shameless and unethical company that has consistently placed its pursuit of profits over the well-being of communities that live around its facilities”, said Amit Srivastava of the India Resource Center which has led the campaign to challenge the new plant.

“It is absolutely reprehensible for a globally recognized company like Coca-Cola to seek further groundwater allowances from an area that has become acutely water-stressed, and that in large part due to its own mining of groundwater.”

A ‘major setback’

The loss of the $25 million project is a major setback for Coca-Cola. The company has identified India as a major market where it seeks to derive significant future profits, particularly since Coca-Cola sales are being hit in more developed due to major health concerns.

“We are delighted that the Indian government is doing what it is supposed to do – protect the common property resource of groundwater from rampant exploitation, particularly in water-stressed areas.

“This should serve as a notice to other companies that they cannot run roughshod over Indian rules and regulations and deny community rights over groundwater”, said Srivastava.

More information: www.IndiaResource.org.

Also on The Ecologist:

• India: Coca Cola bottling plant shut down
• India: Coca-Cola eviction from ‘land-grab’ site imminent