Fresh Concerns over Incinerator Pollution - Press Release 16th Oct 2015

Updated and revised plume models¹ by Plumeplotter, using the US Environmental Protection Agency’s AERMOD software which has regulatory status in the US, has established that the incinerator pollution could extend over populated areas of the Stroud District such as Edge, Paganhill, Whiteshill, Ruscombe and Randwick as well as Standish Woods, in addition to local areas we are already aware of such as Moreton Valence, Haresfield and Kingsway.

This new study uses local wind data rather than the Bristol Filton data used by Urbaser³. In addition, the study has discovered that, because the incinerator building height and mass is so large in relation to the chimney height, the downwash from the buildings reduces the effective chimney height resulting in higher levels of pollution.

A fully peer reviewed report from Imperial College on behalf of Public Health England has found that, for three incinerators studied in the UK, the measured pollution levels are factors of 3.6, 19, and 123 times the values predicted at the time of their planning approval².

It could be that similarly high levels of pollution will apply in the Stroud District? This would mean that the figures quoted and used by UBB at the public enquiry in 2014 could be wildly inaccurate and indeed using the best case in the PHE report would be 3.6 times worse than predicted, meaning that it could have a considerable detrimental effect on the local beech woods as well as on the health of local residents.

At a recent meeting between the local parish councils and UBB requests were made for UBB to provide pollution monitoring equipment so that community monitoring can take place.

There are better ways of dealing with our waste such as Community R4C instead of outdated incineration.

References :

1 See http://plumeplotter.com/news/hills/

2 “Using metal ratios to detect emissions from municipal waste incinerators in ambient air pollution data”, table 8 page 8. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1352231015300753

3 UBB's Air Quality Assessment (Planning Application appendix 13.1) can be found here, where use of the Bristol Filton weather data is referenced. Note that Filton is approximately 40km from the Javelin Park site.