[g8-sheffield] Sorry to interupt but please read and pass on..

[worldwarfree at riseup.net]

Local Residents Fight Parkwood Landfill Expansion
Proposals

Proposals are being put before the council this week
for a massive enlargement of the Parkwood Landfill
site, allowing a substantial increase in capacity from
just 266,000 tonnes a year to a staggering 1 million
tonnes. The Parkwood Landfill site is on the edge of
Shirecliffe and overlooks many areas including
Hillsborough, Upperthorpe and Walkley. Local residents
are fighting these proposals and demanding a public
consultation. However, their on going investigation
into the proposals is raising more questions than
answers. Residents are beginning to see a possible
link emerging between the new massive incinerator in
Sheffield, which is nearing completion, and the
proposals for the enlargement of the Parkwood Landfill
Site. If under these proposals the Parkwood landfill
site was to have its suspended special waste licence
reinstated, the expansion of the landfill site would
enable the ash from the new Bernard Roads incinerator
to be dumped there.

In addition to the proposed expansion of the Parkwood
Landfill Site, Viridor, the operators of the site,
also want to build a gas utilisation and a leacheate
treatment plant within the area. (Leacheate is created
when water runs through a landfill site). Local
residents and environmental campaigners are concerned
that the gas utilisation plant will be a hazardous
blot on the landscape until 2050 and that the leachate
treatment plant will be producing hazardous waste in
its treatment works until 2035.  Campaigners report
that Viridor have approval from the Environment Agency
for these proposals and that permission will also be
sought to deposit the potentially toxic sludge in the
ground. This potential dumping of toxic sludge will
neither be confirmed nor denied by the Environment
Agency. Instead, the Agency insist until the sludge is
tested they will not know one way or another whether
the material is hazardous.

On Friday 6th May (at a time yet to be arranged) these
proposals are going before the Sheffield Council
planning board. Campaigners believe that the local
council seems prepared to give Viridor's proposals the
go ahead. The local protest group, Parkwood Landfill
Concerned Residents Group (backed by nearly 2000
signatures)want this planning decision to be delayed
until they have had a properly informed public debate.
The group met with the Environment Agency on Tuesday
3rd of May to discuss problems and concerns over
Parkwood Landfill Site in advance of the planning
board meeting.

It seems that Sheffield people have been repeatedly
mislead over the plans for the landfill site.
Initially people were told no waste would be dumped
near homes without a new planning application and
public consultation. However it appears that local
planning officers have processed these new proposals
under an old 1986 planning permission. In addition,
local people were promised this site would never be a
hazardous waste site again.  This was after 7 tonnes
of industrial batteries, stored in a plastic container
and with some containing lithium, exploded releasing
mercury into the air while people watched. In this
context local residents and action groups were told
the leachate facility was an environmentally friendly
reed bed based one and the gas facility was for
capturing the gas of bricks and building rubble - but
bricks are inert waste and do not produce landfill
gas! Many people have since bought houses in the area
under the belief that the Parkwood site was shortly
going to close, landscaped and made into a park and
golf course.  This has not happened.

One person has even photographed a large truck being
buried in the Parkwood site. Viridor were challenged
over this and reported that this was a legal activity.


Local Residents are subject to constant unpleasant
smells and noise that comes from the Parkwood Landfill
site. Local people are worried that their health is
suffering as a result of pollution coming from the
landfill site.  The health survey undertaken of the
area looked at just one in ten people.  The result
didn't match the amount or forms of illnesses that
residents are seeing among their families and the
surrounding community.  The community want regular
health monitoring for all the people in the area.
Concerns about the health impacts and a high reported
rate of cancer amongst people living in the area of
the Landfill site is said to be the reason why a few
years previously David Blunkett asked local MP Richard
Caborn to look into local people's concerns about the
site.

For a bird's eye view of Parkwood Landfill site go to
the top of Standish Way in Shirecliffe and you will be
amazed.