- Asked by: Fergus Ewing, MSP for Inverness East, Nairn and Lochaber, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 20 March 2001
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Current Status:
Answered by Ross Finnie on 3 April 2001
To ask the Scottish Executive what risk of pollution to rivers landfill sites pose and what measures and safeguards are in place to reduce any such risk.
Answer
There is a potential risk to water courses from leachate. Accordingly modern landfill sites are operated to minimise water ingress and leachate is extracted and treated to a high standard before being discharged. New landfill sites will be regulated by the Pollution Prevention and Control Regulations 2000 and will have to meet the conditions in the EC Landfill Directive, which requires sites to be situated and designed so as to meet the necessary conditions for preventing the pollution of soil, groundwater or surface water.
- Asked by: Fergus Ewing, MSP for Inverness East, Nairn and Lochaber, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 20 March 2001
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Current Status:
Answered by Ross Finnie on 3 April 2001
To ask the Scottish Executive whether the National Waste Strategy and national planning advice would prevent the granting of permission for a landfill site at mid Lairgs Quarry if it was shown that there was a risk of water pollution to the River Nairn from the catchment area of the proposed site.
Answer
If an application for planning permission for a landfill site at Mid-Lairgs were to be made, the National Waste Strategy: Scotland and National Planning Policy Guidelines would be important factors in its determination by the local authority. The application would also be accompanied by an environmental impact assessment which, amongst other things, would examine the risk that the proposed site posed to the River Nairn. In addition the site would be regulated by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency under the Pollution Prevention and Control Regulations 2000 and would have to meet the conditions in the EC Landfill Directive. The Directive requires sites to be situated and designed so as to meet the necessary conditions for preventing the pollution of soil, groundwater or surface water.
- Asked by: Fergus Ewing, MSP for Inverness East, Nairn and Lochaber, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 20 March 2001
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Current Status:
Answered by Ross Finnie on 3 April 2001
To ask the Scottish Executive what advice it has received from Her Majesty's Government regarding the precise source and cause of the current foot-and-mouth disease outbreak and whether the possibility that the virus may have come from a landfill site at Brankley located about five miles from the farm at Heddon-on-the-Wall, Northumberland has been discounted.
Answer
The Brankley landfill site has been discounted by epidemiologists as the source of the virus. The virus is a type O Asian strain and has been imported, possibly in infected meat products. Work continues to identify possible routes with which the virus has gained entry. The source farm currently is thought to be a pig farm at Burnside, Heddon on the Wall.
- Asked by: Fergus Ewing, MSP for Inverness East, Nairn and Lochaber, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 20 March 2001
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Current Status:
Answered by Ross Finnie on 3 April 2001
To ask the Scottish Executive what possible health ha'ards are posed by landfill sites close to human habitation; whether any such sites can be a source of infection of any particular disease, and, if so, which ones.
Answer
Studies into the effects on human health of living close to landfill sites have suggested that there is a need for further research. The Scottish Executive and UK Government Departments therefore commissioned the Small Areas Health Statistics Unit (SAHSU) last year to investigate the incidence of a range of cancers and birth defects around 7000 landfill sites in the UK. SAHSU is due to report by the end of May.
- Asked by: Fergus Ewing, MSP for Inverness East, Nairn and Lochaber, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 20 March 2001
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Current Status:
Answered by Ross Finnie on 3 April 2001
To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will initiate a public information campaign on television and local radio stations explaining the necessary advice with regard to the foot-and-mouth disease outbreak.
Answer
The Scottish Executive and other bodies, such as the NFUS, are providing regular guidance, advice and information to farmers, the public at large and other key interests. This is being done at national level but local media interests are helping as appropriate. Detailed advice has been given to farmers on the Welfare Movements Scheme, the Movement to Slaughter Scheme and the Welfare Disposal Scheme (via the Distribution Board). Additionally, farmers in the Dumfries and Galloway subject to the slaughter cull have been kept appraised of developments by letter or telephone. Helplines have been and remain in operation at the SERAD HQ and various regional offices.
- Asked by: Fergus Ewing, MSP for Inverness East, Nairn and Lochaber, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 23 January 2001
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Current Status:
Answered by Sarah Boyack on 2 April 2001
To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S1W-9148 by Sarah Boyack on 14 September 2000, how local authorities will meet the costs of redundancy payments and any other costs relating to the termination of employment to any local authority employees who lose their employment in the event that the trunk road unit contracts are awarded to private sector bidders if it does not make additional finance available for this purpose.
Answer
Trunk road contracts lie outwith the functions of local government and are not catered for in the local government financial settlement. Local authorities have known since1996 when the previous contracts were awarded that they could fail to secure the trunk road work. Some of the management work was lost in 1999. The contracts for the Operating Companies stood to be renewed in 2001. Agency agreements had been awarded without competition and could not therefore extend indefinitely.
- Asked by: Fergus Ewing, MSP for Inverness East, Nairn and Lochaber, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 23 January 2001
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Current Status:
Answered by Sarah Boyack on 2 April 2001
To ask the Scottish Executive whether the trunk road unit contracts due to come into effect on 1 April 2001 require three months notice under EU tendering regulations.
Answer
The tendering requirements for the trunk road unit contracts due to come into effect on 1 April 2001 are set out in the Public Works Contract Regulations 1991 which implemented the EC Works Directive (93/37/EEC). There is no requirement for such a 3 month notice under these Regulations.
- Asked by: Fergus Ewing, MSP for Inverness East, Nairn and Lochaber, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 23 January 2001
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Current Status:
Answered by Sarah Boyack on 2 April 2001
To ask the Scottish Executive what changes it plans to make to the process and procedures used to tender trunk road unit contracts in future.
Answer
Procedures for future tendering rounds will take into account experience gained during the present process.
- Asked by: Fergus Ewing, MSP for Inverness East, Nairn and Lochaber, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 23 January 2001
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Current Status:
Answered by Sarah Boyack on 2 April 2001
To ask the Scottish Executive what legal costs it has incurred in relation to the tendering of the trunk road unit contracts.
Answer
Legal costs associated with recent Court of Session proceedings were awarded against the petitioners.
- Asked by: Fergus Ewing, MSP for Inverness East, Nairn and Lochaber, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 19 March 2001
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Current Status:
Answered by Ross Finnie on 2 April 2001
To ask the Scottish Executive what specific advice the Chief Veterinary Officer has given in relation to the airborne transmission of the current foot-and-mouth disease virus and whether it will make this advice publicly available, in particular that advice which relates to (a) the likelihood of airborne transmission, (b) whether any case of infection is believed to have been as a result of airborne transmission and (c) the maximum distance over which the virus can be transmitted by air.
Answer
Information from the Office International des Epizootics (OIE), the World organisation for animal health in Paris indicates that airborne spread of foot and mouth disease can be as much as 60km overland and 300km by sea. Those are maximum distances under favourable conditions. In practice the possibility of aerosol spread depends on a number of factors including, number and species of the affected host animal, weather conditions (wind speed, air temperature, relative humidity). Aerosol spread overland is also subject to variation caused by land features which might disrupt the plume of virus.However, insofar as this particular strain of virus is concerned, initial studies based on observations made in other countries suggest that aerosol transmission from infected premises has not been a prominent feature. So far this would appear to be being borne out in this country, as the spread appears to be by direct contact particularly through sheep. The position obviously is being monitored very carefully as the outbreak continues.