Last updated at 11:43, Thursday, 12 July 2012

SIR – I write in reply to a letter from Coun Tim Knowles (The Whitehaven News, June 28), in which he discusses the results of public polling by MRWS [the Managing Radioactive Waste Safely partnership] to promote continuing with investigations for radioactive waste storage.

how it’s done in france: A picture by Andra, the French nuclear agency, of a site visited by Cumbrians on a fact-finding mission

Longer comments on this research are available on my own University of Edinburgh website.

There are three expressions of public opinion available.

The democratic votes by numerous parish councils across West Cumbria – 75 per cent of those voting have decided that there is a lack of trust and clarity with MRWS, and wish to pull out. This gives an overall majority to stop investigations, unless absolutely all of those abstaining decide suddenly vote for continuation, which would be truly remarkable if that happened now. These votes are ignored by MRWS – why?

The MRWS consultation, which closed in March – The supposed results were gleefully seized upon by some MRWS councillors, who are supposed to be impartial, to claim that clear support exists to continue investigations. However the results of the consultation are quite clearly suspicious. Questions 1 to 7 all show a rejection by a 60/40 majority, whereas Question 8 – “Do you want to continue?” – has many more votes submitted and reverses the previous replies to say “Yes”.

We have examined the replies in detail, and are shocked to discover that the extra votes for Question 8 arrived as block responses without replying to any other questions, some packaged in unmarked brown envelopes. I asked advice from university colleagues who are UK experts in public opinion research. They say that the block votes have to be discounted.

The three telephone polls, each undertaken with samples of 1,000 respondents – The results of the polling are again claimed by councillors as providing support for continuation. However, in spite of asking, we have insufficient basic information on how the survey was designed, and no detailed records of the results.

That secrecy is worrying, because we know from the consultation how misleading the MRWS advertising can be. It is very striking indeed that fully 80 per cent of those replying stated that they have “never heard of it”, have “no knowledge” or “very little” knowledge of radioactive waste disposal. That means that only two out of 10 respondents (including nuclear workers) judge themselves to have any knowledge or expertise in the subject being questioned.

Overall, those in favour of continuing were 53 of the replies. Of course, with such small numbers interviewed, this is statistically identical to just 47 per cent in favour of continuing. By no measure is that a clear result. Why does MRWS fail to advertise this result as uncertain ?

At present the only deduction to be made from the telephone polling is firstly that the blizzard of advertising inflicted onto the West Cumbrian community and proudly cited by Coun Knowles has produced remarkably little public education; and secondly that the results are uncertain and, at best statistically “don’t know”. When the results of the consultation and parish council votes are included, the balance certainly shifts to “not in favour”.

Lastly, it is by now very obvious that the several of the vocal councillors of the MRWS are continually pushing to continue with radioactive waste storage. They are not representing the opinions of many others in the MRWS Partnership, and are not representing the persistent opinions from at least half (and maybe many more) of the public, who fear that this is a region which has geological flaws, and that the MRWS process is failing to represent them.

What will make the MRWS communicate the real uncertainty, notice the real public concern and mistrust, and actually admit defeat?

Professor Stuart HASZELDINE OBE FRSE C.Geol.

University of Edinburgh

SIR – Your recent front page article containing Coun Tim Knowles’s comment accusing Dr Ruth Balogh’s group of being “mischievous” by asking MRWS to confirm whether or not the NDA would look for a nuclear dump site within the other potential Cumbrian sites of either the Eskdale Granite Group or the Mercia Mudstone Group.

How is this “mischievous”, particularly as the partnership’s own geology consultant, Dr Dearlove, in responding to the consultation submissions made by Profs Smythe and Haszeldine, was also to highlight the two areas as having potential?

Dr Dearlove makes no mention of the Borrowdale Volcanic Group (Longlands Farm) as having potential for obvious geological reasons and the £440million tax payer funded failed Nirex investigation.

Does not Dr Dearlove’s advice suggest that both the Eskdale Granite and the Mercia Mudstone Groups have potential, a view also supported by CoRWM (Doc. 285 on the MRWS website)? In any event both areas would fall outside the IAEA generic geological description as to where to site a potential nuclear waste repository.

To accuse Dr Balogh’s group of being “mischievous” in their understanding of Dr Dearlove’s response beggars belief and is he not therefore also accusing his own geology consultant and CoRWM of political “spin” with such important advice. Further the MRWS chairman’s reply on the subject of the consultation responses that Professor Haszeldine saying that “the Geologist’s views were his own” is obvious but what is not clear is whether Coun Knowles is speaking as the MRWS Chairman or as Coun Knowles?

As chairman why does he not provide clarification to the fact that there were 69 consecutive responses received to Q8 of “Yes” and “I Agree” – I don’t think the comment slip had anything else on. I never saw one – did you?

I took time off specially to attend the MRWS Braithwaite meeting of June 25 and asked Rhuari Bennet from 3QK to explain to me the 69 consecutive “YES” “I AGREE” all being added on to the end of the consultation numbers. In the event Mr Bennett’s explanation was simple. “We received them all together in a brown envelope and they were most probably from an interest group”. Who? I asked. “I could not say Colin.”

If one accepts Coun Knowles’s reply to Professor Haszeldine that “this is a feature of our democracy” with him holding a Cabinet position in county council responsible for all waste management – including nuclear – as well as chairing the MRWS group which will effectively advise the decision-making bodies (the Cabinet and two Executives of the three councils) he will be advising himself as to whether to proceed to stage 4 or not.

Do turkeys vote for Christmas? I think not. So will the chairman dumbfound us with true democracy, transparency and all those other words uttered in his MRWS defence and explain these oddities? Will he admit that all the various ways in which the partnership tried to educate the Cumbrian people on the NDA dump proposal failed - as indicated by the IPSOS Mori telephone opinion poll in finding that 80% of Cumbrian people knew little or nothing about the GDF?

Will he ignore that the enlightened majority’s “no” as returned from the MRWS consultation (mostly with expansive comments) AND the majority no vote by CALC both provide a more educated and lucid democratic indicator?

Colin WALES

Sedbergh

SIR – Apologies to Mr. J. Taylor (The Whitehaven News, letters, June 28) if I somehow misled him or failed to make sufficiently clear my point about the unimportance of eventual flooding in a nuclear waste repository.

Goodness knows where he got the idea of storing “extremely dangerous active waste liquor” in such a facility: all disposed waste would of course be solidified and encapsulated.

The significance of natural radioactivity is that by comparison, traces dissolved out from the solid waste after the presumed failure of containment, and seeping with the slow movement of ground water into the environment, would present no danger worth mentioning at all.

Peter WILSON

Wasdale Park, Seascale

SIR – It is the MRWS who are mischievous, not local environmentalists (MRWS rebuts ‘nuclear valleys’ claim).

The MRWS held a meeting on March 29 attended by the Nirex inspector Chris MacDonald and his technical assessor Colin Knipe (doc no 267, MRWS website). At this meeting Longlands Farm was discussed in detail, and reference made to the Mercia Mudstones Group (MMG), along with the Eskdale/Ennerdale granites, all as potential sites for the GDF.

The argument for proceeding to Stage 4 either has to be on the basis that the overall geology and geography is suitable – which according to international criteria it isn’t – or that there are some specific sites that might be promising. The evidence from MRWS documents is that specific sites are being discussed right now.

Dr Ruth BALOGH

Loweswater Hall, Cockermouth

SIR – I respect Professor Haszeldine’s right to have a view and campaign on the issue of nuclear waste disposal.

However, it would be unfortunate if anyone thought that because he is a professor and mentions the university where he works that he is writing as an expert in polling and public consultation.

His letter has a number of inaccuracies. He also exaggerates and uses emotive language in lieu of evidence, in a way I suspect he would strongly criticise others for doing.

THE CONSULTATION

A consultation is not a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ vote. This point is made explicitly in the Cabinet Office Code of Practice on Consultation.

The responses to a consultation can only ever reflect the views of those who choose to take part. They are not statistically representative of public opinion as a whole and should not be treated in this way.

It is often the case that most of the responses to a consultation come from those on one side of a debate. To make decisions solely based on the number of respondents who are for or against would therefore lead to perverse and undemocratic results.

The consultation does however give valuable insight into the specific concerns the public have. The purpose of this consultation, like any others, was to listen to and take onboard the views of the public and interested groups.

Members of the Partnership have carefully considered the responses, including those from the parish councils, and they have led to significant changes to the Partnership’s emerging final report.

If Professor Haszeldine had expertise in consultations he would not be ‘shocked’ that a number of responses were organised by people on both sides of the debate. This is quite common.

The important thing is that each response had to include an individual name and a postcode, so each one represents the view of a person who has taken the time to submit a response.

In any case, as this is not a vote, it is misleading to talk about ‘block votes’.

The experts in public opinion research he refers to were probably not commenting based on a full knowledge of the facts. We would be very happy to discuss this with them.

THE OPINION POLL

The Partnership commissioned one of the country’s leading opinion polling companies to conduct a separate, statistically robust and representative opinion survey. We made it clear that the purpose of this was to see whether there were more people for or against taking part in the search for a repository site in Allerdale and Copeland.

Contrary to what Professor Haszeldine suggests, the proportion of people in Allerdale and Copeland who are in favour of taking part in the search for a site is statistically significantly higher than the proportion who are opposed in Allerdale and Copeland, as it is across Cumbria overall.

Ipsos MORI themselves independently presented the results at a Partnership meeting, which was open to the public. We also issued a press release which presented the results in a straightforward, factual way agreed with Ipsos MORI.

It is unclear why he says the Partnership is being secretive about the poll, when we have published on our website both Ipsos MORI’s full report as well as the data tables that underpin it. The full dataset is also available on request.

The Partnership’s public and stakeholder engagement programme over the last few years has gone well beyond what happens in any other policy making process.

Professor Haszeldine presents the figures for awareness in an inaccurate and misleading way. It is also ironic that someone who is commenting at length on polling and consultations, without any expertise in these areas, is suggesting that people living in West Cumbria do not have a right to a view on possible nuclear waste disposal in the area because he believes they don’t know enough.

Colin Wales may feel that only an ‘enlightened majority’ should be allowed to make decisions on issues like this. However, in a democracy we do not tell people they cannot have a view on matters of policy because they are not experts.

It is also worth making the point that the statistically representative opinion poll shows that support for taking part in the search for a repository site is actually higher the more that people know about the process.

However, the results of the poll are not the only factor the councils will need to take into account, and they have repeatedly been very clear about that.

GEOLOGY

Ruth Balogh and Colin Wales have suggested that the Partnership is considering particular sites. It is not the role of the Partnership to look at specific sites for a possible repository, it is not possible to identify specific sites on the basis of the information that is currently available and we have not been trying to do that.

The decision that needs to be made in the coming months is whether West Cumbria should agree to allow studies and investigations to take place to see whether there are any suitable sites for a repository.

Individual geologists who give us their personal advice can express views on what they think the chances are that particular areas may or may not be suitable. However, these geologists have different views and most of them say that it wouldn’t be possible to actually come to an informed view without more detailed geological studies and investigations being carried out.

Therefore, the opinion set out in our draft final report is that the marked difference of views among the geologists suggests that at this stage ‘it is impossible to say whether a suitable site could ultimately be found or not’ and that in order to answer that question ‘more geological work is therefore required’.

The Partnership will consider a draft of its final report at our meeting on 19th July. Once the Partnership has finished its report it will be for the councils to weigh up the evidence on all sides of the debate and decide whether to participate in the search to see if there is anywhere in Allerdale or Copeland that is suitable for a nuclear waste repository.

For further information on the work the Partnership has been doing please visit our website www.westcumbriamrws.org.uk

Coun Elaine WOODBURN

New chair, West Cumbria MRWS Partnership

First published at 11:08, Thursday, 12 July 2012
Published by http://www.whitehavennews.co.uk