RBC & EA WORK TOGETHER TO POLLUTE RUGBY

This Email was posted today...

Sent: Saturday, April 29, 2006
To: 'Andrew Gabbitas'; 'craig.humphrey@rugby.gov.uk'; 'WRIGHTJP@parliament.uk'
Cc: 'All Councillors'; 'SANDISONR@aol.com'
Subject: RBC AND EA WORK TOGETHER TO POLLUTE RUGBY!

Dear Mr Gabbitas, Mr Humphrey and Mr Wright,

RUGBY PEOPLE TO BE POLLUTED, COVERED IN DUST, TO SUFFER HEALTH EFFECTS, AND HAVE TOWN ENVIRONMENT DESTROYED BECAUSE OF THE ACTION OF RUGBY BOROUGH COUNCIL AND THE ENVIRONMENT AGENCY AND OTHER AUTHORITIES WORKING IN COLLUSION AGAINST THE PEOPLE, AND UNLAWFULLY WITHHOLDING VITAL ENVIRONMENTAL INFORMATION.

You variously continue to ignore my requests for information, refuse to meet with me, and continue to intimidate and bully me, and to try to silence me. You write that I am wrong, and that RBC have done nothing unlawful. You refuse to investigate the cause of my long-standing, oft-repeated, clearly stated, and very serious complaint. At least you will not ever be able to claim in your defence, when all this comes out into the Public domain, that "we did not know. No one told us!" You cannot possibly claim you do not know what is going on. The Cabinet and officers of RBC are directing this, along with the officers of the Environment Agency. Warwickshire County Council must also be aware, if not actually involved, and similarly other authorities. The MP also has had many meetings with and about the cement works.

IPC APPLICATION AND PERMIT AUGUST 1999:

At the Rugby Cement Community Forum on Monday night 24th April the Agency were insisting that this plant can burn up to nearly 1,000 tonnes of petcoke each day in the Rugby Cement plant, and also in combination with tyres. Everyone knows about the very real danger of burning the petcoke, due to the increase in toxic emissions which are adsorbed onto the increased number of smaller particles emitted, for which there is NO SAFE LEVEL, and which are known to cause health damage and death.

This is, as the Agency officer admitted, a very serious issue. The IPC Permit which allowed this burning of petcoke (not tyres) which the Agency are saying was granted on September 13th 1999 was, and remains, UNLAWFUL. RBC officers were involved with the Agency in hiding the Application and the Consultation. The Agency has never shown the original IPC APPLICATION to operate the plant to anyone, and repeatedly refuses to do so. It is not EVEN on the Public Register which it is required to be. RBC made me pay £80 for a supposedly "full copy" of the full Public Register that supposedly contained the IPC Application, and related items on it - which I had requested. But it was NOT on there, nor on the EA Public Registers at Kidderminster and Tewkesbury. RBC and the EA are holding SECRET files. The EA wrote telling RBC to "hide it" and NOT to place it on the PR or to divulge it to anyone. Councillor Mrs Pat Wyatt tried, at the RCCF meeting, to read out a copy of this unlawful Agency letter PROHIBITING ANY DISCLOSURE, but Chair of the RCCF, Environment Portfolio Holder, Councillor Mrs C Robbins, shouted her down and tried to stop her reading it out. The Chair said the Council has many SECRET documents and reports that they do not wish the public to see. This is all UNLAWFUL, and the process is flawed. The plant has no lawful operating permit! By Law (see attached) it was MANDATORY for it to be advertised and consulted on. This is the ONLY OPPORTUNITY the public had to be consulted on:

WHETHER it is appropriate for the plant to be burning 8,000 tonnes a day of material, including up to 1,000 tonnes of petcoke, in the middle of the town. On WHETHER the emissions, frequent dust outpourings, and up to 1,000 lorries each day, etc are acceptable to the environment and health of Rugby people. THE EA AND RBC HAVE BYPASSED THIS MANDATORY PROCEDURE!!!

Also there were certain charges that RMC should have paid to the EA's public purse, but they have apparently, according to the Public register, paid NOTHING for this unlawful IPC Permit. In effect the people of Rugby have paid to poison and pollute themselves, thanks to the collusion between RBC and the EA! The people go on PAYING and PAYING : now a million pounds for air quality monitoring, hundreds of thousands of pounds for the RCCF, and public meetings and reports into tyre burning (only), and "pretend" Consultations, such as the Air Quality Assessment, and the Variation to permits at Rugby Cement, and the Tyre Burning Review, etc etc. The people of Rugby might think that the Councillors and officers of RBC should be protecting them, but they are NOT and the truth is the opposite. RBC is squandering large sums of public money all in a furtive attempt to HIDE the truth!


IPPC APPLICATION 2001 and PERMIT 2003:

Then RBC went on to try deliberately to hide this IPPC Application by calling for "Tyre Burning" meetings to discuss the "Rugby Cement Tyre Burning Application" and the public were told they could not comment on the operation of the plant - THE OLD UNLAWFUL PERMIT WHICH ALLOWED THE BURNING OF 8,000 TONNES OF RAW MATERIAL AND COAL/PETCOKE IN THE TOWN CENTRE, but the Public could ONLY comment on the addition of tyres as a fuel. For further information see the Minutes of the 13th September meeting held in RBC offices, and the transcript and video of the 20th September 2001 Edward Street meeting.

The current 2003 IPPC Operating Permit was based on the UNLAWFUL IPC operating Permit that the EA and RBC hid from the people of Rugby. Now the people of Rugby are to suffer more and more as the production, emissions, type of emissions, and increased use of waste materials, and the so-called alternative fuels increases. This is far worse for Rugby residents than the old plant with no LIMITS set at all until it gets to 200 tonnes and hour.

The old plant only ever made 50 tonnes an hour! The old plant made at most 300,000 tones of clinker each year. This one is designed to make, according to RMC 1,850,000 tonnes.

Bearing in mind that there is NO SAFE LEVEL of particulate, and that we are subjected to constant fallout and toxic pollution, much of which is uncontrolled and unmonitored and unmeasured, what are RBC recommending to the people as a daily dose of TOXINS to the IMPROVE HEALTH of Rugby residents from this UNLAWFUL CO-INCINERATOR, which is operating under an UNLAWFUL PERMIT, that the EA and RBC have both been involved in? The EA, after FIVE years of constant complaint from the public, are NOW very belatedly prosecuting the cement Company through the Magistrate's Courts, but the people of Rugby should prosecute the EA and RBC through the highest courts.

Is this what you wish, and are you still determined to ignore the facts of my complaint?

Thank you.

Lilian Pallikaropoulos

This letter is going into the Public domain, and is being widely copied, including to all the Public who witnessed the events of the last RCCF meeting.