Environment Agency Exempt Cuadrilla From Permit Licence
The Environment Agency (EA) has rolled over and granted Cuadrilla permission to move the 18,000 gallons of radioactive flowback sludge that has been stored at Preece Hall, following fracking activity there last year. The sludge was too radioactive to move under current EA regulations. Those same regulations still apply but the EA have made a favourable exception and have told Cuadrilla that they can now move the contaminated water.
The sludge will be moved by tanker from the Fylde to Daveyhulme where it will be treated before being dumped into the Manchester Ship Canal, where it will eventually find its way to the Mersey Estuary and then the Irish Sea.
In October last year, Cuadrilla dispatched 8,000 gallons of the same sludge to Daveyhulme but it breached regulations by being too radioactive, so the company had to halt its removal and store it at the Preece Hall site.
Shale gas extraction is a self-regulating industry and calls for strict ONSHORE regulations are largely being ignored. It seems that even those regulations that are in place are not being applied. These are the very regulations that are meant to protect us not big business.
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