IN his 'Green Gods of Industry' article, in your East Lancs 2000 supplement (LET, June 26), Ron Freethy asks why ISO 14001 was not renamed "an international award for protecting the environment?"

The answer, Mr Freethy, can be found in the same paragraph -- it's an award for "standard of environmental management," which is a very different kettle of fish.

Continuing the metaphor, Mr Freethy took Keith Hall's bait hook, line and sinker when he quoted his defence that quarrying looks, by its very nature, dirty. It can do little else, if you think about it, but if Mr Freethy had thought to ask one of the "very vociferous (Castle Cement) critics" what might be their real concern, he would have learned that it is not quarrying, as Mr Hall inferred, nor is it the manufacture of cement, which began in 1937.

No, it is the hazardous toxic waste 'cemfuel' which they use to mix with coal for use as 'fuel.' Someone said to me recently that he was sick of reading my letters (I'm sick of writing them) and that I should accept what the 'experts' said, so I won't repeat the arguments, except to say that three select committees have now castigated the Environment Agency for its efforts here, as did the inquiry into the agency by Peak Associates, which was commissioned by Friends of the Earth (might they perhaps be considered 'experts?')

This report was submitted to the select committee by FoE as background information, to which Castle took great exception, presumably in view of its exposure of the appalling record of the agency here, but Castle's request for its withdrawal was refused (copies of the Peak Report may be borrowed from me on request).

It has been circulated to concerned individuals and organisations, including Nigel Evans MP and, on July 25, Ribble Valley Council's community committee will review it and "consider whether it is able to support, in principle, an independent investigation into Castle Cement."

Concerned readers might wish to ascertain their councillors' views on this. I certainly will. May I also remind your readers that from July 10 to 22, Lancaster Crown Court will hear four cases of alleged breaches by Castle in April 1999 of the "no haze or odour causing offence outside the site boundary" condition.

J MORTIMER (Mr), chairman, Blackburn, Hyndburn and Ribble Valley Friends of the Earth, Green Drive, Clitheroe.