WE were notified (LET, October 15) of Castle Cement's withdrawal of their appeal, due to have been heard in Clitheroe next month, against the Evironment Agency's order to clean up plume grounding from their chimney.

It seems that despite their previous total opposition to the agency's Variation Notice, they are now quite prepared to accept many of the new standards - allowing discussions to go on behind closed doors while neatly depriving members of the public the right to give evidence themselves.

Ribble Valley resident and campaigner Mary Horner (Letters, October 16) has done no more than match a list of chemicals (provided by the Health and Safety Executive) used in the manufacture of Cemfuel, which is burned by the company, with data from the US Environmental Protection Agency's Chemical Release Inventory.

This software is freely available to the public and contains a wealth of information about many of the chemicals which are blended together to produce Cemfuel.

The majority are shown to be possible carcinogens (causing cancer), mutagens (causing cell malfunction and malformation) and teratogens (causing birth defects). It is worth noting that all of the information was on record by 1989, and most of the toxicological summaries date from 1985 onward. In other words, all this information was on the public register in the US some ten years ago, and would certainly have been available to the cement industry.

This information has had a direct bearing on the way the cement industry is allowed to operate in the US. Owing to loopholes in UK legislation, Ribble Valley residents are forced to endure a chemical fog with unknown side effects.

Castle Cement has accused Mary Horner of alarmist tactics and scaremongering. Here are some counter accusations:-

1. That Castle Cement has done its utmost to conceal the true nature and significance of burning blended solvent waste since 1992.

2. That there is no evidence to suggest that these chemicals are destroyed at temperatures achieved in the kiln, and every possibility that they may produce toxic gases and may even recombine to form an unknown and unknowable chemical hazard.

3. That without evidence of safety the company is recklessly putting profit before public health.

Meanwhile, the Environment Agency is shortly to publish results of a groundwater pollution survey for England and Wales. In its report the agency highlights chlorinated solvents as being among the most difficult and toxic pollutants to clean up once aquifers are contaminated.

A study for Department of the Environment in 1985 showed that over half the groundwaters used for potable supply had been contaminated, with levels of trichloroethylene (one of the ingredients of Cemfuel) near or exceeding World Health Organisation guidelines. The report went on to recommend the establishment of a mandatory waste solvent recovery scheme.

Castle Cement, please comment.

JUDY YACOUB, Pendle Friends of the Earth, Duke Street, Winewall, Colne.

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