PRESS RELEASE BY CAPEL ACTION GROUP

Proposed Capel Incinerator: The health effects posed by aircraft landing at Gatwick airport

In recent weeks the Dorking Advertiser has reported independent evidence suggesting that emissions of PM 2.5 particulates from the proposed mass-burn incinerator at the Clockhouse Brickworks site in Capel will travel up to 16 miles, affecting communities such as Reigate , Redhill and Crawley and many others within a 16 mile radius.

The serious health effects of PM 2.5 particulates, when inhaled, are now widely accepted and there is no dispute that mass-burn incinerators emit them.

Capel Action Group (CAG) has consistently warned of the acute dangers that would face those living in Capel and those working and living in and around the Clockhouse Brickworks site, given that the proposed site is under the aircraft flightpath into Gatwick airport.

Evidence was submitted by CAG to the Examination in Public on the Surrey Waste Plan, which took place between February and September 2007. Part of CAG's evidence dealt with the interaction between wingtip vortices¹ and the plume from the incinerator, when landing aircraft pass directly over it on their way to Gatwick airport. CAG argued that the vortices would suck in pollutants (including PM 2.5 s) from the plume (acting like a whirlpool) during their descent to the ground. In their report the Inspectors said:

“The area lies, for all practical purposes, beneath the flight path to Gatwick

Airport and there is no dispute that the vortices shed by passing aircraft on final approach would descend to the ground at some place determined by factors such as wind speed and atmospheric conditions. (para 4.35)

Those making representations liken the vortices to a whirlpool, sucking in the emission plume from an assumed EfW incinerator and dragging pollutants to the ground. SCC argued to the contrary that wake vortices, as paired counter-rotating helical bodies of air, actually enhance natural atmospheric dispersion by breaking up the plume.” (para 4.36)

A major problem with wingtip vortices is that they are invisible. In an attempt to gain an understanding of their behaviour visually, early research was carried out using smoke flares on the ground and recording the results of aircraft flying close to them. However tests carried out at ground level cannot completely replicate the situation in the air.

Steve Morris, a well known international aviation photographer, has recently used thin layers of cloud to illustrate wingtip vortices. Two of his photographs are attached to this press release and show aircraft coming in to land at Gatwick airport. The vortices, their sucking action and descent are well illustrated. Despite Surrey County Council's insistence that the reverse would happen, with the vortices breaking up the plume, both photographs clearly show the sucking action and it is not difficult to foresee what would happen when the pollutants from the proposed incinerator stack replace the thin layers of cloud present in the photographs.

The Inspectors said in their report:

“The Clockhouse Brickworks site is unique among the Surrey Waste Plan allocations in its location rel ative to the Gatwick flightpath and we find it surprising that this phenomenon was not investigated in the site assessment process.” (para 4.37)

The impact on communities up to 16 miles away from the site has already been demonstrated. It has now been demonstrated that wingtip vortices, linking with the plume from the proposed incinerator stack, would result in pollutants reaching ground level, quite the reverse of the intended outcome.

This press release presents some very uncomfortable messages for those working and living in and around the site, let alone the implications for the surrounding farms which are at the start of the food chain.

Decision makers at County Hall can no longer escape the reality that mass-burn incinerators emit PM 2.5 particulates nor the serious health effects that they pose. They must now recognise the unique and unacceptable risk posed at Capel.

We urge Surrey County Council, without further delay, to follow the clear lead that Peter Ainsworth , MP for east Surrey and Shadow Secretary of State for the Environment, has provided in coming out strongly against any more incinerators being built now and urging that the claimed health effects are thoroughly analysed.

Capel Action Group

28 January 2008

Attachments: Photographs by Steve Morris of a British Airways Boeing 777-200 landing at Gatwick Airport .

¹Aircraft produce what is called wingtip vortices, which can fall to over a thousand feet. They are a well-known danger to pilots and specific separation times and distances have been created between aircraft for safety reasons. The vortices are created by the vacuum above the wing meeting the pressure below at the wing tips. Vortices have been measured with diameters of 65 metres and rotational speeds of 200 mph. Vortex strength is directly related to aircraft weight and increases with slower speeds: for example, in the approach to landing. Currently over 40,000 aircraft pa use the flightpath over the site when landing and the number will increase if expansion at Gatwick takes place.