The Scottish Government is proud to support windfarm development in suitable areas. How can the industrialisation of water catchment areas, once protected by law, be regarded as suitable?  I believe that the current lack of consideration in allowing and promoting industrialisation of either public or private water catchment areas is contrary to the whole ethos of planning law and flagrantly risks public health and amenity.

Letters to MPs, MSPs, MEPs and councillors:

Please read here an  Open letter to Ken MacIntosh MSP regarding a response from Scottish Water about their failure to meet Regulatory standards in the public water supply to 50,000 people during the construction of Whitelee windfarm.

Please also read here the  Cruach Mhor story from the diary of a family, complete with baby,  forced out of their home for two successive winters as a result of direct effects on their water supply due to adjacent windfarm construction.

These are not isolated events. Scottish water supplies need protection from industrialisation which is occurring on an unprecedented scale.

Thank you

Rachel Connor

Open letter to Dr Aileen Keel , Deputy Chief Medical Officer for Scotland.

Dear Dr Keel,

I am a semi retired radiologist ( ex GGHB) and for the past year, have been looking into the cause of serious water pollution  involving our private water supply, that coincided with the construction of the adjacent  Whitelee windfarm, the largest onshore windfarm in the UK, which straddles East Ayrshire, East Renfrewshire and North Lanarkshire.

In the course of my investigation , I discovered serious breaches in quality of the Public water supply to the 50,000 people in N. Kilmarnock and the Irvine Valley, with related failings of regulatory standards by Scottish water. The poor water quality  led to a 40% increase in turn,  for several months , of trihalomethanes (THMs)in the Public water supply.

THMs are recognised by the WHO as being a possible carcinogen ( based on laboratory animal experiments) and a probable carcinogen by US authorities ( based on population studies).

I have tried, unsuccessfully, to alert the Local authority and local MSPs and MPs and to get this information into the public domain.

I have now ‘published ‘ my findings on You tube and this link (below) has been sent to all MSPs and all Scottish MSPs , the Environment minister and SEPA, as well as many local authorities.

Parliamentary questions have also been tabled by Graeme Pearson MSP. ( Answers due by 28th August) It has been viewed in 16 countries in 7 days.

I believe there may be significant health risks to the general public and young infants in particular, with their  high body surface/mass ratios. These infants will probably have been at particular risk  if fed on formula milk accumulating potentially unacceptably high levels of THMs.

In addition, not mentioned in my presentation, there were serious, significantly elevated ,  prolonged periods of  the amount of excessive iron and manganese in the public water supply during the construction period of Whitelee windfarm, which may have been an unknown hazard to  patients with haemochromatosis with attendant increase in cirrhosis and hepatoma.

Scottish water have denied breaches of regulatory standards, although Amlaird water treatment works  in particular, was criticised in the Drinking Water Quality Regulators’ report for 2012.

My findings are now being assessed by the Renewable Energy Foundation. Their preliminary assessment is that there may well be substance to my concern about the ‘peat slide ‘ causing significant water contamination.

I would like to bring this presentation and my findings to your attention in the hope that there is a moratorium on the building of any further windfarms or turbines on water catchment areas,  until this has been properly investigated and the health risks quantified and made public.

This can be viewed at: 

 

Yours sincerely,

Dr Rachel Connor