Now will they come clean on Cemfuel?
OF ALL the controversies that have raged for six years over the burning of the chemical-waste fuel, Cemfuel, at the Clitheroe plant of Castle Cement, perhaps the most ludicrous and vexing is that of the Environment Agency now putting a steep price on the truth of what the stuff actually is.

For, now that at long last it has revealed - to the alarm of clean-air campaigners and Ribble Valley residents - what categories of hazardous waste chemicals are allowed to be burned in Cemfuel, it has not specified those that actually are.

But it will do if those who want to know will pay more than £11,000.

In the main, this is so that Agency officials can blank out commercially confidential information in the thousands of documents that contain the truth of what Cemfuel really is rather than what it may be.

It may be that this would be an onerous task involving the Agency in extra expenditure.

But why should it be hindering - with a bill this size - members of the public having access to what is public information and when it is a body set up for the benefit and welfare of the taxpaying public?

Is not its first duty that of serving the public, rather than its own obstructive procedures?

It should release this vital information forthwith - without charge. Environment minister John Prescott, never short of words about atmospheric pollution, should order this immediately

But while we await this ultimate intelligence, there can be hardly any less concern over the safety of Cemfuel - not when it is now disclosed that it may include such wastes as those from petrol refining and paint and adhesive manufacture as well as such things as acid sludges and tars.

If this is what goes into Cemfuel, what comes out of the chimney at Clitheroe when it is burnt?

Residents are right to be concerned and indeed suspicious of what they are told.

For as campaigner Mary Horner points out tonight, at the outset of this controversy they were told by the company's then manager that Cemfuel was a "new light fuel oil" and did not contain hazardous dioxins and fumes.

Does this not contrast starkly with what it is actually allowed to be?

After all this time and controversy, surely the point has been reached when the people of the Ribble Valley have a right to know the whole truth.

They deserve to know whether or not the cement works, which is also acting as an incinerator of hazardous industrial waste in their midst, is harming their health - and the Environment Agency must do all it can to answer that question with total certainty.