Monday 27 May 2013

You'll have had your tea?

What would be the most sensible thing to do in the countryside on a very windy day?

Fly a kite?
Brave a picnic?
Spread human faeces on a grand scale?

Guess what is happening here right now? A clue is that there are no kites nor picnics.

Here is what an enormous heap of human faeces looks like; my apologies if you have just eaten your tea.


The fence is on the roadside. The actual heap is not fenced off at all.


A lamb and sheep nibble on the waste.

Uncovered tractor loads have been passing the house every five minutes beginning first thing this morning and are still passing five minutely at 6pm. It is very windy here.


That is a huge volume of 'slurry' which is being sprayed on the fields around here. No notification that it was going to happen, sheep, lambs and cattle graze.

The smell is so bad that we are vomiting. The smell in the kitchen is hellish and we cannot open the window as the stuff blows in. Actually, there is no point opening the window as the windows do not close properly in the first place, the ones which have glass. The panes held in by duct tape.

Tomorrow, they will spray our water supply with human faeces. They do it every year and we all get sick.

The grey mush in this picture is freshly sprayed faeces. Perhaps the sheep moved out of the way of the sprayer as it distributed this muck on their pasture.


This cow did not move out of the way, got sprayed and just kept grazing.



Looks like our water tank got hit too.

Great water tank. Bet you all wish you had a water tank like this....


Our son by the tank - he does have a face but I have blanked it out.


Many people in Scotland are on private water supplies and have children. Many visitors to Scotland visit areas of outstanding beauty, they bring their children. Everyone drinks water.
The water supply is the landowner's responsibility. The tank belongs to the laird.
The laird could apply for an enormous grant, paid for by the public. He would get a grant for each of the private supplies which feed each house.
We could have watertight tanks.

There are only a few people who live here but each house receives many guests and visitors during the year so a lot of people ingest the water.


This is our water filter 10 minutes after it had been changed. Ten minutes.
We are told that one set of filters should last a year. The filters struggle after a couple of weeks and if they are not changed, the water does not run as it is too clogged up.


I am in a dilemma whether to move the children up to the farm where the air is not thick with human faeces but the water there is raw water, unfiltered and contains enormous amounts of coliforms, 'solids', e Coli and cryptosporidium.

Welcome to the areas of rural Scotland that the tourist board like to keep quiet about. The places where the houses are falling apart, where the tenants live in fear of retribution, where the water is toxic, where the beauty of the countryside belies the misery of the fractured communities. Where we are treated worse than the human faecal matter which is thrown on to the ground.

9 comments:

  1. I am astounded that no one is willing to fight for you....M.Ps seem to have momentary interest then shy off....

    Long shot, but why not contact John Ward on The Slog....he might be able to give some publicity.

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  2. Thank you, a fly in the web.

    We have just had an impromtu meeting with the neighbours here and every single one of us is experiencing burning eyes, clogged up breathing, burned lips and sore throats.
    Rosie and I have been vomiting and cannot eat.

    The supplier of the human faeces is whoever bought Oran. the drivers "Do not know who they work for". We cannot ascertain whether the farmer is being paid to take this stuff yet there are a couple more farmers at this practice in this glen.
    The smell is indescribable.

    I was a nurse and have dealt with many grim odours, I have delivered putrid lambs which had died in utero and that smelt horrible but this smells like nothing I can describe.

    There is not a single member in this community nor the neighbouring estate who has been unaffected, either by the smell or the burning mucus membranes yet NOBODY is willing to do anything. They are unwilling to move the animals plus the entire eco system has been affected.
    There is a heron nesting on the ground, red kite, rabbits and hares etc all affected. We have found and moved some hedgehogs to a cleaner area.

    I did not want to say this but I always thought that the Scottish Meat/ Lamb industry had the closest monitoring in Europe. The lamb kebab or beef steak being eaten tonight anywhere in the UK could have come from these fields where the animals are eating human faeces.

    I will try to contact John Ward. Thanks for that.

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  3. Don't SEPA have anything to say? They're normally so hot on this sort of stuff.

    Reporting an environmental incident

    If you wish to report an environmental incident or emergency, except flooding, you can call our free, national 24 hour pollution report line on 0800 80 70 60. Please do not call the pollution report line for service or information enquiries.

    All reported environmental incidents will be assessed immediately and will be responded to as soon as possible - at least by the end of the following day. We will attempt to contact anyone who reports an incident and wishes to receive a response, to inform them of the outcome.

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  4. MG, thank you for this information.

    I have contacted SEPA before but nothing was done. this practice occurs every year and has done for the past seven years. SEPA visited after the incident and none of us were informed about how best to cope with our water being hit.

    I phoned the number and spoke to someone just a few minutes ago and they felt that this is a serious incident.

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  5. Is this your landlord that is doing this spreading?

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  6. Neil, no, it is the farmer. The landlord has full knowledge as this practice has gone on for seven years.
    We are surrounded by three private estates, two are owned by dreadful landowners and the other one is exemplary. The good landowner was very concerned about his tenants, workers and the environment which he has restored over a period of years.
    We have all approached SEPA, Environmental Health, the police, various other bodies and even the Courier (the Tayside newspaper) but nothing.

    The farmer was approached by my neighbour and asked to stop. He just laughed.
    None of us are laughing and whilst our burning eyes and mouths are probably not serious enough to visit the doctor, what on earth is in the 'slurry' which has affected an entire community?

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  7. You're stick between the devil and the deep blue sea. What a disgraceful situation. Considering how elfansafety have a fit of the vapours at the slightest risk, you wonder how they can stay silent and complicit to this voluntary health hazard!

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  8. Between a rock and a hard place, Sarah.

    SEPA and Environmental Health have been out, the EH officer was so helpful and has promised to do what she can to help. SEPA are monitoring the area but there may be concern about the local wildlife and eco system so other agencies are involved.

    This practice IS legal but there are are very strict guidelines. This area is neglected so some people appear to create their own laws and get off with it......

    ReplyDelete