Genghis the Engineer
21st Sep 2004, 12:14
I was reminded this morning of a drama in which I played a small and unsuccessful part. It upset me quite a bit at the time but I elected not to take it further - now it's far enough in the past that I think I'll take any flack for "going public".
Moderator - if you think this post is irrelevant or inappropriate, please act as you see fit.
A few summers ago Brits will remember the awfulness of the nationwide foot-and-mouth disease epidemic. Across the UK animals were being culled, and their carcasses buried under the disused Great Orton airfield in Cumbria (for foreigners, this is in the top left hand corner of England, just South of the Solway Firth).
About this time, I was phoned by a pilot who had operated from Great Orton until fairly recently. He pointed out that just North of the runway was a large windfarm. When the wind was Northerly (which was quite often) he described the turbulence over the runway as "horrendous". He made the point to me that this turbulence might cause a risk of FMD being spread, it being an airborne disease. I agreed to look into this.
So, I made two phone calls. The first was to the Min of Ag, where I tracked down a specialist in FMD. He advised me that the carcasses were likely to be infectious by aerosol for at-least 20 days - which was certainly more than the time they were taking to move the carcasses to Great Orton and bury them.
The second was to a friend who is an expert on the aerodynamics of windmills. Whilst cautious, he was of the opinion that downwind of the windmills anything on the surface was likely to be picked up and spread downwind.
Armed with this, I tracked down and phoned the senior vet in Cumbria who was (I was told) responsible for the burying activities at Great Orton. I explained the information I'd received and concerns. He asked for my advice, which was straightforward - shut down Great Orton windfarm until all of the bodies were properly buried and covered over. He accepted that, and I asked him if I should follow this up in writing. He said that wouldn't be necessary.
I then got on with normal life (which was for me helping airfield businesses on or near farmland find some way of coping during the epidemic). But some months later, I discovered two things. The first was that the windfarm operator convinced the government vets that there was no risk, so the windfarms were never shut down. The second was that FMD first appeared in the lake district about 2 weeks after the burials started at Great Orton; the Lake District is more or less directly South of Cumbria.
It could of-course be pure co-incidence. The spread of disease to the Lake District may have happened anyhow and by other routes. It may well be that the operators of that windfarm had more wisdom on downstream effects than either a PhD in aerodynamics who had written a book on windmill design, or a pilot who had flown regularly from that airfield with the windfarm operating.
But, I really do wish I'd put that advice in writing, and probably copied to the ministry as well.
G
Moderator - if you think this post is irrelevant or inappropriate, please act as you see fit.
A few summers ago Brits will remember the awfulness of the nationwide foot-and-mouth disease epidemic. Across the UK animals were being culled, and their carcasses buried under the disused Great Orton airfield in Cumbria (for foreigners, this is in the top left hand corner of England, just South of the Solway Firth).
About this time, I was phoned by a pilot who had operated from Great Orton until fairly recently. He pointed out that just North of the runway was a large windfarm. When the wind was Northerly (which was quite often) he described the turbulence over the runway as "horrendous". He made the point to me that this turbulence might cause a risk of FMD being spread, it being an airborne disease. I agreed to look into this.
So, I made two phone calls. The first was to the Min of Ag, where I tracked down a specialist in FMD. He advised me that the carcasses were likely to be infectious by aerosol for at-least 20 days - which was certainly more than the time they were taking to move the carcasses to Great Orton and bury them.
The second was to a friend who is an expert on the aerodynamics of windmills. Whilst cautious, he was of the opinion that downwind of the windmills anything on the surface was likely to be picked up and spread downwind.
Armed with this, I tracked down and phoned the senior vet in Cumbria who was (I was told) responsible for the burying activities at Great Orton. I explained the information I'd received and concerns. He asked for my advice, which was straightforward - shut down Great Orton windfarm until all of the bodies were properly buried and covered over. He accepted that, and I asked him if I should follow this up in writing. He said that wouldn't be necessary.
I then got on with normal life (which was for me helping airfield businesses on or near farmland find some way of coping during the epidemic). But some months later, I discovered two things. The first was that the windfarm operator convinced the government vets that there was no risk, so the windfarms were never shut down. The second was that FMD first appeared in the lake district about 2 weeks after the burials started at Great Orton; the Lake District is more or less directly South of Cumbria.
It could of-course be pure co-incidence. The spread of disease to the Lake District may have happened anyhow and by other routes. It may well be that the operators of that windfarm had more wisdom on downstream effects than either a PhD in aerodynamics who had written a book on windmill design, or a pilot who had flown regularly from that airfield with the windfarm operating.
But, I really do wish I'd put that advice in writing, and probably copied to the ministry as well.
G