Contaminated manure warning

SKIPPY54

Hi,I have just received this,if you are affected here is what to do after you have signed the petition.
Dont forget to email,write to your MP the more that are involved the better.

Thank you.




http://www.allotment.org.uk/manure3.htm

Larumbelle

Mmmm I replied to this yesterday and today.

You have to be wary of treating your land the way he tells you to - the Environment Agency have informed me that it is illegal to do this, which is why you are instructed to return manure to the supplier.

It's frustrating that John is advising people not to take legal action - as I just replied to him (and I hope I didn't sound preachy), it's easy to say not to when you can still afford to put good food on the table. Some people are having to find money they simply don't have because of this, I think it's only fair they be allowed to exert their legal rights. 'Blame' is a funny concept, anyway. It's not only in this case that 'guilty' means 'unwitting third party' but you don't get this argument with any of the others.

If aminopyralid isn't removed from the food chain suppliers are going to have to increase costs anyway, commercial manure merchants are already demanding affidavits stating that the manure is aminopyralid-free. And he forgets that the alternative to us taking it off them is costly removal by registered waste contractors, so we have actually been doing them a favour.

A lawyer and I are scouring legal precedents to put a case against Dow together, but it would have to go through 'proper' court as small claims are private cases and do not follow (or set) legal precedence.

It's a shame really, if government were doing their job we'd have clear guidelines to follow and wouldn't end up in silly squabbles like this.

Larumbelle

I also just want to give a huge and public thanks to katiel and ok go for their kind offers to proof read for me :T Thank you so much guys I really appreciate it! It's nothing too hard, it's just checking for typos and making sure it makes sense. You know when you don't even see the words any more?! That's where I am. First time since my long and boring dissertation on the future role of organised labour in the steel industry...

Larumbelle

Sorry for the triple post... can someone else occasionally post here so it doesn't end up the silver show?!

A few updates - fingers crossed BBC Radio 4 are going to cover the story - many thanks for suggesting them ok go :T

The website is now online - have PMd/emailed five times now asking for permission to list my website but not heard yet ( maybe someone else will look on my profile and sneakily list it for me! )

Also, yet another request for help. I'm putting together an offline information sheet to be distributed, and also FAQs on the website. I'm so involved now, I can't think what the basics are. If you had just heard of this, what would you want to know?
Any input, as always, very gratefully recieved.

Mini_JK

Cheers for the info Silver - I wil break your posts up a bit

I also found this website which you might find intersting :rolleyes:
http://www.muckinthemuck.com/

Its all looks good to me, regarding the "testing for contamination section" this is an area that really interests me, as I don't want a repeat of this years disater, and want to be certain that any new composts I use in future are "safe". Whilst your advice is good, I'm not sure how many of us will have tomato plants grown or purchased at the correct stage next spring, it will need a fair bit of planning ahead.

I still have a bag full of contaminated compost and have been running a trial for a few weeks trying various different indicator plants. I was hoping to find some other plant that grows really fast from seed and shows the damage very quickly. Mainly beacuse it takes quite a few weeks to get tomato from seed to the stage where they show damage. So far I've tried mustard, cress, soya bean, runner bean, peas, onions as well as tomatoes. My trials are too early and a bit inconclusive to publish yet, for instance I've found that tomatoes actually grow faster and look stronger in contaminated compost to begin with (this is the hormonal effect of the aminopyralid). Also I've made a few mistakes and a nasty attack of blight, so would like to get a repeatable set of results before I go public. I will post results here if anyone is interested.

Larumbelle

That would be absolutely fantastic if you could do that! It would be so helpful!

As regards testing, I agree it's less than ideal, I have had to rely on the so-called experts here. I haven't suffered any contamination personally and haven't been able to experiment. Could I be really cheeky and ask you for photos?! I do think, though, that anyone with existing contamination and anyone who wants to use manure, will, as you say, have to start organising themselves very early to test before planting.

Cheers for the website :rolleyes: It's all a bit of a rush job, anyone spots anything wrong, or needs changing, or has any other input at all, I'd be very grateful!

Mini_JK

Hi Silver, I've got loads of photos, do you mean photos of the damaged plants or the trial? I've got photos of my damaged tomatoes, runner beans and potatoes, do you want them for the website?

pm me if necessary - I can't promise to repond very fast as I haven't used the pm system here before.

The RHS advised using tomato cuttings as indicator plants, but that would mean over-wintering some plants - for me that would mean keeping them in the house for a few months, not ideal for me.

SKIPPY54

Nudge Nudge;)

Larumbelle

Big news today...

Radio 4 is running a piece about aminopyralid on the PM show on Saturday 9th August (tomorrow) at 5pm. Thanks for the suggestion of approaching them ok go! I'm really impressed that they've moved so quickly.

So... here's what I know. They asked me to record a little piece (which I fluffed totally, can't imagine they'll use it!) They've got an interview with a man I know whose entire allotment site has been contaminated, and interview with NSALG and one with the Soil Association.

Here's hoping it'll lead to bigger publicity and awareness, eh?! :beer:

RAS

Silver

Thanks for doing all this. I am one of the lucky ones. Bought manure last spring and I was alright. Had enough over for this year. But many of my fellow plotters have been devastated, in some instances using manure bought from the same source later on last year.

No-one will now buy manure from the same source.

Had an interesting conversation with the NFU at a show. When I pointed out that that farmer was going to be faced with a major disposal problem as no-one would buy his manure now, the guy went Oh sh****.

I reckon he was making about £2500 from our site alone, so he is also going to take a huge hit on his income.

One thing that does concern me about testing is that when i walked round our site, the effect was very patchy. So there could be a patch of potatoes, with those in one area looking OK and then a swathe through the middle of itwhere the plants were some of the most distorted I have seen. It was as if some of the manure was OK and then there was a section that was badly contaminated, so when it was forked out the effect was uneven.