Subject: FW: R5L
From: "Kevin Myers" <kevin.myers@bbc.co.uk>
To: whaleto@btinternet.com>
Sent: Wednesday, April 11, 2001 11:29 AM
Here is a briefing regarding the scientist featured yesterday and his credentials - the company mentioned does have a website, and I've included the address beneath. It may well be possible to contact him from there. I hope that this information is useful to you. Regards, Kevin
BRIEF:Elliott Moorhead is chief executive of NanoVapor (part of the Moorhead group
which specialises in Biotechnology as applied to toxic and noxious gases). He's also one
of America's leading experts in animal waste disposal. He says the burial of animals over
here is criminal - we're building a big pit where diseases can breed. It's a potential
disaster.
He says it's like boiling a "nutrient soup" - everything that lives in there
is going to grow. The bugs don't die just because we bury them.They release
nitrates which could cause huge potential damage to our water supply. That in turn could
lead to loads of horrible conditions such as blue baby syndrome.
He likens it to a similar policy in America which led to an environmental disaster. Up to a million chickens, pigs and cattle were buried in pits in North Carolina after Hurricane Floyd wreaked havoc in 1999. The policy has led to contamination of thousands of wells which the state relies on for its water supply. Levels of illnesses in the local population have also soared.
Moorhead says if we make mistakes now then we could be living with the consequences for the next 15 years. He says what we should be doing is innoculating these pits with good bacteria to out-compete the bad ones. It's a simple case of biotechnology and using the right bacteria. Moorhead is amazed at the scale of the problem here. He can't believe how many animals are being put into one pit. He said in America we'd be arrested for doing this.He says we should know this - there are experts in Britain who should know this - well we haven't heard them.