Counting costs of Devon burial site
Counting costs of Devon burial site
THE huge carcass burial site at Ash Moor near Meeth and Petrockstow in Devon has so far cost £7.5m and will cost a further £500,000 to remove the roads and barrows, if, as seems likely, it is not needed.
A MAFF statement reads: "If it does prove necessary to dispose of carcasses at Ash Moor the site would have to be maintained and monitored for at least 10 years. The costs of doing this for the three cells that are currently available would amount to a total of £5m over 10 years."
When the project was first announced by MAFF at the height of the foot-and-mouth outbreak in Devon it was stated that the site could accommodate up to 432,000 sheep carcass-equivalents in 18 "barrows" or burial chambers, all with facilities to remove leachate for disposal by incineration.
At the time there were up to 175,000 carcasses awaiting disposal. Some lay rotting on farms and in gateways for two weeks or more. Whatever disposal method MAFF proposed, the public opposed it, and the protests continue still. *