RESIDENTS ABANDONED TO APOCALYPTIC FLARING AT MOSSMORRAN

After apocalyptic flaring tonight which could be seen from Dundee to Portobello Edinburgh, residents in the immediate terrifying orbit of the Mossmorran petrochemical plant vented their fear and anger on social media.

Chair of Mossmorran Action Group, James Glen, a community group Which campaigns to protect communities near the plant, said:

“Tonight’s flaring is absolutely unacceptable. Residents feel utterly abandoned by the Scottish Government and SEPA, who are letting multinational Exxon get away with murder. Our facebook page and twitter feeds have blown up. People are petrified, they can’t breathe properly, they are worried sick about the pollution spewing from the plant and they have been left completely in the dark about what is going on.

SEP’s response has been pitiful. They knew this flaring was coming but they don’t even have bodies on the ground monitoring, their monitoring equipment broke down for 16 days last month and they only measure for the size of particles emitted in a couple of locations, not the particular carcinogenic pollutants being flared out.

Ministers are in hiding and have consistently refused to come to the area to hear from local communities while ministers hobnob with Exxon and applaud their investment in the plant, investment which became inevitable until the maintenance of the plant was so neglected that two (in HSE’s words)”explosions” and “catastrophic breakdowns” last August forced the ethylene plant to shut down for 6 months. Residents did not get a break, however, because the gas coming from the North Sea could not be shut off and had to be flared off continually by Shell.”