Pinboard News for 10/04/20

Landfill Smell

The following message was received by FRS, the operators of the landfill site. “I am delighted to inform you that the capping of Phase 3 Cell 2 is now complete, as we have finished sealing round the edges of the cap yesterday.

All 13 gas wells installed in Phase 3 Cell 2 are now connected into the gas collection system and we are drawing gas from each one.

This is almost two weeks ahead of the new schedule SEPA gave us and they were informed yesterday of the completion of the works.”

Does this message mean an end to the horrific smell experienced by communities within a six miles radius of the dump? Apparently not! Residents were still experiencing the toxic fumes to the extent that people were being woken up by it. The monthly site visits proposed by FRS to allow the community to see for themselves what actions FRS were taking have, quite rightly, been postponed due to Coronavirus. Therefore we must hold our breath, quite literally, to see if the smell still escaping out with the boundary of the site (in contravention of their SEPA permit to operate) is due to a settling in period while the various gas wellheads are ‘balanced’. In the meantime, please keep reporting any smells to SEPA on 01592 776910, or go online to the SEPA main page and report.

Community Spirit

On Thursday evening at 8pm and even bigger noise was made than last week. It demonstrates the appreciation for the NHS and all key workers by the community in a very obvious way. A pot with a metal ladle can make quite a din! Other forms of the community coming together are: a bread making service was offered by a local artisan who specializes in soda bread. Prescription pick-ups and newspaper deliveries have all been organized.

Fiveways Website

The website continues to attract new and varied posts of a variety of subjects. This week we learned; how to make bread for ourselves, various tips of gardening to do with grass cutting, pruning and planting a review of the latest monthly book club book, ‘The Dry’, and one resident who has been designing a garden from scratch for the last two years

Book club Review – ‘The Dry’

Set in the drought-ridden landscape of a small town in Australia, this debut novel, a crime-thriller, proved popular with most readers of the Giffordtown Reading Group.

Aaron Falk returns to his hometown to attend the funeral of a childhood friend, Luke, who died violently, along with his wife and young son, in gruesome and unexplained circumstances. Gradually, Aaron, a Federal Agent, is reluctantly drawn into probing the death of the Hadler family, revealing long-held secrets and old animosities. All this is set against the tensions of a farming community struggling to make a living in harsh, arid conditions.

For those who like their murders bloody, this does not disappoint and there are sufficient plot twists, though some stretching credibility, to keep readers turning the pages. The characters were believable and narrative time changes were easy to follow, while the use of colloquial language made it an easy read. Criticisms were that the ending was a bit hurried, if not superficial, and for some it was hard to believe in the motivation for the perpetrator of the crime. However, for crime-thriller enthusiasts, The Dry will not disappoint.

Litter Picking

Residents have been taking their daily exercise in the form of a walk, accompanied by a litter picking pole and a bag. In all, about 15 bin liner bags have been filled with the usual suspects; Coffee cups, food wrappers, plastic bottles. It is quite surprising that a pristine roadside verge can be littered again within a 24 hour period. Littering has been less obvious due to the reduced volumes of traffic. However the car park at Heatherhall woods, supposedly closed due to Coronavirus with a sign saying closed, is not only often full with cars, but some occupants don’t want to take their rubbish home with them, so it is tossed out of the window. I wonder how you would go about changing the mind-set of people who don’t care about the environment in such a basic way.