CRAG, the Clyde River Action Group, fought a protracted stand off over 2009 and 2010 with quarry firm, Paterson,s of Greenoakhill, named and shamed as a serial polluter by SEPA, the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency.
At issue was Paterson’s application to construct a massive sand and gravel quarry on the banks of the upper Clyde at Overburns Farm in Lamington.
The site is on a stretch of the Clyde that took environmental groups 25 years to clean up and return to the state of a living river, now a famous brown trout fishery for anglers.
The area, with the lovely Tinto Hill, is also one recreationally important for the locality and of real scenic beauty.
The Paterson application saw huge quarry pits cut deep into the ground by the side of the river, with regular movements of superlarge trucks taking the sand and gravel away to the motorway – but travelling first through small local villages at the rate of one giant truck every five minutes.
Key issues were that there could be no guarantee that the site would not pollute the Clyde and, because of its upriver location, carry the pollution downriver through the traditional salmon spawning beds and fisheries.
And after the 15 year lifespan of the quarry, with millions of tons extracted each year, the resulting huge pits in the ground were to be left filled with water, their straight-sided depth a serious safety hazard.
CRAG eventually won the battle and the Paterson application was refused.
But they’re back and CRAG must gear up again to resist the quarrying proposal.
Paterson’s have lodged a new application which looks little different from the old one and the small villages of the area must summon again the energies and resourcefulness that stood them in good stead before.
The process – with the impact on small communities in facing repeated onslaughts from powerful, wealthy and well connected business – is reminiscent of another, on a different issue, in Argyll at the moment.
It is very similar to the position of some small Argyll communities forced for the second successive time and with no intervening period, to fight to defend their local primary schools from closure.
Like CRAG with Patersons, the Argyll Rural Schools Network (ARSN) saw off Argyll and Bute Council’s first attempt. That was the proposal to close 26 rural schools – and on the basis of proposal papers so deeply flawed that they had to be withdrawn from public consultation.
But the council came back with a list of 12 schools, containing several from the original list and seeing those communities, children and parents, forced immediately back into the arena to fight for their lives against an infinitely better resourced, if less than competent,opponent.
This is against natural justice.
We and others have argued that there must be a moratorium to prevent such summons to the same battlefield for stated period of time of, say, 5-7 years.
CRAG should not be in the position of having to mount a second concurrent defence. We have no doubt that it will and no doubt of the strength of its arguments and its will to fight.
But the worry is always the back room deals beyond the reach of the communities who pay the ultimate price of wrong decisions.
We support CRAG unequivocally, as we did the first time around and we urge Argyll folk with an interest in angling, rivers and the environment to support them too.
