IN the same week that a report commissioned by the American tobacco industry assures us that there are minimal risks to human health from passive smoking, Det Norske Veritas assure us, in a report commissioned by Defra, that Defra operated a burial system for animals, which may have been infected with BSE, E Coli, foot and mouth etc, in a way that does not present a current risk to the public health.

The conclusion that they reached is most likely correct.

But should the question have been, 'Were human and animal hazards efficiently assessed and avoided at the onset of animal carcasses being buried at Throckmorton?'

What I object to is the cosy way that the DNV report lets Defra off the hook, though they were not asked by Defra to decide whether health of humans or animals was put at risk by their operations at the onset.

If there had been a public inquiry which allowed the residents of the surrounding villages to cross examine DEFRA, the conclusions in appendix 11 2.2 under Review (Site Selection) put forward by DNV, if interpreted by a representative of the local villages would have been much less benign.

Defra chose to describe over 130,000 animal carcasses as agricultural waste, which allowed them to proceed under the much more lenient Groundwater Regulations 1998, rather than the more stringent Environmental Protection Act 1990.

They then proceeded to use unlined cells in the knowledge that there were limestone bands, when there were huge quantities of clay already excavated and stored at the adjacent landfill site. This clay could have been returned at a later date, as the lias clay stretches north to Droitwich and beyond.

They delayed, from April 5, 2001 to May 2002, before installing a suspect clay filled trench.

In conclusion, I note that the report, for one reason or another, has adopted a 'Basil Fawlty, don't talk about the war approach'.

We now have to talk about The Defra FMD site, not Throckmorton Animal Burial Site.

J W TIMMS, Ryelands, Wyre Piddle.