Explosive issue in the Chtmnel
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Ido not envy Mr Higgs, the director general of the Fertiliser Manufacturers Association in his dutiful attempt to defend the practice of transporting the well-known explosive ammonium nitrate through the Channel Tunnel (CM 8-14 June), The almost unbelievable folly of Eurotunnel, and those who permit its action, is so alarming that the news analysis (CM 1-7 June. page 22) can hardly be accused of sensationalism.
Not only is the substance inherently explosive, but the process used to facilitate its use as a fertiliser enhances its sensitivity to explosive initiation.
As Mr Higgs admits, even the somewhat diluted form (rather inaccurately described as "calcium ammonium nitrate" or CAN) is quite suitable for confecting the bombs of terrorism, as people who live in London, Belfast or Oklahoma can attest.
It is the only substance freely available in such quantity which can be used for the improvisation of large bombs.
I am sure that a slip of his pen accounted for his stating that ammonium nitrate has been banned in Ireland since 1973.
Only the relatively pure substance has been made subject to a "letter of fitness", obtainable from a local senior policeman; the fertiliser grade, diluted with limestone in the initial fallacious belief that it would not work in bombs, is still freely available. Hence the bombs.
Perhaps Mr Higgs is confusing fertiliser with weed killer, Sodium chlorate—also a substance useful to the amateur bombmaker—was, indeed, banned in the Republic in 1973.
The terrible threat lies in the ease with which ammonium nitrate can be deliberately detonated by a terrorist.
The raison d'etre of the Health and Safety Executive which I for years wrongly supposed to be the improvement of the population's health and safety, is actually to carry out the incumbent Government's policy on health and safety, The two are very different; the latter frequently being determined more by political considerations than concern with the well-being of individuals.
Thus, at the Government's behest, the HSE accepts the United Nation's present and economically convenient classification of the substance as an oxidising agent, which it unquestionably is.
Whether or not an individual employee of the HSE admits that it is also an explosive depends upon his aversion to telling a lie.
As far as the relative hazards of transporting large amounts of petrol and ammonium are concerned, it is obvious that burning petrol could cause such an amount of havoc that its transport is surely unthinkable.
On the other hand, after the debris and the charred bodies have been removed, at least work could begin on refurbishing the interior: with an ammonium nitrate explosion there would not be an interior.
Dr Sidney Alford, Cars/join,
Wills.