The Northern Ireland Office last night confirmed that there are three storage dumps of ground cattle carcasses in the North, as the British government continues to battle against the BSE crisis.
Britain's Environmental Agency is investigating one such dump in Lincolnshire where 50,000 tonnes of carcasses are stored, after reports that potentially lethal waste infected with mad cow disease could leak out.
A spokesman for the environmental watchdog said yesterday that recent visitors to a site in Lincolnshire in east England had seen pigeons or mice inside the dump, which is supposed to be airtight.
It has been confirmed that there are similar sites at Strabane, Co Tyrone, Mallusk, Co Antrim, and Newtownstewart, Co Tyrone, operated by private contractors. An NIO spokesman said last night he had no precise details about the facilities, "but yes, they do exist. Like any other waste it has to go somewhere". The Observer newspaper yesterday gave the location of 13 dumps in Britain, which have built up because the only incinerator that can burn the carcasses at the required 1,000 C, in Southampton, can only handle 15,000 of the 80,000 tonnes of cattle remains that are being created annually.
Since 1996, 3.5 million cattle aged over 30 months have been culled in Britain. It is estimated that one in 100 of the cattle culled was incubating mad cow disease, so contaminating the dust.