Burial pit tests to last 20 years

Monitoring will continue for 20 years

Experts say the largest foot-and-mouth burial site in the Midlands will need to be monitored for at least 20 years to monitor for pollution.

The nine pits at an old airfield in Throckmorton, Worcestershire hold a total of 133,000 animal carcasses culled during the foot-and-mouth outbreak.

The animals were slaughtered as part of the contiguous cull in Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, Shropshire and Worcestershire.

At the height of that cull, queues of lorries were bringing 8,000 carcasses a day to the site, but the last animal was buried in May 2001.

The pits contain the remains of 133,00 culled animals

Although the animals should have been free of foot-and-mouth, the site will be monitored for up to 20 years to make sure it is not polluting local water supplies.

As the carcasses decompose, they produce what the engineers call "liquor".

Every day 12,000 gallons of the liquid waste is extracted from the burial pits and sent for treatment at Minworth treatment works in the West Midlands.

Engineering consultant Duncan McPhagin said: "One road tanker full of liquid is produced every day.

"It is taken to Minworth treatment works where it is properly treated before being discharged as sewage effluent would be is treated and discharged."

All the pits have been filled in, and later this year landscaping will begin to return the Throckmorton area to normal.