CLAIMS that two East Lancashire chemical plants are pumping out tonnes of cancer-causing fumes are branded as alarmist by the industries today. Even so, and even with the continuing reduction of them, the nature and sheer amount of these emissions remain alarming.

For though the list compiled by Friends of the Earth of 97 sites where more than a tonne of a recognised carcinogen was poured into the environment - among them the Nipa Laboratories plant at Oswaldtwistle and the ICI works at Clitheroe - may be based on out-of-date figures, the up-to-date situation is far from comforting.

The Environment Agency says that the emission of these hazardous chemicals in the North West - where 25 factories are blamed for three-quarters of all cancer-causing pollution in the country - has been reduced by 13 per cent since it issued the data used by Friends of the Earth.

Yet despite this and the on-going improvements, it remains a disturbing fact that a cocktail of known and suspected carcinogenic chemicals and metals are still being released into the environment in our region alone at the rate of 33,000 tonnes a year.

And no matter what the officially-accepted levels are for these types of emissions, it cannot be sensible for the people of East Lancashire to be exposed to such an amount of hazardous industrial waste - equivalent in volume to a staggering 660,000 sacks of coal.

There may be much irony in pollution protesters in the Ribble Valley waging a campaign for years over Castle Cement in Clitheroe burning chemical waste as fuel when, it turns out, the ICI plant in the town is officially a far worse threat.

But the real point of the alarm raised - quite rightly - by Friends of the Earth is that what needs to be reduced is official tolerance of these levels.

We may all need the products of these plants, but it does not follow that the processes involved should be permitted to pour out harmful substances at such levels.

We saw in the 1950s and 60s how the release of factory and domestic smoke into the atmosphere could be reduced tremendously when tough legislation was backed by concerted action and the same happened in the 1980s in the case of lead from petrol.

The Government should now lead a similar drive against these cancer-causing chemicals poured out by industry.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.