Recent responses by Didcot Power Station management to press inquiries about Radley Lakes have been repetitive.

It has appeared hardly worth their effort to reply.

Letters to the press have provoked no response at all. Pleas about the loss of wildlife and the devastation of the landscape have apparently fallen on deaf ears.

So what has now upset John Rainford, the power station manager, so much that he feels compelled to respond instantly to an article in last Wednesday's Oxford Mail?

Well, apparently it's the word noxious' when applied to his waste ash and the idea that there could be anything unpleasant being put into the Radley Lakes.

Have we found his Achilles heel? What exactly does go into our local environment from this ash? At Didcot, ash is mixed with water and piped to Radley Lakes. Excess water is discharged into the Thames via an outfall pool in Pumney Brook.

If this effluent is harmless, why is this pool now very murky and biologically virtually dead?

Not so many years ago, it was clear bottomed, with thousands of fish. Where are they now?

If this ash is not noxious, why is it now a legal requirement that any pit storing this ash has to be clay lined, so that water cannot seep out?

If this ash is not noxious, why is the outflow monitored for substances like arsenic, chromium, vanadium and boron, some of which are toxic in quite small amounts and accumulate in the tissues of plants and the animals that eat them? Aren't these noxious substances'?

My concern is that, far from there being no noxious substances in the ash, there may be many, like mercury, that are not adequately and independently monitored.

Instead of the outraged innocence of Mr Rainford, the public need a lot more information about what is being deposited in our environment, who monitors it and how often.

Marjorie White, Cherwell Close, Abingdon