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Landfills:
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| On
a fine day you get a good view to the south east from Ashurst Beacon,
just above Skelmersdale ‘new town’, of the city of Liverpool
and the Mersey estuary. What you don’t see are a dozen current
and past landfill sites that ring Skelmersdale, making it possibly
the landfill capital of the UK. In the middle 1990s Lancashire County Council proposed to include a local quarry in the mineral and waste local plan. Before the public enquiry, UK Waste applied to landfill the same quarry, filling Round O Quarry with 3 million tonnes of biodegradable waste. The tip would have been 150 meters away from a local school and 200 meters away from land zoned for housing. Enough was enough, and the community formed ARROW – Action to Reduce and Recycle Our Waste.ARROW set to work to raise public opinion and knowledge by a series of meetings and demonstrations. A key action was to survey the views of people around some current landfill sites. Sixty five people were surveyed within a mile of the Billinge Hill landfill site near Wigan, Lancs. This was a modern, ‘well-managed’ landfill site that was regulated by the Environment Agency. ARROW found that: • Over eight out of ten (84%) of the residents said the landfill site had affected them. • Over half (52%) of the residents were affected by windblown rubbish. • Six out of ten (62%) of the residents reported problems with smells. • Nine (14%) said they could not go for walks or open windows because of the smell. • Eight (12%) had problems they thought were linked with the landfill (e.g. nausea, sinusitis, allergic rhinitis, asthma, dizzy spells, angina and difficulty breathing). • Many others complained of seagull shit and flies and the fear of what they were actually putting in landfill. • One in three (35%) of the residents had complained to various authorities (company, council and Environment Agency), but nothing was ever done so most had given up complaining. ‘yellow goop’ Another survey concerned the ‘state-of the-art’ Holiday Moss tip managed by UK Waste with up-to-date liners and gas/ leachate technology. 53 residents were surveyed and the usual range of problems found: many complained of smells (and the smell of the masking agent!), flies, wind-blown litter, large lorries through the village, leaking leachate, seagulls, choking and nauseating dust clouds, ‘yellow goop’ falling on cars. Ranges of health problems were associated by local residents with the tip: sore throats, chest problems, headaches, various cancers, and birth defects. Again, complaining to the company, the local council or the Environment Agency was said to be of no use and people just gave up. The problems at Holiday Moss were seen by residents to be even greater than those at Billinge Hill. Del Ellis of ARROW checked out the Environment Agency’s public register at two sites in 1998. At one site he found that eight of 33 valves had been seized-up for a number of years. Those valves are meant to protect the public from the build-up of landfill gas. There was also evidence of EA concern about gas migration; the agency had written to the tip operator threatening legal action. EA had also written a reassuring letter to some worried residents at the same time, admitting that there was “some” migration under their properties! In January 1998 a serious incident occurred at West Quarry landfill tip. Gas migrated off site to the cellar of a building where a heating system ignition caused an explosion. There were EA letters to the operator and letters of concern from local residents. When ARROW returned to collect evidence from the EA, the agency insisted that the evidence did not exist. None of this reassured ARROW members of the ability of the EA to protect them from the ill effects of landfills. ARROW raised 700 objections to the planning application for the Round O Quarry landfill and Lancashire County Council turned it down. UK Waste appealed and a planning inspector held an enquiry during July and September 1998. The council were the official defendants, but the case was actually fought by ARROW as a third party, employing consultants Paul Mobbs and Alan Watson as well as briefing 100 people on how to present their own complaints to the planning inspector. Crucially, 39 local GPs and the local Community Health Council were among the many who wrote letters of objection to the planning application. |
Appeal
rejected |
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Landfills:
Nantygwyddon - Don’t dump on us
Coal, socialism
and male voice choirs are among the characteristics of the proud valleys
of Wales.
For the UK and much of the world, 1966 brought another unforgettable feature:
the Aberfan disaster when a massive coal mining slagheap slid onto Pantglas
primary school in the Taff valley village. The disaster killed144 people,
most poignantly 116 children from the school. Official enquiries blamed
the lack of regulation and gross negligence by the Coal Board. The awful
impact of Aberfan lives on in the memories of the people of the valleys.
So distant alarm bells rang when, in 1988, the local council in the nearby
Rhondda valley aimed to boost ‘industrial development and tourism’
by opening the Nantygwyddon landfill site, with the aid of a European
Community regional development grant.
Once a local beauty spot, Nantygwyddon rises 350 meters above the Rhondda
valley, just above Tonypandy. Its name literally means ‘stream of
the forest,’ so water springs and rain falls down its slopes into
the River Rhondda. The annual rainfall is a massive 2,500 mm (with up
to 75 mm recorded in one 24-hour period) and wind speeds can reach 80mph
at the peak. Around 20,000 people live beneath the landfill site.For the
first few years the complaints were few, and mainly concerned waste flying
about. In 1995 the council created an ‘arm’s length’ company
to run the site and it immediately started accepting industrial and toxic
(‘special’) waste. 30,000 tonnes of calcium sulphate, or gypsum,
containing waste from the Purolite factory near Cardiff was dumped at
Nantygwyddon between 1995 and 1997 (about 8% of total wastes deposited
in that period).
Since 1989 it had been recommended by the government “that large
proportions of gypsum waste are not co-disposed with household, commercial
or similar wastes.” This was because such a mixture will produce
large amounts of highly dangerous and foul smelling hydrogen sulphide
gas, often called rotten egg gas with good reason.
In fact this waste already had a sordid history! Biffa Waste services
had dumped 16,000 tonnes of it, also from the Purolite factory, at the
nearby Trecatti landfill site at Merthyr Tydfil. This caused a massive
number of smell complaints and people blocked off the site for a while.
As a result the Environment Agency brought in consultants, who found levels
of hydrogen sulphide up to 46 times higher than normal. The protests forced
Purolite to look instead to Nantygwyddon
RANT
Concerns about waste and vehicles grew during the 1990s into worries about
foul smells and health. The community formed Rhondda Against Nantygwyddon
Tip (RANT). The campaign group then embarked upon a series of meetings
as well as letter writing campaigns aimed at the tip owners, the local
council and the Environment Agency (EA). It all resulted in little action.
Eventually, during a particularly cold March until December 1997, RANT
was forced into picketing the road up to the tip. This action cost Rhondda
Waste Disposal £300,000. Seven members of RANT were served with
court injunctions to prevent them picketing and the picket was abandoned.
But it had done its job and turned media and council attention onto the
hazards of the landfill.
All the publicity and pressure also forced the EA into some belated action;
between July and September 1997 the EA received 106 complaints of smells
from the site. It commissioned the ENTEC firm of consultants to examine
the pollution from the tip. ENTEC found that:
• There were high levels of hydrogen sulphide (‘rotten eggs’
smell). It was recorded above its odour recognition level in 9 of 24 complaints
examined in community air samples. The maximum level recorded was almost
three times that World Health Organization’s (WHO) sensory annoyance
standard. This level was also exceeded on the night of 15th September
1997.
• On four occasions when there were complaints of smells, further
air sampling analysis was carried out. In three of the four air samples
taken the benzene levels exceeded the environmental assessment limits
set by the EA.
• Other gases that exceeded the levels of those commonly found at
other landfill sites were: styrene, dimethyl styrene, ethyl benzene and
C4 alkyl benzenes.
• The composition of the raw landfill gas and the community samples
suggested that the landfill was the source of the hydrogen sulphide.
It should be noted that this sampling was carried out when the site was
shut so it may not reflect the true pollution coming off the site. The
EA issued directions for improvements on the site that were not carried
out, despite extensions to the time limits. In November 1998 the EA stated
that it intended to prosecute the landfill operator. There followed much
legal action, as the company went into liquidation and the EA had to go
to the Court of Appeal to get the right to prosecute the company when
in administration. Eventually, in March 2000 the landfill company was
fined the legal maximum, at a magistrate’s court, of £20,000
with £11,365 costs.
Discussions were held with the community in the Rhondda to determine what the main issues were and to so determine the terms of reference of the investigation. The investigation started in November 2000 and was completed in December 2001. The costs were estimated at around £250,000 and oral and written evidence was taken over 36 days of hearings. The report was published on the 12th December 2001. and gained publicity in Wales and across the UK. The Environment, Planning and Transport Committee of the National Assembly for Wales held hearings on the report and encouraged comments upon it. On the 26th February 2002 they reported their conclusions to the full National Assembly, and these were accepted in full. In March 2002 the committee’s report was published and the main recommendations were divided into site-specific and general (see box on page 4).
The response
Not surprisingly the industry, the council, the health authority and the Environment Agency, whilst generally welcoming the principle of such as investigation, were not too keen on the conclusions! The EA, in particular, took strong exception and then had to back off under public and National Assembly criticism. Although its views changedradically after public criticism, its first response was totally dismissive of the report. But eventually, reflecting local public distaste for the EA’s comments, the agency slowly tempered its view on the report, even partially accepting some of its criticism. But it always insisted that “the site is now better managed with as low risk as any other comparable landfill.”
Having digested these comments the final report of the Environment, Transport and Planning Committee Independent Investigation into the Nantygwyddon Landfill Site commented:
“Whilst we agree that the Agency should continue to work with industry and to maintain and improve environmental standards, the Agency should be and be seen to be the champion of the people. We call upon the Board of the Environment Agency to give proper consideration to our report and recommendations and wish to record our disappointment in the way in which the Agency commented on the Independent Investigator’s report in the press and media prior to its consideration by us.”Perhaps the last word on this vitally important report should belong to the The Western Mail, which has been following the Nantygwyddon disaster for many years, “What Nantygwyddon has done is raise issues about the safety of landfill which may yet bring about the end of the practice altogether.”
The Rant Continues
Though the Nantygwyddon site has been fully closed since March 2002, the community’s fears and problems are far from over. Garrod Owen, chair of RANT, told DIRT, “There remain four outstanding problems to be resolved:
1. The health of the community.
2. The offsite monitoring.
3. The remediation of the site.
4. A full and independent site stability study.”
In all of these RANT and its sub-committees are fully involved. Indeed, in November 2002 RANT scored another first. For the first time ever, the US Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) agreed to visit and investigate a landfill situation outside of the USA. Members of RANT met with the ATSDR staff who visited Wales and they thought the meeting went quite well. “Of course you cannot tell what will be in their report. But we have been promised a copy, that will be ready early in 2003,” Garrod Owen told DIRT. Garrod Owen summarises RANT’s experience so far: “We have had many more bad days than good days over the years. But if you don’t make a nuisance of yourself, then the nuisance you are trying to fight will not go away.”
Contacts:
Garrod Owen, Chair of RANT,
27 Berw Road, Tonypandy, Rhonda Cynon, Taff, Wales, CF40 2HD. Email: garrodowen@ukonline.co.uk
The Purchon Report, full 36-days of hearing, comments of the report and the Welsh National Assembly report may be found on: www.wales.gov.uk; type in Nantygwyddon into the search box.
Aberfan - government and disasters,
Ian McLean and Martin Johnes, Welsh Academic Press (2000) – essential background reading. Shows that history does not have to repeat itself if the community retain the knowledge and fight back.
Site Specific Recommendations
• That there should be an end to household waste disposal at Nantygwyddon landfill site (in fact the Council fully closed the tip on March 6th 2002).
• That the site should be swiftly completed to suitable finished levels, to ensure a sound stable landform and reasonably impervious cap.
• The National Assembly should commission an authoritative stability study of Nantygwyddon.
• That a full sampling programme is completed for landfill gas with direct reading (‘real time’) instruments.
• That leachate is treated on site before discharge.
• That until the landfill is successfully ‘planted’ with vegetation, surface water collection and management be maintained.
• That specific health studies be commissioned relating to person/dose/substance(s) and involving blood, urine and fat. Results should be published with independent expert commentary as soon as possible. The report emphasized that local people should be involved in drawing-up the terms of reference of the studies and involved in all stages of the research. They further added, “We consider that in future, local residents should not have to fight for such research to be undertaken.”
• That the trading and contractual affairs of Rhondda Waste Disposal Ltd should be investigated fully and, “if evidence of wrongdoing emerges it should be pursued with vigor...”
General Recommendations to the National Assembly:
• Issue mandatory guidance to the Environment Agency Wales to require all the openness and transparency permitted by current legislation. Press the UK government to espouse freedom of information generally and certainly removing ‘commercial confidentiality’ as a barrier to public accountability.
• Consider how formal impact assessment (environmental, health and financial) can best be used in Wales to proper consider the implications of plans, projects and programmes concerning waste disposal.
• Consider how they may best secure the principle of producer responsibility for waste minimization, re-use and recycling in Wales.
• Consider how communities may seek independent and health risk appraisal to allay their fears and respond to inactivity or failure by the regulatory/health protection bodies.
• Support the principle of public accountability for the ‘public pound’
• Consider and improve accountability for securing files upon the proposed abolition of a public authority.
• Review EU grant criteria and audit.
Tree blows the whistle
Health and safety representative for the GMB union at Nantygwyddon in 1995 was Andrew Tree, who had fought a long battle in the 1970s and 1980s to get the lung cancer hazard recognized at the Purolite Company, then called Permutit, where he then worked at Polyclun, 18 miles from Cardiff. Permutit manufactured ion exchange resins, which have often been used for water purification. A substance used in this process, Bis Chloro Methyl Ether (BCME) had long been known to be a very potent cause of lung cancer.
Throughout the 1970s, Andrew Tree had to take on not just his management and the Factory Inspectorate (now Health and Safety Executive,) but also the TUC’s medical adviser Dr Robert Murray who said the excess lung cancers were due to smoking.
The scandal was uncovered when a new TUC medical adviser, Dr Owen, sent information to the GMB’s safety officer, David Gee, in 1979, prompting him to start asking the right questions and support Andrew Tree.Yet it took ten years to get some compensation for the widows and families of those who had died needlessly of lung cancer. Finally, in 1990 twelve widows shared £1m compensation. The widows praised Andrew Tree, as did the QC taking the case and even the judge.
The GMB awarded Andrew a certificate of merit for work, “above and beyond the call of union duty.” He was made redundant when the factory temporarily closed down and was not re-employed when it reopened as Purolite. Imagine his surprise when a private company took over from the council on 8 March 1995 and two lorry loads of calcium sulphate filter cake from Purolite arrived to be dumped at the tip. Andrew Tree knew it was hazardous and tried to get the loads turned away. But he was threatened with the sack, in front of his GMB full time officer. He tried to raise the issue with his management, the Health and Safety Executive and with the GMB, all without success. Andrew then started to use his local darts team to generate publicity about the hazards of hydrogen sulphide and the many other toxic chemicals seeping from the site. He was sacked in November 1995 and the GMB refused to represent him at an industrial tribunal. The offer the company made, plus his pension, meant that the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (ACAS) advised him to take the money. He had no choice.
But Andrew Tree was the first person called to give evidence in 2001 by the independent investigator, David Purchon, appointed by the Welsh Assembly to investigate Nantygwyddon (see page 4).
In his final report David Purchon said: “I simply wish to record my admiration for the ‘whistleblower’. He or she takes personal risks and makes sacrifices to ensure that government wakes up to public health risks. I feel that we should all respect those who show a genuine concern for our environment, for the health of future generations and who put effort into challenging ‘experts’, commercial interest and the status quo.”
He clearly had Andrew Tree in mind!
Ruabon village nestles in a small valley, in the shadow of the Ruabon Mountains.
The village
suffers from the smells and leaks of the Gardden Lodge Landfill site,
topped up at times, when the wind is in the right direction, with occasional
smells from the Pen y Bont landfill site, at Pentre near Chirk, Wrexham.
In 1987, around 300 people - at one of the most crowded ever meetings
in Ruabon Village Hall – heard Shanks and McEwan give a very glossy
presentation of their proposals to infill the Gardden Claypit with waste.
They said that they would merely fill the claypit to ground level and
restore it in around four years. This promise was made in front of 300
people, the local MP and the press and media. The community accepted the
idea, assuming there were environmental laws to protect them. They knew
they created rubbish and didn’t want to be accused of being NIMBY’s
(Not In My Back Yard).
Ruabon Action Group (RAG)
However, a few local people were not taken in and formed the Ruabon Action
Group (RAG) in 1988 to research the issue of landfill safety and ask the
company and the council questions. They soon found out that Shanks and
McEwan had bought adjoining land and in 1990 asked for planning permission
to extract clay, double the size of the hole and raise the land level
with waste by 15 meters. This was to produce one of the deepest landfills
in Wales, and one most close to housing - hundreds of people live within
250 meters.
A fierce campaign was started to oppose planning permission and get a
Public Inquiry. In the event the public inquiry did not take place and
planning permission was granted in February 1993. But there were some
restrictions: clay removal was to be 450,000 cubic meters and not 1m;
landfill was to be 1.5m cubic meters and not 2m and the lifespan of the
landfill was to be ten years and not 24. Community concern had at least
reduced some of the hazards. The passing of the planning consent caused
the group to largely disband, with just a few carrying on the fight. Another
problem was, as the tip expanded, some local people did not want to complain
as it might lower the value of their homes.
Some years
later, when the Chief Planning Officer was replaced, RAG was given the
1992 report to Clywd County Council, by consultants Aspinwail and Co.
It was very critical of many aspects of the proposal; especially in respect
of site stability, leachate production and removal and landfill gas generation.
But this report had remained locked away in a council cupboard for many
years. As the landfill progressed, the ‘normal’ problems of
most landfill sites became apparent:
• Vile choking smells (people sick in the street; sometimes people
with small children were given fans by the company!).
• Dementing noise.
• Appalling litter blown over houses and gardens.
• Swarms of flies that crawled on the carpets and could be scooped
up in your hands.
• Vermin.
• Seagulls.
• Penetrating dust.
• Anecdotal health problems of chest, heart, birth defects etc.
Complaints
to the company, the local council environmental health department and
the Environment Agency were all to no avail. As Pauline Smout of RAG told
DIRT, “Several times people were driven from their homes by the smells
in their bedrooms. The company told us the smell was coming from our dustbins,
drains, horse manure or top soil.”
Using some of RAG’s evidence, the company was actually prosecuted
in July 1995 by Wrexham Metropolitan Borough Council. But by using some
legal wrangling the company won an Appeal in the High Court. Shanks and
McEwan’s barrister was overheard to snigger to the judge, after the
verdict,vvvvvv “There’s nothing as good as a technical point,
even when it’s devoid of merit.”
Environmental leaders?
Shanks Group plc is one of the largest independent waste management group
companies in Europe. They employ around 4,600 people in the UK, Belgium
and the Netherlands. In 2001/02 their turnover was £529m (2000/01:
£502m) with a £45.3m profit (2000/01: £45.1m). They
pride themselves on being environmentally aware and active: producing
a glossy corporate environmental statement and an annual environmental
report. For example, there was an average of six complaints per Shanks
UK site in 2001/2002; down from 11 per site in 2000/2001. The results
were as follows:
| Complaint | 2001/02 | 2000/01 |
| Odour | 333 | 688 |
| Litter | 37 | 8 |
| Vermin | 31 | 15 |
| Traffic | 19 | 19 |
| Mud | 5 | 4 |
| Noise | 19 | 14 |
| Other | 75 | 65 |
| Total | 519 | 813 |
In addition,
they were the first UK waste company to set up an independent Environment
Advisory Board (EAB) in 1989. Lord Cranbrook, former chair of English
Nature, chairs the EAB and its annual report is a lightweight, glossy
record of a few selected site visits and meetings with some mild and inoffensive
comments on the environmental performance of the Shanks Group. Taking
the independence of the EAB at face value, RAG, with the assistance of
their MP Martyn Jones, approached Lord Cranbrook with their complaints
during 1998-99. Members of the EAB visited the site in October 1998 and
met with members of RAG to hear their complaints.
In February 1999, Lord Cranbrook told RAG of Shanks EAB decision: “On
the basis of our experience at many other engineered landfill sites of
similar size, in Britain, Germany and Belgium, our site visit satisfied
us that conditions presently prevailing meet our paramount concerns, -
safety for workers or visitors on site, safety for all land and properties
adjoining the site, and safety for the wider environment. We also consider
that the company’s proposals for final cover and for future management
of gas and leachate would satisfy this important task.” Needless
to say RAG were very unhappy with this reply! Clearly, the EAB board of
Shanks exists as a public relations exercise only.
Gas generation hazards
The landfill site closed around 2000 and was capped at that time. There
is continuing concern about landfill gas and leachate problems in the
community. In 2000 RAG won a first for a community: a planning enquiry
into the hazards of a proposed landfill gas generator. They had been told
that only methane would be produced, but their research showed that both
the flare and the generator could produce: dioxins, nitrous oxides, suphur
oxides and fine particles. In fact, the community feared the generator
might be worse than a flare as the temperature and other factors of the
flare could be controlled better (to reduce pollution).
The Planning Inspector granted permission for the power station and gas
flare in December 2000 with the following conditions:
• Noise shall be no greater than 40-42 decibels at any noise sensitive
premises near by.
• Within one month of operation a scheme of noise monitoring shall
be presented to the local planning authority.
• Plans for the prevention of flooding of the generators shall be
submitted to the planning authority.
• Monitoring of the inlet gas for chlorinated organic compounds shall
be undertaken according to an agreed schedule (listed).
• The exhaust gases shall be monitored for dioxin and furan content,
6 months, 12 months and 24 months after first operation of the generator
and at 2-yearly intervals thereafter.
• A copy of the monitoring results shall be given to the planning
authority.
• The generators shall be maintained and operated so that the dioxin
and furan concentrations in the exhaust do not exceed 0.1 ng.m3.
• Written notification of permanent cessation of the use of the generators
shall be given to the planning authority within seven days of the said
date.
• Plans for the removal of all equipment shall be submitted within
three months of the cessation date and the removal completed within the
agreed scheme.
RAG member Pauline Smout told DIRT, “I feel very let down by these
conditions. For example, we had asked for 0.06 ng/dioxins. Landfill gas
should not be classed as a renewable energy source. We need good independent
exhaust gas standards that are monitored continuously and independently,
with the results made public.”
Conclusions
Looking over the 14-year campaign, long term RAG member, Linda Wright
told DIRT:
“Shanks and McEwan were dismissive, untruthful and patronizing. The
Environment Agency were very polite to our faces, but never went on site
when needed. Wrexham Council was against us, they disbelieved our complaints.
But they were very supportive of the company. The Health Authority refused
to carry out a medial survey before and during tipping. Our GPs gave us
no help at all.The press and media frequently pulled stories before publication
and transmission.”
Contact:
Pauline Smout, Ruabon Action Group, Bryn Offa, Pen-y-Gardden, Ruabon,
Wrexham, LL14 6RE (01978 810275).
Europe's number one public nuisance?
Dominating
the local Yorkshire Pennine landscape and even blocking out the view of
Wakefield cathedral spire for many people, Welbeck Landfill site is one
of the biggest in Europe.
The massive site is two miles long, 3/4 mile wide and 64m high. It takes
about 400,000 tonnes of waste each year and is licensed to take up to
one million tonnes a year. Some 60 per cent of the waste is domestic and
the rest mainly industrial and commercial waste. However, the tip does
take toxic waste – around 100 tonnes during 2000 – and this
licensed business is increasing year by year. But it should be noted that
the Environment Agency’s ‘Duty of Care’ means effectively
that the waste industry is responsible for stating what waste loads contain
and monitoring their waste contents. Thus it is possible to dump almost
anything in a landfill with practically no fear of getting caught.
Local EA officers described the landfill, operated by the Waste Recycling
Group (WRG), as ‘state of the art’. However, in a letter last
January to Paul Dainton, president of the local protest group Residents
Against Toxic Scheme (RATS), EA Chief Executive Baroness Barbara Young
admitted: “I agree that whilst Welbeck is a ‘reasonably well
run’ site, we should strive to improve the operation so that the
site can be described as well run.”
This admission by Baroness Young, despite years of campaigning by RATS,
is frightening for the safety of the other 20,000 or so active and inactive
sites in the UK that do not have such a group to keep the EA on its toes.
RATS has certainly been keeping the EA alert: the group has secured massive
local, and some national, press and media coverage, including a major
Guardian feature in June 2002; parliamentary questions and debate; an
investigation by the regional EA Board member, Alan Dalton (which effectively
got him the sack) and a demonstration at an EA board meeting in Doncaster
in March 2002. So active has been RATS president Paul Dainton that WRG
obtained an injunction to prevent him going onto the landfill without
their permission!
RATS
Residents Against Toxic Scheme was formed in 1990 to fight the start-up
of a proposed tip locally that was going to dump toxic waste. There were
two public enquiries that lasted eight years and the original scheme was
defeated. However, in the meantime the local council, now Wakefield City
Council, and Yorkshire Water changed the Welbeck site licence so that
it could accept toxic waste; without any public consultation. Wakefield
Metropolitan District Council paid Robin Stocks an ex-gratia payment of
£1,000 in late 2000 because they lied to him about the fact that
toxic waste was going into Welbeck landfill. In 1995 he purchased a house
near the site because four years earlier he was advised by the council
that “nuclear waste and what the public views as toxic waste will
NOT be allowed into the site.”
To his horror in 1998 he found that the tip was licensed to take toxic
waste – technically termed ‘special waste’, a phrase George
Orwell would have appreciated – and that the council had approved
this change as early as 1991. The Ombudsman, Mrs. P A Thomas, said that
the £1,000 compensation paid by the Council was “a fair and
satisfactory remedy for your complaint” which fell short of “maladminstration”
by the council but did constitute “misleading advice”.
Although unhappy with the outcome, Mr. Stocks felt he had proved his point.
“I wonder if the role of watchdogs, like the Ombudsman and Environment
Agency, is to negotiate minor improvements by keeping on the right side
of the powers that be, rather than having the resources, or the political
support, to confront them.”
Since the site became operational in 1998 there have been numerous complaints
by both RATS members and many other local people about the obvious site
operations to both the company and the Environment Agency. Problems includeds:
• Dirty waste trucks going through the local villages (they are supposed
to use the nearby motorway).
• Thousands of seagulls and other scavenging birds feeding off the
toxic waste and then shitting on the surrounding villages, villagers and
their children
• Toxic waste blown off the site and into the Calder River and surrounding
area.
• Foul smells from the landfill site, said by some to smell like
rotting cabbages and glue, and from the open composting being carried
out on the site
• Infestations of flies
• Noise from the reversing vehicles, general noise from the landfill
vehicles and loud and irregular bangs from the explosives used to try
and control the birds
• Meat waste illegally dumped onto the site
• The lack of independent sampling of dust, toxins, water pollution,
noise etc
• Pollution from the gases emitting from the massive tip
• Dead fish in the River Calder, near the tip
• An ineffective local liaison committee
EA Board
member investigates
RATS had been complaining to the company, the EA and the press and media
on behalf of around 300 local residents for years over these issues. In
November 2000 local MP Bill O’Brien raised the many problems of the
Welbeck Landfill site in a debate on the Environment Agency in the House
of Commons. He spoke of 17 lorry loads, or 68 tonnes, of untreated meat
going into the landfill during April and May 1999 .
“People who cause such pollution should not be dismissed with merely
a slap on the wrist. So much that took place demonstrated, beyond any
shadow of a doubt, that there was a weakness in the management of the
site.”
He also raised questions of health checks for people living around the
site (not our responsibility, said the EA); the £1,000 compensation
paid by the local council for misleading Robin Stocks about toxic waste;
the fact that the monitoring for dust, noise, water and toxic waste is
carried out by the company (“Surely that is the responsibility of
the Environment Agency,” said Mr O'Brien).
Replying for the government, agriculture minister Elliot Morley said Welbeck
“ is a well-run landfill site.” Heaven help those living near
a bad one!
Dividing the community
The 1996 Landfill Tax has recently come in for some fierce criticism as much of it can be, effectively, used by the waste companies themselves for their known pet projects. For example, in 2000-01 the tax collected was £462 million, but almost one-quarter, or £106 million, was claimed back as ‘tax credits’ by the waste companies to use on ‘environmental projects’. The Waste Recycling Group plc (WRG), who run the Welbeck site, take up their landfill tax credits to the full: £10 million in 2000. They have setup an independent company, Waste Recycling Environmental Ltd (WREN), to give out dollops of cash to charitable and environmental groups they approve of; usually within ten miles of one of their own landfill sites.
In August 2001 RATS published a report -- ‘On the Make and On the Take’ -- on the effects of the landfill tax around Welbeck. It showed how donations to local environmental groups, nurseries, charities and even churches can split the community, with those receiving financial benefit from the landfill often speaking out in favour of its existence - for obvious reasons. The report ends with a list of seven recommendations. Key elements include that the waste industry should not be involved in the distribution of the tax; a minimum of 75% of the tax should be spent on waste reduction techniques and that local people should be democratically elected onto a committee to control the use of the tax.
Disrupting the EA Board
Seventy protesters, from ten local community groups up and down the country forced the EA to abandon its bi-monthly board meeting at the Doncaster Earth Centre in March 2002. Led by members of RATS, the protesters were calling upon the EA to protect the public and not industry. The EA board members would not let the protesters speak to them, so they said they had no alternative but to disrupt the meeting. President of RATS Paul Dainton said “The agency is meant to protect society but as far as we can see all they do is protect the owners of landfill sites. Saying it is a toothless watchdog is not strong enough as far as I am concerned.”
Problems continue…
In the first half of 2002, even the fortnightly EA inspection reports show many incidents of waste escaping from the site. They were so bad that Enforcement Notices were issued in January to prevent waste entering the River Calder, and in March requiring improvements in fencing and the picking up of litter on and off the site. Some of the EA inspector’s comments are quite ominous. Consider Tuesday 26th February 2002. It was a rainy and very windy day, the site was closed at that time to municipal waste and yet toxic waste was still being tipped. Concerns were raised by the EA inspector about “the ability to sufficiently cover such wastes in compliance with the licence
and the maintenance of the ‘co-disposal’ principle.”
If the site cannot control the visible waste, what of the invisible dust, chemicals in the landfill gases and leachate polluting the ground and water and the biological hazards (bacteria and viruses) from the landfill site and the open composting?
For example, on 23rd April 2002, a sunny day with a warm moderate breeze at the tip, the EA inspector noted that: “On arrival at the site a wagon delivering canal dredging to the site was observed to discharge a load down the flank of cell 1 in doing so a plume of dust waste generated which spread across cell 2 and beyond the site boundary, the bowser was at the time in the compound area. This event was mentioned to the site manager at the time…”
Given that EA inspectors visit approximately every two weeks, for one to two hours, what chance do they have of seeing how loads are really tipped? This report is a rare truth. More typical is the comment for the 5th September 2002, “Progressive cover was applied within 45mins – 1 hr of our arrival on site and without any prompting from us.” An outside observer might well wonder at the naivety of these EA officers, which would be funny if it did not concern such important pollutants!
Waste collection is crap
In September 2002 the Audit Commission published their 37-page audit of the City of Wakefield Council’s Waste Services and it is pretty damning. In measured and conservative words the Audit Commission concluded that the council’s waste services were “a ‘fair’ one star service that has uncertain prospects for improvement.”
The report notes that, “Waste minimization is a significant issue for Wakefield where residents produce more waste than average…Performance on recycling has been poor to date, with a high dependency on landfill…” Clearly the Welbeck site has distorted the whole of Wakefield’s waste policy for the worse and been a major worry and concern for anyone unlucky enough to live near it.
Contact:
Paul Dainton, Residents Against Toxic Scheme ((RATS), 64 Altofts Lodge Drive, Normanton, Wakefield, WF6 b2LD.
Phone: 01924 893564. Email: pdainton@notoxictip.co.uk
Website: www.notoxictip.co.uk
Going west
from the Birmingham-Wolverhampton-Dudley complex, one of the first villages
you'll encounter
in the rolling green hills is Stourton with its own little suburb of Stewponey.
Nearby is the Staffs and Worcester canal and the River Stour, both close
to Stewponey landfill site where the underlying geology is porous sandstone.
Around 1980 Stewponey Sand Pits began to be filled in, mainly with inert
waste such as builders rubble and small quantities of industrial and commercial
waste. The site was unlined, even though below the base is a major aquifer
suppling drinking water to the local area. The extraction point is only
1.24 km from the site.
In 1993 Biffa took over the site and planned to fill in and restore the
site within ten years. However, by 1998 the plans had changed. The amount
of inert waste available had halved in recent years and now Biffa applied
for planning consent from Staffordshire County Council and to the Environment
Agency (EA) for a change in site licence. This was to include domestic
waste, and commercial industrial and special wastes, ‘produced in
this area’ (examples given of local ‘special’ wastes were:
old paint tins, treated timber off cuts and incinerator ash).
FLAGS
In 1978, when Biffa leafleted the local area to inform people of their
intentions, many people realised for the first time that the landfill
that was on their doorstep. After attending a couple of local meetings
on the issue several people decided to form a local action group: FLAGS,
or Fight Landfill Action Group at the Stewponey. Like all local groups
they had a steep learning curve to climb, as well as carrying on with
their busy lives. First of all they discovered the ‘public records’
for the site were buried and inaccessible at the local EA Office. These
reports for 1997-98 were very revealing, showing many problems with the
existing site:
• September 1997: landfill gas noted emanating from a displacement
crack.
• March 1998: Site roads very muddy.
• May 1998: Dark soil from Merry Hill exposed.
• May 1998: Very dusty. No one available to drive water bowser. Manning
levels may be inadequate on this site.
• May 1998: No technically competent person on site (in breach of
site licence). Very dry and dusty in the village and village hall from
the site.
• June 1998: Dust still a problem.
• July 1998: Suspect load of unauthorized waste. Asbestos load sent
back. Dust still a problem.
• July 1998: Strong solvent odours detectable plus more asbestos
waste. Fresh tarmac being dumped (turned away). There is an outbreak of
leachate. Dust suppression is still poor.
• August 1998: Further misclassification of waste, “Waste still
not being assessed at weighbridge, despite previous requests.”
Many of these site inspection reports were by EA officer Steve Evans.
He also reported that “a number of lorry drivers were verbally abusive
to myself.” On the 26th November 1998 EA Area Protection Manager
David Sheldon wrote to complain to one company about a driver’s actions,
saying that no action would be taken this time, but any future occurrence
would result in formal action which might involve the local police. Shortly
afterwards Mr. Evans was taken off the Stewponey inspection and replaced
by an EA officer whose site inspection reports could not even be read!
Subsequently Mr. Evans was sacked by the EA. This sacking is subject to
a nine day employment tribunal due to take place in May this year. “My
case is very robust,” he says.
EA reacts to local pressure
Seeking to allay local water pollution fears, in 1999 the EA commissioned
consultants Entec to carry out a hydrological study of the Stourton area.
This was a desktop study; the consultants only visited the site for one
day and took no measurements of their own. FLAGS were very critical of
the original report, finding many errors and the use of old and/or irrelevant
data. The report was modified a bit as a result, but concluded that “sewage
spreading is believed to be the source of cadmium found in groundwater.”
The report did also say that “the impact of landfilling on groundwater
quality is clearly evident at a single monitoring well where the major
effects are a reduction in nitrate concentration and an increase in TOC
and COD concentration”.
Meanwhile, the EA had to carry on warning Biffa during 1999 about accepting
unauthorized toxic waste at the site:
• 1600 tonnes of soil contaminated with mineral oil.
• 800 tonnes of soil contaminated with arsenic, zinc, cadmium, cyanide
and mercury.
• Other issues were also raised: leaking paint sludge containers;
the dumping of sawdust (a difficult waste according to the EA); the dumping
of moss killer and the exceeding of the 15% allowable biodegradable waste.
An internal EA memo, written in 1999 by Upper Severn Area manager Steve
Morley sums up the situation: “It is clear that the Agency is not
viewed well by the community. On the other hand, correspondence with Biffa
clearly indicates their dissatisfaction also…Somehow a special waste
site on top of a major aquifer and in proximity to a key supply borehole
does not feel right”
FLAGS continued to lobby their local MP and councillors, hold meetings, get a petition signed by 3,000 people against the Biffa proposals and raise £14,000 for representation at a Planning Inspectorate public hearing against the granting of the site licence.
Everything seemed fine and all the hard work was being done for the hearing, due on the 17th July 2001. On the eve of the hearing a bombshell was dropped when Biffa and the EA announced that they had, “in advance of a hearing due to start Friday… agreed the conditions needed for a waste management licence and the terms of a working plan for the Stewponey landfill site.”
The conditions were:
• Biffa’s acceptance in principle of the need for a state-of-the-art leak detection system.
• The company will apply for a licence under the stringent Pollution Prevention and Control regulations 2000, before it carries out any landfilling.
• The licence was issued in the light of Biffa’s agreement to drop its plans for the site to accept special waste.
Local fury is indicated in a letter from local MP Sir Patrick Cormack to EA chief executive Baroness Young: “I wish to lodge an immediate complaint at the quite incredibly arrogant behaviour of your agency. “When I spoke to Mr. Comerford (of the EA) this morning and told him that, in 31 years in the House of Commons I had never come across such behaviour by a public body or public official, he quite blithely told me that he knew that the manner in which they had reached their decision would provoke local anger. I find this utterly incomprehensible and, moreover, inexcusable…. “As it is I have come to the conclusion that what the locals see as a ‘stitch up’ is at best mind-boggling incompetence and at worse something very much more serious. How you expect to engender public confidence when officials behave like this I do not know.”
Don't worry, said Baroness Young. “I can certainly indicate the Agency’s regrets but I do not believe that the local team could have acted any differently…I can assure you that the licence is subject to probably the most stringent conditions that apply to any licence. They are far more comprehensive than was formerly the case for the site."
FLAGS were awarded costs of £18,500 against BIFFA for their representations to the planning inspectorate.
Throughout 2001 FLAGS continued to express concern about the site. For example, in June the group wrote to the Environment Agency about blocked bore holes, and high levels of pollutants in one borehole near where there had been an outbreak of leachate. In addition FLAGS prepared a 33-page report, including a very large dossier of events and data, in December 2001 for the Environment Minister Michael Meacher. The report said "an internal investigation should be carried out by Alan Dalton, the former EA board member, followed by a public enquiry into the behavior of the EA…”
Not an isolated case
Of course, none of this was forthcoming, although Mr Meacher did ensure that Baroness Young, uniquely, visited FLAGS to explain the EA actions and inaction. This meeting eventually took place in early 2002 and was chaired by the local MP, Sir Patrick Cormack. FLAGS had arranged the meeting like a courtroom so the community could question Baroness Young. At the end of questions about the Stewponey site, Baroness Young came out with her well-tested statement: “This is an isolated case”. At this point she was presented with the results of FLAGS research into 14 other such landfill action groups. The dossier was comprehensive and lots of evidence was presented to show how often the EA was failing to do its job. Some typical comments were:
“The Environment Agency seem, ironically, more interested in enabling the development of land than protecting It.” Harltebury Against Landfill Toxins (HALT).
“Our experience of the Environment Agency is that it simply exists as a body to provide an official legitimacy for virtually everything that industry wants to do.” TRASH Campaign, Farnham, Surrey.
Although Baroness Young promised to address the concerns raised in this extensive dossier at the meeting, in the event she just referred them to her local officers.
It has been a long and hard campaign for FLAGS, and it's not finished yet! But the community is now more aware of the landfill, Biffa has withdrawn its proposal to dump special waste and the Environment Agency is requiring more stringent pollution control plans for the site.
As Brian Smith of FLAGS puts it: “We have had our ups and downs and you must contact other groups for their experiences. You need a hard core of people who are prepared to devote much time and money to fight polluters.”
Contact:
Fight Landfill Action Group at Stewponey (FLAGS) Chris Smart, 44 Bridgnorth Road, Stourton, Stourbridge, West Midlands, DY7 6RT Phone: 01384 877020.
Email: csmartcasuals@aol.com