13. Before ReChem’s Revolution
The campaigning title STEAM came into being in October 1984 during my visit to the home of ReChem’s English plant for a public meeting. The controversies surrounding Pontypool and Bonnybridge were spreading to Fawley, where Rechem’s seaboard location and absence of PCB burning had been a basis for less controversy until recently. The English incinerator lay on an industrial estate just north of the oil refinery, meaning that the wind normally took emissions across other industrial sites and then out over Southampton Water, before reaching Netley on the other side. I first heard of growing anti-Rechem feelings in Fawley when there were reports of lorries arriving there from the Scottish incinerator. Local residents then spotted drums of PCB waste at the site and there were indications of test burns being conducted. Workers at nearby Enoxy chemicals, who’d been concerned about their visual impression of ReChem’s emissions, were antagonistic to the prospect of PCB-burning, as were residents of the Netley View housing estate. Hythe farmer Derek Noble told of a thick blue haze causing sickness in his family and amongst his workers at Furzedown Farm and claimed that it damaged his tomato crop. Local councillors were pressurising Waterside MP Michael Colvin whilst the MP himself, together with the Pollution Inspectorate, was taking Rechem’s side. I’d been exchanging information with local activist Yvonne Fulton and Councillor Ken Thornber before my birthday on September 17th,, when I took on a train to Scotland and when a major incident lasting two and a half hours occurred at the Fawley plant.Something went seriously wrong and many workers at the neighbouring EniChem Elastomers factory suffered irritation, nausea and sore throats.
The incident, caused by Rechem’s incorrect processing of compounds that contained bromine and chlorine, produced acidic emissions. It was reported that 79 of EniChem’s workers were harmed and ReChem was eventually fined £1000 and ordered to pay £5000 compensation. That 17th September incident led to a public meeting on October 5th at St. Anne’s Hall in Netley View, which I travelled to. The meeting was addressed by a number of officials as well as ReChem’s founder and Managing Director, Dr. Arthur Coleman, who repeatedly reassured residents that nothing but steam was emitted from the incinerator stack. Resident’s reports of smoke and blue hazes were passed off as the same optical illusions said to be filling the sky over the village of New Inn in Pontypool. In a moment of mischief, to reflect our scepticism about the explanation, it occurred to me that STEAM would be a good acronym for our group, to constantly remind people of Rechem’s portrayal of the emissions. I then attached the words: “Stop Toxic Emissions Action Movement.”At the end of the meeting at the village hall, I spoke briefly with Michael Colvin and I came away with the impression that the Conservative MP would have more clout in his English seat than our Labour MPs would have in Wales. The mood of October’s meeting appeared to deter PCB burning at ReChem’s English plant and the local public drew further comfort from the speedy prosecution of the company for September’s acid emissions.
Amazingly, the incident in Fawley had occurred on the same day that Rechem announced closure in Scotland. During my 1984 summertime start on the subject of toxic waste, I learned that the controversy over Rechem’s Bonnybridge plant had far overshadowed events around Rechem’s sister plants. North-of-the-border contacts John Wheeler and Pat Beattie brought me up to speed on the background to the Scottish plant, whose official location was Roughmute whilst it was widely referred to as being in Bonnybridge. The long established and highly active campaigning group, in which John and Pat played a prominent part, had the wordiest title of all the anti-ReChem groups: The “Society for the Control of Troublesome and Toxic Industrial Emissions” or SCOTTIE. As well as records of smoke and smells from the incinerator there were stories of blighted crops, damaged trees, cattle deaths and even media coverage of a cluster of babies born with unusual eye defects yet no human or animal health problems were proved to be linked to the incinerator.
In contrast with the official line in Pontypool and Fawley, in Scotland there was a degree of recognition of problems at the Bonnybridge plant, although not nearly enough recognition to quell the local public’s dissatisfaction. Early acceptance of dispersion problems had been evident in the company’s raising of the stack from 120 feet to 180 feet in 1976. In reading old newspaper cuttings I saw a Pollution Inspectorate acknowledgement that emissions from ReChem had damaged local foliage, with common salt said to be airborne culprit. The innocuous-sounding explanation was contested by the scientific contingent of SCOTTIE, whose own survey of trees, bushes, grass and grain motivated them to ask the Secretary of State for Scotland to conduct a deeper inquiry.The Scottish group’s secretary, Sandra Farquhar, was particularly scathing about the role of the Pollution Inspectorate, alleging that the Inspectorate was “bending over backwards to help the firm.” The Scottish public’s distrust of the Pollution Inspectorate reflected that in Pontypool, and the purple clouds which came from the extended Bonnybridge stack in April 1977 were also to be mirrored later in Pontypool. Another part of a pattern that we would see reflected between the plants was the inclination of Rechem to contradict evidence of problems. In the 1977 case of the purple clouds at Bonnybridge, iodine was ultimately confirmed as the offending substance and it attracted an Improvement Notice from the Inspectorate together with a £50 court fine.
The Bonnybridge plant had arrived in the area with a degree of stealth, since the statutory advert for the company’s plans in 1972 mentioned neither the ReChem name nor its specialised role in hazardous waste. When viewing the catalogue of Scottish press cuttings I could tell that the plant didn’t take long to attract attention after opening in September 1974. There was news of damage to a nearby chrysanthemum crop later that year and more damage to commercial bedding plants in 1975, after which the nurseryman affected went out of business. These incidents proceeded to civil court, taking until 1979 to conclude, but finally with the award of £3000 damages to flower-grower John Lindsay of Dunipace nurseries. I also came across an out of court settlement related to another occurrence of crop damage in 1977, plus allegations of damage to trees and hedges and a mention of regulatory action in 1980 over flashbacks from the incinerator’s loading method. Although the local campaigners were annoyed by what they saw as lenient treatment of the company by the authorities, in contrast to the position in Pontypool the Scottish campaigning group did have a small collection of precious legal evidence of the plants adverse impact. Sheriff Robert Reid Kerr’s judgement in the case of the chrysanthemums may explain why. The Sheriff was reported, by John Smith in the Scotsman, to have concluded:
‘That if no other source of toxic origin could be accounted for, could the court not draw an inescapable inference that it must have been caused by an emission from what, from the evidence, was ‘still an experimental and empirical exercise turned into commercial enterprise?’
The Falkirk Sheriff’s method of establishing causation, and his suggestion that the incinerator was an experiment, was not one that we found in any official Welsh assessment of incidents and emissions in Pontypool. His use of the term “experimental” in describing ReChem’s process coincided with my own first impression of the Pontypool plant but such disparaging terminology was nowhere to be found amongst the authorities in Wales.
As emphatic as the Bonnybridge prosecutions were, many protestors felt that those prosecutions were merely token punishments, whilst concerns over dying cattle, babies with eye defects and PCB burning were the big issues. A number of farmers and local mothers were in the news, MP Denis Canavan and MEP Alex Falconer were on the case and ReChem was feeling pressure not just from the public and politicians, but from its own workers and those workers began to become wary of burning PCBs in Bonnybridge. As a reflection of the mounting concern, a sensational development saw ReChem facing an unusual adversary in the form of the milk processing and marketing company “Gray’s Dairies”. On August 24th 1984 a large newspaper advertisement was signed by Hugh Gray himself. He reassured customers that, in response to public opinion, their milk would be sourced from well outside the area. My immediate thought was not of the damage this development could do to ReChem but of the reaction from farmers. I was concerned that the advert contained an unintended backlash against anyone coming forward with accounts of animal troubles and I believed that the Dairy’s action would be a warning to Welsh farmers who might wish to look in ReChem’s direction.
When the fuss about all three of Rechem’s incinerators was escalating I travelled by train with Denise and our children Nikki and Christian, from Wales to Scotland. My birthday outing, on September 17th 1984, occurred on the same day that the Enichem workers near Rechem’s Fawley incinerator were suffering from hydrobromic acid emissions.The four of us were warmly welcomed by campaigners Jim and Joyce Speirs, who accommodated us in a caravan in their garden, where we experienced early Scottish frost during our September stay.Before we reached our resting place there was a greater surprise, for after getting out of the train in Edinburgh I made a phone call to John Wheeler of SCOTTIE to discover that everything had changed.
I was already aware of action over health and safety by ReChem’s Scottish workers but nobody could have predicted this outcome.With their concerns about procedures for PCB burning, the incinerator operatives had become anxious about the suitability of a workplace monitoring program. Apparently, they had fallen into dispute with the management and had recently boycotted PCB-burning. The staggering news John Wheeler gave me when I arrived in Edinburgh on the day before the public meeting was that Rechem had just announced the closure of its Scottish plant. ReChem said the closure decision had been taken for economic reasons and that it was not connected with the workforce dispute over monitoring arrangements.
Despite the announcement, the planned public meeting still went ahead in the village hall in Larbert, with Thames Television’s TV Eye covering it. In the circumstances, I expected that the meeting would be something of an anticlimax, but it was far from that. On the stage in the village hall, MP Denis Canavan tore into ReChem and accused the company of running away from a problem instead of facing up to it. The plant’s trade union spokesman was unrepentant about the pressure placed on the company and appeared to accept responsibility for the severe consequences. Whether or not psychology figured in the company’s thinking, the decision to close Bonnybridge may well have carried with it an indirect tactical benefit for Rechem. With the Pontypool plant suddenly emerging as the only remaining PCB “solids” incinerator in Britain, the company’s Welsh employees might now feel the need to be more compliant than their Scottish counterparts had been.
In recognition that the Scottish closure would serve to consolidate the future of the ReChem’s Pontypool plant, we sought to contrast the plant’s increased importance with the growing public anxiety. To draw attention to that anxiety and to put ReChem under scrutiny, STEAM mounted the first Toxic Watch outside the Pontypool plant in late October 1984. In keeping with his unconventional image, Caerleon G.P. and STEAM activist Russell Rees owned an old ambulance now kitted-out for camping, which we parked on the grass verge on the riverbank opposite Rechem’s gates as our base for a week-long vigil. STEAM consisted of just a handful of people so crews of volunteers, including many from the original P.E.P.A. group, volunteered to make systematic records during four-hour shifts, over 24 hours a day for a working-week. Amongst my many recollections of the activity, the most emphatic was that of leaving my morning shift to sit an Open University exam in Cwmbran whilst feeling ill from ReChem’s emissions. It was worth it, for when our monitoring data was collated after the event, it attracted considerable attention from the public and the media. Following that first Toxic Watch, the media’s interest in ReChem mushroomed, as did Political interest, so a second Toxic Watch was pencilled in for May in the following year.
In the autumn of 1984 and leading on from my corporate investigations at Companies House, we decided to give a message to the markets. The message was that within the grand B.E.T. Empire there was a dirty company despised by its host community whose image we would ensure was associated with other companies in the British Electric Traction fold. Dr. Russell Rees was particularly keen to take this message to B.E.T.’s annual general meeting at the Connaught Rooms, in London, in October 1985. I was teaching and unable to make it but my wife Denise did travel with our friend Ann Malyn, who drove the full minibus. One of my contributions to the visual aids taken along by the protesters was a poster entitled “Under the same umbrella”, which depicted some of B.E.T’s clean-image companies in amongst Rechem’s dirty outpourings. The campaigning contingent from Wales protested outside the building whilst new B.E.T. shareholder Russell spoke from the floor of the meeting. Denise later told me that the demeanour of some well-heeled people leaving the Connaught Rooms suggested that Russell had made an impact in London. She was right, for further evidence of the impact arrived with the first threat of legal action against me, then some four years before the Canadian waste, the BBC broadcast and the writ.
In a move officially claimed to be unconnected with the Connaught Rooms protest, the giant British Electric Traction quickly released ReChem through a scheme whereby ReChem’s management bought the company for a knock-down price. If STEAM’s London protest did have anything to do with the sell-off, the new M.D. Malcolm Lee, who became a major shareholder, would have had good reason to thank us when he went on to enter the Sunday Times Rich List.
Instead of weakening the company as we had wanted, the independence seemed to suit the new management’s attraction to foreign waste and by profits were soon built on increasing imports, with prices possibly fuelled by an increasing awareness of the dangers of PCBs. Our fleeting satisfaction with the apparent success of our plan to get B.E.T. to ditch ReChem was evaporating, as ReChem was being held-up as an outstanding example of the enterprise culture in Britain. A company which had cost its management less than a couple of million was soon worth £140 million and was scouring the Earth for hazardous chemicals that other countries who were keen to get rid off.
With Rechem on the crest of commercial wave, our campaign looked ahead to longer term goals. Without a jot of officially recognised evidence of anything wrong with Rechem’s Pontypool plant, we set out on a long journey aimed at establishing the existence of contamination around the Pontypool Plant, changing the European regulations on PCB disposal, getting the world to see the nonsense of the free trade in waste, achieving more widespread British recognition of the dangers of PCBs & dioxins and tightening the standards for their tolerance. At the same time, the short-term position was always to put pressure on ReChem and the regulators so as to make life so difficult that someday the stronghold would weaken. To say that it wasn’t a good time to go after the company is an understatement. Even with B.E.T. now absent, there remained business and political interests in support of what ReChem was doing and in addition there was always some cultural opposition to the idea of causing a fuss about a factory. The economic recession of the early 1980’s seemed to have become ingrained in the psyche of South Wales.S.T.E.A.M’s campaigning had begun in 1984 during the year-long miners strike and continued when UK unemployment was soaring towards a post war record. Pay in Wales was poor and the Welsh workless would reach 14% by 1986. When jobs were to be worshiped, to pose a threat to a single job, even a job in toxic waste processing, could be regarded as social heresy.The dismal mood seemed to drain the energy from society and replace it with fear. Kevin Morgan and Adam Price, of the Regional Planning department at the University of Wales College Cardiff, later described the scene in “A New Agenda for The Valleys”, entitling one poignant chapter “Defending the Environment: Too Poor to Care?” At a time of social despondency, we campaigners were no longer just protesting about toxic waste, we knew we were testing the self-respect of a region. In looking back, it’s rewarding that the 1992 University publication saw the campaign as a having been a beacon of hope in the barren landscape:
As the environment begins to assume more political importance in the rich regions of the world, one of the unfortunate by-products is that the international trade in toxic or chemical waste has been given a huge boost because these regions tend to export their waste disposal problems. Waste disposal, in other words, is now big business. By and large this trade flows from the rich to the poor, from the powerful to the powerless. Waste disposal firms often try to locate their activities in regions which have a tradition of dirty industry, in other words in locations where residents are in need of jobs or where there is less opposition to waste disposal sites. South Wales is in danger of acquiring a reputation as a dumping ground for the world’s toxic wastes. One of the most important British campaigns against toxic waste has been waged for over a decade in Pontypool . . . . Organised community monitoring had done more to reduce emissions that the official regulatory authorities had achieved in years . . . . The campaign against ReChem has more than local significance, not least because it offers valuable lessons for other Valley communities which may have to face a similar challenge in the future . . . . Local campaign groups - like STEAM (Stop Toxic Emissions Action Movement) and MACATW (Mothers and Children Against Toxic Waste) – have found that traditional regulatory authorities have been of little or no use in helping them to gain access to information. What these groups have discovered is that toxic waste is shrouded in secrecy, to the point where information is more effectively controlled than incineration. Despite all these obstacles these local community groups are in the forefront of developing a more progressive international policy on waste disposal . . . The struggle against ReChem deserves our attention because it is one of the longest and most impressive campaigns ever mounted in defence of the environment in the Valleys. Local groups like STEAM have rendered a tremendously valuable service by exposing the perils of toxic waste and this knowledge can be put to good use by other communities. But the main lesson of this campaign is that there is no substitute for community vigilance. After all, who has a greater interest in protecting the local environment than those who live, work and raise children in the locality. At bottom, the struggle against ReChem is all about the unpretentious claims of a community to have access to clean air, to live in a safe environment and to be free from fear.
By 1992 when the academic paper was published, in 1992, the Pontypool plant’s PCB processing had peaked along with its profits. The new management’s passion for the controversial chemicals had raised the company far above the ashes of the closed Bonnybridge incinerator. Furthermore, the company become as famous for its legal victories as it had for making money out of imported waste. When Kevin Morgan came to me during his research for the University paper, I was then in my third year of fighting the writ and it was a point in time when there were very few who remained unafraid of the formidable ReChem. The new management had turned a previously vulnerable company into afortress.