26. Daylight and Doubt
My radio “second rate” criticism was meant to apply to the condition of the regulatory system as well as to the process being regulated, since I could hardly critisise a plant that satisfied the regulators without reprimanding the regulations themselves. Fortunately, the Caldicott family’s ongoing and well documented experiences continued to provide ammunition for me to in that respect. Ken and Shirley continued to detest being fobbed-off with poor excuses or patronising explanations and they weren’t bothered by being called constant complainers. When the incinerator remained in operation over the Christmas period of 1990 the Caldicott’s catalogue of incidents finally forced the Inspectorate to admit to its own limitations. On Christmas Eve there was a big bang, on Christmas Day a cloud spilled out of the site into the fields and on Boxing Day there was more smoke combined with a smell of chlorine. It was normal for Ken and Shirley to contact the Inspectorate in such circumstances, particularly in view of the unwillingness of ReChem to give information to the local authority. An anwserphone said the office was closed for the week and when open again in the new-year, the Inspectorate unashamedly clarified its position by asserting that the body was not an emergency service. I saw this as a reminder of the plant’s liberty, the residents’ vulnerability and a self-condemnation by the inspectorate, which I added to my defence.
With the derision felt for the Pollution Inspectorate now up a notch, the local authority was increasingly being viewed as the publics’ only guardian. The Council’s publication of more test results reinforced previous evidence of PCB levels rising towards the plant and, as usual, ReChem’s new results including those for duck-egg contamination were much lower than the local authority’s.Having run into the wrath of Rechem’s lawyers with the publication of results from its environmental monitoring programme, the determined Torfaen Council now received a vote of confidence with an award from The Campaign for the Freedom of Information. The award was for the Council’s contribution to transparency and particularly for the successful challenge to the injunction against the test results. Soon the prospect of even greater transparency solidified, when the Welsh Office confirmed that the contract for the government-sponsored, independent study would go to the University of East Anglia. I was glad that the announcement stated that the local authority would be involved, too, as part of a steering group to be set up for the project. Good news as that was, an inspired editorial in the South Wales Argus reflected a constant fear when it expressed concern that whatever the investigation’s outcome, there was no guarantee that there would be any material progress and that for the time being nothing would change. Another newspaper, the long-established Free Press of Monmouthshire, said that testing alone would not be enough to allay the concerns of an entire valley.Yet, even with my own reservations about the ultimate impact of the study, I had reason to be more cheery than the newspapers, since whatever the outcome in terms of material changes to incineration in the valley, the outcome it could mean such a lot for my writ.
My concern over the investigation came mainly from what I’d heard about the leanings of its previously appointed overseer and the project team’s link to the government, Lewis Roberts. He was an eminent scientist and Cardiff-born too, but recently he’d gone into the fashionable field of risk-assessment. It was a field I regarded as only semi-scientific, with potential for political manipulation. Then, regardless of his commendable conviction on climate change, he was said to support the principle of incineration. I would have been happier having someone more detached in charge of the investigation and the professor’s pro-incineration predisposition certainly didn’t find favour in a community whose attention was turning towards the incinerator’s new connection with the Karin-B. Waste from the vessel had been stored in Italy since its inglorious homecoming in 1988.ReChem now confirmed that Karin-B waste was being repackaged for Britain and that some was burned by both of the company’s incinerators in 1990. Upon hearing of the Karin B confession we quickly staged a protest outside the plant, where M.A.C.AT.w’s Jane Mellor vocalised public outrage. When the wandering Karin B waste first looked to Britain for a harbour, it had been only the packaging that gave our government concern. Now, the newspaper Wales on Sunday remembered the previous controversy and said “We don’t want it, however pretty the package”. Our new Prime Minister John Major had no objections to the waste’s second attempt to enter Britain.
When my appeal against the High Court’s demolition of my defence was in abeyance, my barrister Heather Rodgers took the initiative to meet with a top libel QC, Michael Tugendaht. His advice was interesting. He agreed that my on-air criticisms had been exaggerated by the other side. He thought my comments were actually very mild, yet like me he also felt that if stronger meanings were imparted to those words by my opponents, then we were right to see what justification could be attached to those meanings. However, he favoured a less ambitious, more practical approach, recommending that it would be better for us to stress that it was the Plaintiffs, not us, who wanted to up the ante and that we should not rise to the bait but should revert to tuning the defence more accurately towards the more obvious meanings of my words. The complexities of dealing with probabilities of contamination by toxic materials in a libel case were obviously off-putting for the court and the QC was concerned that the only hard evidence I had of ReChem emitting anything into the environment rested with the aluminium foil incident. The connection between most other events and environmental impact was still legally tenuous and the contamination of soil, foliage and duck eggs, even if proven to exist would the have to be proven to have Rechem’s fingerprint, in order to make any difference to my case. I knew he was correct, but also that he was necessarily speaking of the position in the past and present but not the future. The changing situation outside of the Court made the evidence of contamination dynamic rather than just historic. I had always seen my salvation in the future, but the time my tactics were buying was running out and I now needed to acknowledge that the court wouldn’t wait forever for what might one day come along. It looked as if our own escalation of the libel allegations had run its course and my defence would now need to descend from its high ideals. We’d had a good run for our money and so Sally applied for a hearing to request the Court’s acceptance of an amended defence and so, struggling with two tennis elbows from typing, I polished up the work I’d done in anticipation of changing the emphasis.
With the controversy over the Karin B waste escalating, for the second February in a row we campaigners went protesting outside the Welsh Office in Cardiff whilst Llew Smith kept the wheels of Europe turning towards waste trade restrictions. More distant dimensions of our local campaign also became more apparent as, in Australia, there were ominous signs of waste making a move, whilst in March news from New Zealand reflected some qualified success in keeping waste away from Pontypool. After trials in the early 1980s its government had gone against incineration on its own soil and had settled for exporting. In a large article, headed “Toxic waste not popular in UK” the New Zealand Herald said “Exporting appears to be a way of avoiding conflict with environmentalists and neighbours of incineration plants, at least in New Zealand.” That insular approach to waste management was one we were familiar with. The newspaper reported that STEAM had protested about earlier PCB exports from New Zealand to Pontypool and that further shipments would go to Cleanaway at Elsmere Port, the home of my campaigning colleague Ralph Ryder. In April, when I was looking ahead to a new phase in my own case, Wales’ Red Dragon Radio gave up its own struggle against a ReChem writ that was served around the same time as mine. The local broadcasting company apologised and contributed to ReChem’s costs.
During the Easter holidays we returned to Australia House in the Strand, firstly because of the country’s regular shipments to Pontypool and secondly because of reports arriving about the waste in Western Australia. I originally learned that Australia’s own plans to build an incinerator were coming off the rails, when Barbara Blakey informed me that local protests caused Corowa in News South Wales to be removed from the list of possible sites in November 1990. In February 1991, when other possible locations had also seen protests, Scottish born resident of Western Australia, Heather Peebles, telephoned Llew Smith’s Office to warn of export procedures now being activated for the Western Australian stockpile. An article in Australia’s Sunday Times declared that Britain was the obvious place to send the waste. It was looking bad for us and indications of Australian intentions were only reinforced during a visit we made to Australia House. The High Commissioner, Richard Smith, made it clear that he wasn’t a fan of the self-sufficiency principle, believing that sending the waste across the world to Wales was a great idea. To him, what mattered was the British government’s agreement with what Australia wanted to do with its waste. After MACAT had coordinated the distribution of protest postcards in Pontypool, we delivered 1000 of them to Australia House on the day we went to London. The cards from residents helped give Mr. Smith the message that despite his intractability over what Australia called its intractable waste, his country hadn’t heard the last of us.Later in April, there was a colourful evocation of Australia in New Inn when a malfunction caused the incinerator’s gas cleaning plant to be by-passed, releasing orange smoke into the area. The colour brought the Australian intentions to mind but trade secrecy actually prevented us from knowing which country’s waste was being burned or from discovering anything about the materials in the incinerator at the time. Whatever ReChem’s smoke signals meant, our own signs of protest did reach Australia and resulted in a welcome human Australian export arriving here in May and pledging his allegiance to us. He was Robert Cartmell from Greenpeace in Sydney, who temporarily transferred from New South Wales to become part of the family at my home in old South Wales.
Nearly two years into my writ, with very little official reproval of the Pontypool plant for me to rely on in court, with the University contamination study not yet off the starting blocks and with the passing of time bearing only small fruits, help arrived from the most unexpected quarter and my prospects were instantly transformed. When I said “second rate activity” on The World Tonight my mind pictured the static hearth of the incinerator with its massive doorway gushing flames and black smoke. In May 1991, during its investigations of the orange smoke incident of April 23rd, the Pollution Inspectorate did something many people felt was long overdue and was never going to happen.Out of the blue and out of character, the state regulator served an order on ReChem for improvements. Almost seven years since my first sighting of the incinerator, the Inspectors now appeared to be agreeing that something was wrong with it. The official communication from contained the expected assertion that the plant was still not be breaching any regulations, yet even that negative conclusion was useful for me as it begged the question of the appropriateness of the regulations. The overwhelming significance of the Inspectorates action, however, was the acknowledgement by a government body, seventeen years into the plant’s operation, of a fault leading to the emission of “noxious or offensive substances”.Suddenly, my own judgment was no longer entirely at odds with officialdom. For more than a year I had lived with Chris Patten’s “first rate” opinion echoing in my ears but now the former Environment Secretary’s judgement of the plant was on trial.
With timing that temporarily took some attention away from the Inspectorate’s intervention and with a peculiar relationship to the forthcoming analytical study, ReChem announced its own initiative to fund a separate study into PCB contamination. Other than having the potential to distract, I saw little purpose in launching this when the University of East Anglia’s was in the offing. I was happy that the diversion created by ReChem’s announcement was short lived, because further action by both HMIP and the Factory Inspectorate followed in the form of two more official notices, one of which went deeper than the notice served in April. Amongst many similar calls, Llew Smith asked for the company to be prosecuted and there was considerable public frustration that this didn’t happen. Even though it was now officially acknowledged that noxious or offensive substances were emitted, residents continued to be denied details of the chemicals being burned at the time. The secrecy didn’t take the shine off solid evidence that could stand up in court and with the ink barely dry on those legal notices, Sally wrote to me with an update on our own legal position. We’d been given 8 weeks from 28th July to submit the amended defence and we would then need to seek formal approval for it to be adopted. I was hopeful that the intervening time would further improver my position.
Always with one eye overseas, I noticed that Canada’s fast action in banning PCB exports in the wake of our 1989 protest was foundering just as news broke about illegal PCB shipments from Canada to the USA. Not only did that contradict Canada’s 1989 declaration, but it was also in violation of an earlier bi-lateral requirement. Australia, however, stuck to its own principle of not having any principles to worry about when it came to toxic waste. When I complained to Federal Environment Minister Ros Kelly about the High Commissioner’s enthusiastic advocacy of a free trade in toxic waste her reply supported the High Commissioner’s stance and she hardly consoled me by emphasising that the exportation of Western Australian waste to the UK was, as yet, nothing more than a possibility. The news that export permits wouldn’t be issued until the British authorities had been consulted didn’t do anything to reduce the likelihood that permits would ultimately be granted by the Australian authorities, since Britain was expected to give the go-ahead, and the minister appeared indifferent to the Pontypool protest that was continuing to escalate over Australian waste. In June, at home, a TV documentary gave more air to the campaign and in particular to Mothers and Children Against Toxic Waste. Sarah Preece was now the spokeswoman for the group and whilst not a mother herself, she was part of an exceptional family partnership as the daughter of the indomitable Dorothy and ever-present protestor Peter. In a hereditary role reversal, mother Dorothy went on to succeed Sarah as the frontrunner for the group. When more test results were published, this time ReChem as well as the Council reported high levels of PCBs in the environment and in the duck eggs. However, the company’s acknowledgement of the contamination wasn’t what it appeared to be. For anyone thinking that the game was up, or for me looking to use the corresponding sets of PCB figures as evidence in my defence, ReChem’s share of the joint results was the opposite of helpful. The devil was in the detail. Torfaen’s own figures for PCB contamination had consistently reported higher levels of PCBs near to the plant. ReChem’s newly reported levels climbed with distance from the plant. As Rechem proposed an alternative source of contamination, away from the incinerator, I mused about the day when science would be free from subterfuge.
The ReChem controversy had helped raise awareness of incineration and of waste management in general, but the universal generation of more waste brought incinerators increasingly onto the agenda of local authorities, hospitals and private businesses. Even in incinerator-sensitive South Wales a number of new proposals were arising, so when chemistry professor and waste evangelist Paul Connett came over from New York we held a public meeting in Cwmbran about the waste as a whole.He warned that waste incinerators generally work against recycling and instead promote waste production. Then his provocative maxim that it’s mainly dumb areas that take-in waste were met with a mixture of surprise, outrage and guilt by some locals. As light relief he provided a remark that epitomised his ability to climb down from the heights of his University Chemistry, with the adage: “The only way regulations can protect the public is if you make them into face masks.” The audience instantly recognised that his words captured the mess we were in. I admired Paul for evangelically taking on all forms of incineration with his clever concepts of waste victims, sacrifice regions and waste moving from rich to poor but while he battled to make the whole business better throughout the world, I settled for ReChem.
The December 1990 takeover of ReChem by Shank’s was reported to have brought £35 million each to M.D. Malcolm Lee and ReChem Chairman Richard Biffa and it paved the way for the exit of the men who had brought the headline-hitting profitability to the company. In the middle of 1991, Lee and Biffa moved aside for Shanks own appointees to move to the helm of a modified corporate structure. The top two went into non-executive directorships before the new managers were baptised by fire as a major incident at the plant again reminded everyone of ReChem’s exemption from the hazard regulations. The incident proved that the troublesome location of the incineration plant had two advantages. One was that the plant was under constant public scrutiny and the other was that it was near to the fire station, even though this time the local fire station wasn’t enough for the emergency. When the explosions rocked New Inn on July 12th and acrid white fumes pervaded the area, fire crews from Cwmbran, Newport and Abersychan, as well as from New Inn rushed to the scene. After the typical secrecy about the materials involved, it later emerged that sodium and sulphur, together, were the culprits. Rainwater had reacted with the sodium, leading to explosions, a fire and profuse smoke. An animated public demonstration soon followed, but sustaining campaigning momentum over a single event such as this was always difficult since the incinerator was continually moving itself from one spotlight to another. Such a shift occurred eleven days after the sodium fire when residents reported smelling bromine and feeling unwell following an incident where clouds were seen to have come from the base of the stack. That new event, which Rechem termed a “minor irregularity” didn’t take my own attention away from the earlier fire and in my updates I duly sent details of it to Sally at Seifert Sedley Williams.
Quite soon some important news of my case returned to me. The time for serving our amended defence had gladly gone out to 6th September. More interestingly, and after considering our previous rebuff, ReChem’s side had a new idea for a settlement even though we weren’t pressing for one. A statement for reading in open court was proposed to me, where the emphasis was now on the Evening Standard article and where the BBC broadcast suddenly played no part. Neither was the need for an apology from me mentioned. There were also other attractive aspects of the proposal, which clearly meant that we were getting somewhere. The problem was that there was still an insistence that my statement would be something of a retraction, as I was being asked to comment on eye defects in a way that appeared to go further than to disclaim the Evening Standard’s report.All I was prepared to say about the newspaper article was that the article was wrong and not that my own views on the subject of eye defects in babies were wrong. I left the good parts of the proposal intact and pencilled in some alterations to the remainder.
We campaigners used the July fire as a lever to demand radical improvements in the storage of waste and to request restrictions on the range of materials stored at the Pontypool site. There was soon to be some progress in that respect but other protestations turned out to be less successful. We had enjoyed the previous year’s demo at Newport’s Bell Lines container terminal, yet despite being given the impression by the shipping company that its involvement in toxic waste importation would be ending, figures for the past year showed that Bell’s toxic trade had actually increased, with over four thousand tonnes coming in from Ireland, Austria, Switzerland, Finland and Germany. As imports continued to be irresistible for ReChem, MACATw re-ran the postcard campaign and re-kindled the demonstrations. In September ReChem publicised the Pontypool plant’s own pride in its vigilance when rejecting a consignment of Dutch waste after mercury was discovered in drums of PCB-containing capacitors. In Southampton, where Butts Ash residents were growing restless about ReChem, local Friends of the Earth activist Yvonne Fulton and Councillor Maureen McLean were helping to provide the English thrust against proposed PCB imports from Australia, even though ReChem’s Southampton plant didn’t have a history of PCB burning. Back in Pontypool, as the evenings dimmed into autumn, the first of a series of monthly candle-lit vigils took place at the incinerator and passing motorists queued to sign a new petition against toxic waste imports. With importation back in the news in a big way, our underlying expectation of progress elsewhere was fuelled when the assiduous University of East Anglia stood ready to make some comments about contamination of the area where which we had spent so much time protesting.
It was on October 5th 1991 that the long-awaited findings on contamination were published in the first of the University’s reports.Previously, the position as I saw it was this: the disputed local authority tests showed that PCB contamination increased with proximity to the plant. After traditionally disagreeing, the Welsh Office had recently concurred that there were elevated levels of PCBs but not with a pattern pointing to ReChem. ReChem had moved away from an earlier position in which the company which portrayed the environs of the plant as PCB-proof, towards the scenario that the contamination was from elsewhere.
The UEA’s scientists had been given two years to clarify the confusion but in a shorter period they managed to shed some light on the subject, though not as a result of new testing. The first report was simply the product of a six-month study of existing data.When that report was published the South Wales Argus produced its own pre-emptive conclusion in the form of a front page headline: “PCBs ‘LEAKING FROM RECHEM’ – REPORT “. The newspaper then summarised the main findings of the report, which established that PCB concentrations in soil were definitely not typical of background levels and that flooding of the river was certainly not responsible for contamination. It added the bold assertion that the plant’s operations had influenced the concentrations of PCBs in the atmosphere nearby and it pointed to the likelihood of elevated levels of dioxins and furans being present in the ground and the grass. Furthermore a hint of the crucial missing link also came with the indication that ReChem’s plant could really be the source of contamination in its surroundings and, if that was so, it was also likely that the worst offender at the plant was probably not the chimney stack, but leaks from elsewhere on site. The Argus demanded urgent action; the government maintained its passive position and the prospect of a new round of testing in the next phase of the University study bought more time for the company. ReChem carried on burning and waste imports kept coming in as the University scientists then worked towards their own analysis of local environmental materials, this time looking not just for PCBs, but for dioxins and furans too. First they would have to devise a systematic sampling exercise then determine the analytical procedures to be employed and finally establish a rigorous quality control regime. These steps alone would take a lot of time.
The publication of the UEA’s first report on contamination coincided with my solicitor Sally’s move from Seifert Sedley Williams to her new employer, Leigh Day and Company, where she would continue working on my writ. The first phase of the University study reassured me that evidence was evolving on the right track and my feeling of being in a good negotiating position was reflected by Sally’s news of the other side’s swift agreement to our modified court statement. Unfortunately what came back with the statement was a new and intriguing condition. It demanded that the agreed statement be the only statement made by either party in relation to the proceedings.With no intention of being gagged I continued to compile my defence data and all went quiet at Sally’s end. I was quite aware that if I didn’t agree to the settlement, it could mean that everything went back to the beginning, with costs and compensation being put back into the equation. I wanted to show that if necessary I was prepared to rewind, begin again and still go all the way.
In view of 1991’s invigorating UEA report I was then very surprised to see the Guardian hand over money to ReChem and to apologise in the High Court, in connection with allegations of contamination. The continued crumbling of all who came before ReChem in court didn’t prevent all public protests however, for as the University’s contamination news was being released in Wales ReChem’s Southampton plant came under increased fire by local campaigners, through its reported association with the Australian waste.In England, Hampshire County Council was the waste disposal authority overseeing ReChem’s affairs but in Wales the comparable Gwent County Council’s only inroad to ReChem was the back-seat one of emergency planning. Fortunately Gwent Councillor Jim Kirkwood was one of the founder members of STEAM and from the early days he had taken every opportunity to get ReChem onto the County Council’s agenda.Jim’s spadework had planted enough seeds for the Council to become interested in ReChem’s immunity from emergency plans and following the incessant news about contamination, imports and incidents, some other County Councillors also took the opportunity to make an impact. Gwent Council’s Public Protection Committee used its own leverage to increase diplomatic pressure on Europe over the hazard regulations, whilst some individual members were less diplomatic. During the Committee’s October meeting, committee member Mal Harris was applauded for his uncompromising demand that: “We mustn’t leave any stone unturned to close the damn place down forever.” It was also nice to see a John Major on our side – not the prime Minister, but a Gwent County Councillor of the same name.The Prime Minister had become accustomed to dissension in politics but in our corner of Wales ReChem’s presence had produced political unity, with all factions of the various Councils now pushing for progress. Local authority unity in the ReChem issue was, however, in line for extinction when the government signalled an end to the powers of such democratically elected bodies in relation to waste disposal. Under the proposed Environmental Protection Act, those responsibilities of councils were to be taken over by a national Environment Agency. It was something I wanted but which I greeted with mixed feelings. Torfaen had demonstrated the difficulties faced by small and isolated local authorities in dealing with the growing complexity and globalisation of the waste trade.However, the small selection of tools available was working wonders. I knew the incoming change was necessary, but because of the progress made locally I wasn’t over-excited by the prospect of a distant, centralised body having to start learning all over again.
Because Torfaen Borough Council had made such a contribution to the issue of contamination, I had been able to devote more time working towards the future of national and international controls. In collaboration with MPs, MEPs, government bodies and other organisations I was finding my time increasingly consumed in the analysis and amendment of Government proposals, European Directives and global treaties, in order to ensure that the turning environmental tide swept ReChem up in its path. Physically heavyweight material placed increasing demands on space and organisation at home, as well as on my eyesight. In the long hours spent examining the drafts of legislation and guidance I became attuned to spotting ambiguities between the lines and to re-writing the rules so as to reduce the prospects of ReChem being able to interpret the documents in its favour. More than ever before, I became a product of my own preachings in which I urged campaigners to limit their expectations of the system, to get deeply into the issues and to conquer the technicalities.I could understand why many campaigners didn’t do that and, although it was ultimately rewarding, I told MEP Llew Smith that he had a cross to bear for persuading me to undergo those long periods of tedium.
Still in 1991, the protesting highlight in the month of October was the Downing Street visit for six of the mothers and six children to hand in their 12,000 signature petition for Prime Minister John Major. On the same day, an earlier occupier of number ten, Dennis Thatcher, was in the news as Deputy Chairman of waste company Atwoods, just as the company was about to reveal a large rise in profits. Whilst in London carrying the petition, our Pontypool ensemble dropped in at the Australian High Commission, as a reminder that we were still watching the Western Australian waste proposals as they progressed through the country’s public consultation process and which Robert Cartmel was keeping us informed of.At Embassies and High Commissions, those who didn’t get in to the discussions with officials could always gain some satisfaction by making their presence felt visually and audibly outside. They did so at Australia House and the news of our noisy visit soon reached Australia itself, as did our intention to influence the outcome of the country’s consultation process. However, our own impression that that we were finding no favour was shown to be justified when the Australian government issued new export permits for hazardous waste well before the public consultation process was due to end.
In my defence against the writ I’d inclu