32. The Net Closes
1993 came in with a bang at the Fawley plant when an explosion caused the incinerator to be shut down for a while. When it occurred I was immersed in the technical details of ReChem’s application for authorisation in Pontypool. After digesting the near 300-page application my response ended up being very weighty too. I asked for numerous improvements to the specification of the proposed new incinerator, for the monitoring procedures to be improved and for other controls to be spelled out more clearly. Alan Watson, an environmental consultant from the Gower who had been incredibly industrious, put forward his own meticulous critique as did Ken Caldicott, another person in his element with technicalities.The call for public meetings and demonstrations about ReChem had declined after the Australian episode, but the proposals to renovate the incinerator revived the public’s interest. This time I got the impression that people were being listened to by the regulators, particularly in relation to the company’s intended avoidance of Environmental Impact Assessment. Then, whilst still in deadlock over the writ, my recollections of toxic waste history got me into another major importation issue.
Scientific research on dioxin–linked cancer incidence at the Boehringer chemical factory in Hamburg had been published by The Lancet in October 1992. The article didn’t remark on the controversy around the controversial plant’s closure in 1984 but I remembered events well enough, since the resulting chemical stockpile was always on my list of waste to watch. Greenpeace also kept tabs on the notorious waste and in March 1993 I was told that ReChem had agreed to take 1400 tonnes of the German waste from Hamburg’s defunct Agent Orange production site.It was reasonable to assume that the chemicals selected for Pontypool would be the most dislikeable of the materials held at the Hamburg site.With the waste due to come across the North Sea to Hull, then over the Pennines and down through the Midlands, the plan attracted interest in the north of England and sections of the national press joined in our protests. My efforts now shifted back, from paperwork to the public, as it was a time again for feet on the ground. The Mothers group co-ordinated an opportunistic demonstration in Cardiff just as our Welsh Affairs MPs were holding their first ever sitting in the City.Gwent County Council and Torfaen Borough Council immediately threw their weight against the German waste whilst the South Wales Argus listed contact numbers in Germany and subsidised the faxing of messages from protestors.In a beautifully timed accompaniment to the cacophony of protest calls was news from the European Commission of other ReChem matters being pursued. The European Union’s Environment Commissioner Ioannis Paleokrassas gave his judgement that an Environmental Impact Assessment should indeed accompany Rechem’s new incinerator proposal, despite what the company said to the contrary.In addition, he clarified the position of the British government’s exclusion of ReChem from the hazard regulations, at last concluding that the omission contravened a 1982 European Directive. After years of battling away at bureaucracy, the European judgments were invaluable inclusions in our case against the German waste. In an equally serious but less diplomatic style, on a March Monday following a rousing Saturday demonstration at the plant, flamboyant local disc jockey Les Paul blocked the entrance to ReChem’s plant with a seven tonne truck before he was arrested. Wearing sunglasses, his rock-star look included leather trousers and a two-tone diamond-pattern jacket. The DJ’s comment was “I’ve just had a gutsful”. With a smile on his face for the policeman, he provided a fresh, friendly campaigning image for the front page of the Argus.
When Environment Secretary Michael Howard began his job and he turned self-sufficiency principles into action in the Australian episode, he was leaning on the unsynchronised Basel ratification. It was the Basel ratification complexities that also allowed him to then act more against Swiss waste. After a much briefer induction into German waste, and with less reliance on anomalies, his third personal intervention was even more admirable. He was reported to have confronted counterpart Klaus Topfer on 22nd March in Brussels and urged him to halt the shipment of the 1400 tonnes being stored in Hamburg. Germany had its own incinerators but none wanted to handle the chlorobenzene-containing waste.At least Herr Topfer said he would look into the matter, while a different German spokesman had the peculiar view that if a German company could not be persuaded to take the waste, then Britain had an obligation to do so. Amongst the people I pressed for a reversal of Germany’s decision was Fritz Vahrenholt, the Hamburg Senator with responsibility for the environment and who himself possessed a Ph. D. in chemistry.Whilst hoping for the best from the situation we took nothing for granted and once again contemplated barricades in Pontypool together with protests at the docks in Hull. Paul Murphy tabled a new commons motion from Welsh MPs. Ironically, legal niceties meant that even in the dying days of their toxic waste responsibilities, Torfaen Borough Council still had no choice but to sign the importation documents, but this time the signature would be seen in a different light. The informal word in the ear from Michael Howard meant there could be no German claims of official approval for the waste deal.
The new European laws we had been pressing for would give any EEC member-state the power to stop the importation of waste from another member, but the laws were not due to come into force until May 1994. I argued that because a general agreement had been reached, Michael Howard would not cause a fuss if he made a premature move in this particular case. After all, our government took pride in not always sticking to the letter of the law in EEC legislation. My argument was not unrealistic, since the German government itself admitted that if Britain formally put its foot down, there would be no international repercussions. Signs from the German public were good, too, and those signs were seen at first-hand by Brian Maurice, the Gwent County Councillor who visited Gwent’s twin region, Karlsruhe, where he found great support for his campaigning words.The spontaneous spread of our local opposition to the German waste was amazing and Germany was bombarded with information about people’s experiences of the Pontypool waste plant, about regulatory action against ReChem and about contamination - but not yet with the latest, but unpublished, discoveries of the University of East Anglia.
There had been three reports from the UEA. The first, in October 1991, was a study of previous test results whilst the second and third were concerned with establishing the procedures for the University’s own major analytical exercise. The overdue Fourth Report was scheduled to be the culmination of the research project, providing the results of the University’s own analysis of soil, vegetation and eggs. Now in the spring of 1993 and in the second year of that phase of the study, the exercise was complete. As the German waste controversy was escalating the report was with the Secretary of State for Wales awaiting approval. The delay in its release heightened the tension and raised anxiety about whether the full findings of the University would be made available. The campaigning potential of the report lay not just in combating imports, but in opposing the investment plans that were related to ReChem’s application for authorisation. Although there were no leaks of the findings of the UEA, the way my legal contest was going suggested to me that the University’s results were going to be bad news for ReChem.On April 22nd 1993 news of the findings finally broke and saturated the local media. The South Wales Argus front page was headed “RECHEM: PROOF OF POLLUTION”. The article began: “Rechem is polluting the environment with unusually high levels of potentially dangerous PCBs and dioxins, a major environmental study has found.” The journal “Chemistry and Industry” provided the key to the proof in a summary:
The contaminated zone stretches some 500m to the east and south of the plant, in the Panteg region of Pontypool. Within this zone, the ratio of light to heavy PCB congeners is similar to that measured in a small region of heavy contamination on the Rechem site itself. And the ratio of dioxins and furans to PCBs is constant, implying a common pollution source.
Not surprisingly, in his overview of the 250-page report, Welsh Office appointee Professor Lewis Roberts managed to find the results re-assuring and ReChem pointed out that the report concluded that there was no significant risk to health in the community. The way such conclusions were drawn from the raw data ensured that I continued with my pet interest in the validity of inferences.
It was now nine years after I first predicted contamination and some three years since the parliamentary committee’s probe had set the research ball rolling. Regardless of the opinions of Lewis Roberts and ReChem, the plant’s responsibility for contamination seemed settled and the strength of my defence soared. The report’s publication was followed by renewed calls for the plant’s closure and for a public inquiry. The calls were resisted but I had a strong feeling that, for once, it would no longer be business as usual for the Pontypool plant. When the Council felt it could be too costly to object to ReChem’s proposed investment plan the path was then clear for the Pollution Inspectorate to authorise continued operation of the plant, whilst insisting that its new licence was conditional upon on a six-month timetable for a wide ranging improvements. Supporting ReChem, Welsh Secretary David Hunt tried to put the best gloss on the University’s findings, but the South Wales Argus precluded the need for propaganda by instantly faxing the full contamination report to Germany. The continued campaigning in the community was exemplified by an iconic press picture of Dorothy Preece resolutely reaching up to fix a protest poster to the barbed wire above ReChem’s gate.
Our protests were rewarded. Along with others in Germany I’d been providing the senator and head of environmental administration for Hamburg, Dr. Varenholt, with information updates. On 10th August I had a reply from a Michael Pollman of the Senator’s office. The letter was addressed to David Powell of the Keep Your Own Waste Campaign. I did enjoy seeing that new title on incoming letters as it was an indication that at least the words in it had been read. It was also satisfying to know that my little secret, of being both the leader and the only member of my organisation, was still intact. The reply from Hamburg was very gracious, in saying:
We have asked the producer to look out for native waste removal alternatives and we have made clear to the public that we do not approve of exporting the highly poisonous material to Britain . . . . It seems like your campaign has had a considerable effect . . . . Having learned that there has been an important public discussion on the subject in Wales and that as the ReChem plant is the target of very substantial and heavy weighting ecological criticism the exporting company seems to have renounced its former intentions and abandoned its plans as far as highly toxic waste is concerned . . . . As the change in Boehringer’s opinion is most likely due to your campaign, I hope this message is satisfactory
It wasn’t too disturbing that my Keep Your Own Waste message didn’t work indefinitely in the case of Hamburg’s waste. As so often happened in such situations, the prospect of keeping the toxic chemicals in Germany produced a responsibility by-pass and the notorious Boehringer chemicals found a new outlet at Riihimake in Finland. In the new age of openness about waste this wasn’t done underhandedly. Dr. Varehholt’s office had the courtesy to inform me of the decision, stressing that it was an exceptional occurrence and that lessons had been learned.He pledged that it wouldn’t happen again, saying that “Hamburg will have facilities of its own in the foreseeable future” and “I find that it is very reassuring that no Hamburg Senator will have to write begging letters in order to get rid of dangerous waste.”
Rechem viewed our influence on Hamburg’s chlorinated benzene waste as ill-informed interference, but then in September after a trial lasting four weeks, Newport Crown Court pronounced its verdict in the sewage prosecution.The court had heard arguments about sampling and testing, with Rechem’s side critisising the water company’s procedures whilst itself rejecting an allegation of falsifying data. Following an intervention by the judge, the company pleaded guilty to three charges of contaminating the Eastern Valley Trunk sewer with hexachlorobenzenes during November 1991. It had occurred in a period when Spanish HCB waste was being burned, all seeming to justify my Keep Your Own Waste message. After some further resistance in court, the company also admitted guilt over a charge of exceeding the consent limit for PCB discharges.The outcome was significant in a number of ways: ReChem could no longer point to its activities in Pontypool as being completely within the law and my claim that chemicals from foreign waste were entering our environment would no longer be a touchy subject for the media. In comparison with tiny penalties previously issued in Wales over industrial discharges, the £22,500 fine, plus £100,000 costs handed down to Rechem, conveyed the gravity of the offences. The self-acclaimed “Rolls Royce of Incineration” and one-time idol of the enterprise age had become the first company in the County of Gwent to fall foul of the law on trade effluent.
The South Wales Argus went back over the whole story: ReChem’s liquid effluent output to the Ponthir treatment plant; then Welsh Water’s treated sludge being sent from Ponthir treatment works to Bristol for mixing with sludge from Wessex Water before dumping both in the Bristol Channel; the National Rivers authority discovering contamination and linking it to Spanish waste; the leaking of a Welsh water report to the Argus and then the prosecution. Although this was an historic victory, I doubt that the bodies who mounted the action appreciated the boost that their famous result would give to the campaign against waste importation. Some 21 years after the Stockholm Declaration had said it shouldn’t happen, we could now tell the world that waste from overseas had been polluting our environment. However, I didn’t need to communicate the Prosecution of Rechem Pontypool to my solicitor. My case had ended.