The Michael Sheen toxic waste documentary that exposed buried chemical contamination across Wales has prompted a former Monsanto worker to come forward, with the scientist behind the programme warning there are about 20,000 high-concern sites across the UK.
Stephen Constance worked at Monsanto’s Newport factory in the 1990s, spending three years helping to seal toxic waste underground. He said staff were given ‘cheap’ protective equipment and were never told what they were burying.
He came forward after the BBC documentary Buried with Michael Sheen examined Wales’ toxic waste legacy, and was one of dozens of people to contact BBC Wales following the programme’s broadcast.
Michael Sheen toxic waste inquiry draws whistleblowers
Researcher and whistleblower Douglas Gowan spent 50 years trying to persuade authorities to investigate what he believed was widespread dumping of industrial chemicals, including polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). Gowan described PCBs as ‘some of the worst contaminants known to man’. They were widely used in the 20th century, including in lipstick and white goods, before being banned in the UK in the 1970s. They have since been banned by 151 countries.
Constance, 61, described his time working for Monsanto as ‘absolutely dreadful’. The material was already buried when he arrived. His job was to dig a 6m-deep trench around the outside of the mound before it was sealed using plastic membrane sheets and liquid clay. He believes this prevented airborne contamination but said he was unsure whether it would have stopped contamination reaching the earth, given the high water table linked to the tides.
‘In terms of what we knew was there and what we were potentially exposed to, no,’ he said when asked whether he felt safe.
Constance is in remission from cancer after having follicular lymphoma. ‘I’m not suggesting in any way at all that it’s linked, but the thought did cross my mind,’ he said.
The Monsanto memo and what the company knew
In the documentary, journalists Dan Ashby and Lucy Taylor reveal a Monsanto memo dated to 1972 which showed the company knew PCBs were a danger to human health and was closing its site in the US as a result of legal action. According to BBC News, Monsanto had concluded PCBs were a worldwide problem, an environmental danger and a risk to human health, and was shutting down work at Anniston as a consequence. Yet it then increased its work at the Newport plant.
‘The government in the UK told the industry “we’re not going to put any restrictions on importing PCBs”,’ said Ashby. ‘So they begin importing from around the world, hundreds of tonnes of PCBs.’
Eastman Chemical Company, which is now responsible for Monsanto’s legacy production in the UK, did not respond when asked to comment. Eastman Chemical Company acquired Solutia in 2012 and now operates the Anniston facility.
Scale of the problem
Dr David Megson, a reader in chemistry and environmental forensics at Manchester Metropolitan University, led the scientific data collection in the documentary. He said the 14 sites identified in the programme were ‘the tip of the iceberg’.
‘The country is in a really dire place,’ he said. ‘Public pressure is the only thing that’s going to make this action happen. This is our only chance, if I’m being brutally honest.’
Dr Megson said the data showed those sites were ‘leaking’ and represented ‘a chemical cocktail’. He described finding PCB levels near one family home that were ‘pretty much the highest I’ve ever seen in anything we’ve tested’, after meeting people who had worried about contamination for more than 30 years.
‘PCBs are suspected carcinogens, so we think they can cause cancer,’ he added.
The acid tar lagoon in Llwyneinion near Ruabon is among the sites examined. A report by an environmental engineering consultancy in 2006, seen by BBC Wales, shows the lagoon was known to be contaminated as early as 1979. Known contaminants include 93,100 tonnes of acid sludge from Burmah Castrol, alongside barrels of unknown substances suspected to be from Monsanto. The report identified 105 possible ways contamination could affect people, wildlife, property or water supplies.
Ralph Davies, who has been in the chemical remediation industry for about 35 years, said he proposed a clean-up of the lagoon in 2007 but never heard back from Wrexham council. ‘People are still saying it does not meet the threshold for remediation, that both angers me and saddens me,’ he said. ‘The fact it is still there, untouched, is mind blowing.’
John Browne, a lawyer specialising in industrial disease claims at Slater and Gordon, said time made historical contamination cases harder to prove but not impossible. ‘Communities affected by contamination deserve transparency and clear answers,’ he said.
Public Health Wales said its Welsh cancer intelligence and surveillance unit had collected and analysed ‘every single case of cancer’ since the 1970s, adding there was ‘no indication that historical environmental pollution is responsible for an increased risk of cancer, or any other disease or illness, in these areas’ based on current evidence.
The Welsh government said it intended to develop a Wales-wide strategy to ‘progressively restore post-industrial land, so that communities are no longer exposed to potential risks’, following a 2015 survey by Natural Resources Wales that identified more than 9,000 potential sites requiring further investigation.
