Chris Grimshaw | ukwatch.net

Aerotoxic Updates

Ellie Keen — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 21:57:38 +0000

In the last issue of the Corporate Watch Newsletter we revealed how the air supply aboard commercial jet airliners is regularly contaminated with highly toxic chemicals which can poison and seriously injure pilots and passengers. This contamination can happen because, as a cost-saving measure, airliners take compressed air for the cabin from the engines. Jet engine oil, however, contains powerful toxins, including organophosphates, a chemical linked to Gulf War Syndrome.

In spite of a powerful and growing body of evidence presented by aircrews, campaigners and independent doctors and scientists, the airline industry has issued blanket denials of all such allegations. Meanwhile government committees such as the UK’s Committee on Toxicity seem determined to ignore any evidence that might threaten airline profits.

Now two recent stories threaten to blow the lid off the industry’s dirtiest secret… or would if the mainstream media had the guts to write it up.

FLYBE PILOTS ‘FUMING’ PROTEST

In October, news broke that crew working for Flybe were boycotting some of the airline’s planes, after several very serious toxic fume incidents. According to BBC Five Live, ten incidents had occurred on Flybe’s ageing BAe 146 planes in the last 15 months. Several of these incidents resulted in hospitalisations, when air crew were incapacitated by fumes, and in one case a plane flying from Belfast was forced to make an emergency landing on the Isle of Man, with the pilots using emergency oxygen supplies.

A well placed source told Corporate Watch that a number of Flybe air crew have been given letters by the company doctor saying that they should not fly on particular planes for health reasons.

Flybe, which has been rebranding itself under the slogan ‘low cost… but not at any cost’, is reluctant to talk about the issue. Flybe’s press enquiries are handled by The Red Consultancy, a leading UK PR company.

We asked them the following questions (which they would only take in writing):

Can you confirm or deny that Flybe’s company doctor has issued letters for air crew saying that they should not fly on particular planes for health reasons?

Does Flybe accept that there were hazardous ‘fuming incidents’ aboard flights, (as described in the Radio 5 report ‘Cabin Fever’)?

Has Flybe conducted any cabin air monitoring tests aboard its BAe 146 aircraft? Did the company’s crisis communications plans include dealing with ‘fuming events’ aboard the aircraft? If so, how long has this been planned for?

Flybe (and Red) directly refused to answer these questions. Instead they issued the following statement:

Flybe is completely confident that its aircraft are operated and maintained to the highest industry standards. We have over 700 commercial pilots within Flybe and to date, not a single one has ever refused to fly one of our aircraft.

In line with many previous public announcements, Flybe took a commercial decision several years ago to reduce the number of aircraft types it operated from three to two. As a result the BAe 146 fleet will have been withdrawn by February 2008.

In spite of the seriousness of this potentially lethal hazard, this appears to be the only statement made to the press at the time of writing.

BAEs GOLDEN GAG

In another twist to the tale, documents were recently presented to the Australian Senate which show that the manufacturers of the planes, BAe Systems, were aware of the fuming problem with the 146 model as early as 1993 and acted to suppress the story. Two Australian airlines, Ansett and EWA, had brought legal action against BAe claiming that a design fault in the BAe 146 airliner was producing ‘obnoxious oil and other fumes’ in the cabin. The documents show that BAe agreed to pay out A$750,000 in a settlement. Allied Signal, the US company which manufactured the engine parts responsible for the leaks, also paid out US$1,235,000. Confidentiality clauses were included in both deals so that the story was kept out of the public domain.

The agreement also blocked any future actions: ‘Ansett and EWA hereby jointly and severally agree that the said sum of A$750,000 shall be paid by BAe to EWA as liquidated damages in full and final settlement of any and all claims which Ansett or EWA may have against BAe either now or in the future in respect of oil or other fumes adversely affecting the cabin environment’.

In 1999 Ansett gave evidence to the Australian Senate’s Committee on Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport, which was investigating the contaminated air issue. An Ansett executive said that Ansett had not initiated any legal proceedings against BAe.

It is currently unknown what other similar deals may have been made between other airlines and aircraft manufacturers.

COT

Research into the contaminated air issue is currently being conducted by the government-appointed Committee on Toxicity (COT). Their most recent report, released in September 2007, proved inconclusive and recommended further research. The campaign group the Global Cabin Air Quality Executive (GCAQE) is fiercely critical of COT’s work and produced a detailed report on errors in COT’s research. We asked COT for a response to the GCAQE’s accusations that their report is ‘industry biased’ and ‘contains many technical inaccuracies and misinformation which were previously highlighted to the Committee On Toxicity and the Department of Transport by the GCAQE, other unions, interested parties, doctors and scientists from around the world.’ We also wanted to know why COT has ignored so much evidence submitted by GCAQE and other independent scientists.

The contact person for the committee, Khandu Mistry, was unreachable, despite repeated calls. We subsequently tried the Department of Health press office who said they would get back to us. They did not. We called back; the press officer responsible had gone on holiday. We were told that it wasn’t really their responsibility and that we should talk to the

DoTR. The DoTR press office didn’t think it was their responsibility either and sent us to the Health protection Agency who also denied responsibility. After some discussion of transparency and public accountability the HPA spokesman promised to get back to us, with some answers. He did not. After two weeks of failed inquiries we again tried Khandu Mistry, the committee’s contact person, and were surprised to catch him in the office. He also claimed that it was not his responsibility to answer press enquiries and that he would pass on our questions to the DoH’s press department.

A few days later we received a reply to one of our two questions, asserting that the ‘COT review process was open for discussion… There were many observers at all meetings where this item was discussed. Importantly the COT review was considered a good piece of work by BALPA who submitted the original evidence.’ They failed to answer the more important question as to why so much input from GCAQE and others has been ignored.

For more information see the website of the Aerotoxic Association.

Toxic Airlines

Ellie Keen — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 21:34:37 +0000

John Hoyte is a tall bluff 51 year old. A pilot all his working life Hoyte had begun to develop a mystery sickness in the years before he retired. He was working for a budget airline when he became ill; blurred vision, memory problems, depression. Worsening symptoms forced him to resign as he felt unable to fly safely. He began to fear that he had CJD or early dementia. Rumours about contaminated air on planes had existed in pilots’ circles for years, but it was not until he was invited to take part in tests at University College London that his illness was connected with this issue.

The tests were conducted by Doctor Sarah Mackenzie Ross, a clinical neuropsychologist. She conducted psychometric tests on Hoyte and 17 other pilots and found that, in addition to physical symptoms, they were suffering ‘alarming cognitive failures’, including: ‘being unable to retain, or confusing, numerical data and information provided by air traffic control regarding altitude and speed; completing tasks in the incorrect sequence; setting the wrong cleared level for the aircraft to climb or descend; and being unable to recall important matters such as whether the undercarriage has been raised or lowered.’ Independently, the pilots had blood and fat samples analysed. These showed exposure to toxic compounds including the organophosphate, tricresyl phosphate.

Evidence is emerging that the air supply on modern jet airliners is regularly contaminated with a cocktail of toxic chemicals. Due to the altitude planes fly at, crew and passengers need compressed air to breathe. This is supplied from the engines – unfiltered – and is sometimes still blended with pyrolised (heated) engine oils and hydraulic fluids. The engine oils contain the organophosphate, tricresyl phosphate (TCP), a powerful toxin. Illness caused by exposure to the chemical contaminants in cabin air has been dubbed Aerotoxic Syndrome.

John Hoyte has now set up the Aerotoxic Association to inform crews and passengers about the health hazards to which they are exposed, to provide support and advice to sufferers, and to campaign for official recognition of Aerotoxic Syndrome.

Pilots and aircrew who are regularly exposed may develop symptoms. Sometimes the contamination is strong enough to cause health damage with a single exposure. Corporate Watch spoke to one passenger who flew to Orlando, Florida on a charter flight aboard a Boeing 757, earlier this year. On the flight the family became quite ill and spent their holiday in bed with a mystery illness. They suffered breathing difficulties, exhaustion, cognitive problems and severe flu like symptoms. When the return flight was delayed the passenger was able to talk to around 40 other passengers who had been on the same outbound flight and found that most of them had suffered similar symptoms. The family were still incapacitated when they returned home and their GP was unable to identify any cause of the mystery illness. They complained to the airline and to the Health Protection Agency and discovered that their aeroplane had an ‘air valve bleed’ which could have contaminated the air supply.

Ex-pilot and aerotoxic sufferer Captain Susan Michaelis has investigated the extent of the problem by surveying pilots. She wrote to 350 BA 146 pilots, and received responses from 242: 86% had experienced contaminated air events; 57% experienced some aerotoxic symptoms; 27% reporting medium to long term symptoms and 8.5% had retired for medical reasons. Michaelis has also written the Aviation Contaminated Air Reference Manual an 844 page guide to the issue detailing numerous independent studies and over 1000 contaminated air events in the UK alone.

A Canadian scientist, Chris Van Netten, became interested in the issue and decided to conduct his own studies. He took swab samples from inside a number of airliners and tested them for tricresyl phosphate. In total 40 planes of different types have been tested in this way in Australia, the USA, UK and Europe. 34 tested positive for TCP.

Governments around the world appear to be deeply uninterested. The issue is currently under official investigation in the UK by the government appointed Committee on Toxicity (COT) and the House of Lords, Science and Technology Committee. Campaigners allege that both investigations are seriously flawed. Of twelve parties selected to give evidence to the House of lords investigation only one was an independent scientist and only one representative of air crews.

The Global Cabin Air Quality Executive (GCAQE), an international coalition of concerned unions, has written to the Committee of Toxicity to point out serious flaws in its evidence gathering. The COT has, for instance, only accepted as evidence one study of TCP contamination of an aeroplane, although they have been informed by campaigners of at least eight other independent studies which found evidence of contamination. The blood and tissue tests mentioned above have also been ignored and the committee has failed to follow up evidence provided by a number of independent scientists. The unions’ coalition has written to the COT secretariat, informing them of more than 20 crucial factual errors and limitations in their report. Each of these errors it represents, downplays or ignores the evidence for contaminated air and its dangers.

Captain Tristan Loraine of the GCAQE commented that, ‘the COT appear to be looking after industry interests rather than passenger and crew health and flight safety’. COT is expected to report back some time Autumn 2007.

See www.aerotoxic.org and www.toxicfreeairlines.com

Lobbyists on the Defensive

Ellie Keen — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 23:18:20 +0000

Parliamentary scrutiny is unwelcome amongst industry insiders and seems to have triggered infighting. Bell Pottinger’s Peter Bingle, writing in PR Week said, “there is no point rehearsing in public the view that we welcome the inquiry. We don’t. I have yet to meet a member of the industry who does”. He blames the inquiry on lobbying trade association, the Association of Professional Political Consultants (APPC) which has been publicly attacking lobby firms which are not members. The APPC is supposed to police the industry and requires that its members sign up to a code of conduct, although membership of the group is voluntary.

The research group, Spinwatch has made a submission to the Inquiry and asked other groups, including Corporate Watch to sign on to it. Spinwatch is calling for the committee to recommend the following simple rules on all lobbying:

· A mandatory system of electronic registration and reporting for all lobbyists with a significant annual lobbying budget. This must include disclosure of resources expended in lobbying campaigns, which itemises expenditure by outside interests (clients and their agents) on each piece of legislation they have lobbied on. Reports must be made available in a fully searchable, sortable and downloadable online database.
· Enforceable ethics rules for lobbyists (for instance prohibiting employment of officials or their relatives for lobbying purposes).
· Enhanced ethical rules on members interests, on the role of All Party groups, and stricter regulation of outside interests.
· Recording of formal and informal meetings between elected members, officials and lobbyists and logging of correspondence (to be made available in a fully searchable online database).
· An extended ‘cooling off’ period – one year – before ministers, elected members and senior officials across the public sector can start working for lobby groups or lobbying consultancies.

Lobbying is an essential part of the way corporations exert power over society by influencing government. Without more information it is almost impossible to gauge the extent of that power, and it is the very secretive nature of the business that gives such cause for concern. We have nothing but a scandal-ridden industry’s insistence that it has cleaned up its act. Enforced transparency for the lobbying industry, as suggested by Spinwatch’s rules, is essential if Britain is to fulfil its claim to be a democracy.

Edelman’s Timely Scandal

Just as the lobbyists were gearing up to present the tired old line that, in spite of previous mistakes, the industry has now cleaned up its act, another lobbying scandal has broken out.

This time public relations multinational, Edelman, is in the spotlight over its lobbying of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) in 2006, on behalf of its client company Pelcombe. Pelcombe, an“employment solutions provider”, subsequently picked up contracts from the DWP for retraining the unemployed. Edelman however had failed to disclose Pelcombe as a client: a breach of the lobbying code of conduct. According to the Sunday Times, Pelcombe’s account was being handled by the Edelman director Heather Rogers, otherwise known as Heather Hutton, wife of John Hutton MP, then secretary of state at the DWP.

The Sunday Times was alone amongst the national press in considering the story newsworthy.

Spying Through the Euro Lies

Tim Holmes — Sat, 23 Jun 2007 14:19:55 +0000

The EU is often portrayed as bureaucratic and anti-business. The first charge is perhaps well deserved, the second entirely untrue. Benefiting from public disinterest and the opaque politics of Brussels, corporations exert a powerful and growing influence over European politics. Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO), an Amsterdam-based group, has been investigating and documenting the inner workings of the EU and the ever increasing corporate influence over its policy making process. Corporate Watch spoke to CEO co-founder Erik Wesselius about ten years of researching corporate lobbying in Brussels and at international institutions like the UN and the WTO.

The idea for Corporate Europe Observatory was born in the Spring of 1997 in the run up to the EU summit at which the Amsterdam Treaty was to be agreed.

‘We were involved in the organisation of the counter summit. we wanted to bring the issue of corporate power into the debate about a different EU.

‘Our basic motivation was to oppose corporate influence on EU policies. We had seen the examples of the Trans European Networks and also the internal market and European Monetary Union. We had also stumbled upon the European Round Table of Industrialists and decided we should do something about this. We wanted to make people realise that this is a problem for democracy’

The sheer volume of material CEO has produced in ten years is astonishing and the depth of research is humbling. Since 1997 they have investigated a wide variety of topics – from the Multilateral Agreement on Investments, to the privatisation of water companies worldwide, to the EU-US free trade negotiations.

I asked Wesselius about the kind of techniques used by the corporations to gain influence in Brussels. These are multi-stranded strategies of influence. He pointed to their recent investigation of the car lobby and its campaign to evade CO2 emissions controls. In 1996, the EU had negotiated a voluntary agreement with the European car manufacturers for a reduction of CO2 emissions from passenger cars. They aimed to reduce average emissions from 186 g/km to 140 g/km by 2008. These reductions were to be achieved through technological development. By 2006 it had become apparent, however, that the manufacturers were not keeping up their end of the bargain, with few manufacturers set to reach agreed interim targets. the German manufacturers were the worst offenders.

In response EU Commissioners proposed a binding target of 120 g/km. The German auto industry responded immediately, publicly declaring that they would have to shut many factories in Germany, affecting roughly 65,000 workers. They also claimed that the EU target was for a simple emissions limit of 120g/km per car, which is untrue: the target is for average emissions over the different models in a manufacturers range. This falsehood was however picked up by the German press and relayed as truth.

Meanwhile the European Car Manufacturers Association (ACEA) apologised and released a position paper blaming their failure to live up to their commitment on external factors, highlighting part of their 1998 agreement with the Commission which said that ‘external factors beyond ACEA’s control may influence the outcome’. ACEA went on to blame poor recycling regulation, ‘weak demand for energy efficiency’ and other things. The car companies proposed an integrated approach in which the ‘combined efforts of many parties and demand-related measures are essential instead’ – this problem would be re-cast as a vague social responsibility, rather than a demand of the car industry itself.

The German manufacturers played up the supposed threat to their factories in Germany and recruited many German politicians to their cause, including Chancellor, Angela Merkel to lobby for a relaxation of the proposals. Meanwhile a small army of lobbyists in Brussels went to work. The Commission has now decided to water down its proposals, pressing for a 130g/km target instead.

CEO has researched and documented hundreds of such cases, revealing the real decision-making processes in Brussels. For us here in the UK, their work deserves far more attention. The issues they research continue to become yet more urgent, as the EU extends its influence over the lives of ordinary Europeans, whilst the corporations continue to extend their influence over the EU process. CEO continues to campaign for proper transparency in European lobbying. Unlike the US and many other countries, there is no register of Brussels lobbyists, or of their activities.

CEO recently claimed a major victory. The special adviser to EU Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs, was at the same time running a lobbying company representing major energy companies – in particular nuclear power companies. CEO wrote open letters to Linkohr, Piebalgs and the Commission Vice-President, Siim Kallas, pointing out the clear conflict of interests. The lobbyist in question, Rolf Linkohr, was subsequently sacked as the Commissioner’s special adviser; a move which may signal a new commitment to transparency in the Commission.

Paying to be Propagandised

Alex Doherty — Thu, 05 Oct 2006 23:27:14 +0000

BNFL, the controversial nuclear company, is at the heart of the multi-million pound PR and lobbying campaign for new nuclear power stations in the UK. Yet the publicly-owned company refuses to divulge important details of how it seeks to manipulate public opinion and governmental support.

Central to the campaign has been the Nuclear Industry Association, the trade asociation for the UK’s nuclear industry representing 123 companies.[1] With the British Nuclear Energy Society, and other partners in the public relations business, it has conducted a behind the scenes campaign cultivating sympathetic journalists (press, television and radio) and politicians. As with most modern public relations campaigns, the aim is to build a coalition of interested organisations largely out of the public eye in order to stay ‘under the radar’ of anti-nuclear forces. Influence has been built informally through: careful intelligence gathering, favoured access to off-the-record briefings, long lunches, drinks and dinners.

The NIA’s accounts show that it has a turnover (from members subscriptions and donations) of slightly over £1m per year, more than half (over £600,000) is supplied by BNFL: £200k in the form of its own subscription; over £200k on ad hoc grants for NIA activities; and another £200k which it generously supplies on behalf of Foratom, a nuclear industry group representing many highly profitable European nuclear companies such as EdF, E.ON, and RWE.[2/3] BNFL’s Group Corporate Affairs Director (Head of PR), Philip Dewhurst is also the Chairman of the NIA.

BNFL also bankrolls Supporters of Nuclear Energy (SONE) a pro-nuclear campaign fronted by the rabidly anti-environmental Sir Bernard Ingham who also campaigns against wind power.[4] In 2004/5 BNFL channeled at least £21k through the NIA to SONE. BNFL documents released under Freedom of Information (FoI) rules show that Ingham was asked by the NIA to lobby Digby Jones, head of the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), in April 2005. Jones ‘put forward a number of ideas as to how to put the pressure on the government to take decisive steps, [including] a direct approach by himself to the Prime Minister’ as well as enlisting the support of the Energy Intensive Users Group, a single issue coalition of big UK industrial groups. It is perhaps no coincidence that coincidence that Blair announced his enthusiasm for nuclear at the CBI’s annual dinner in May 2006. SONE claims to want ‘to promote an informed debate’ about nuclear power. A very different attitude was expressed by one SONE member, Dr David Fishlock, in evidence to the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee investigation of underground nuclear storage in 1999: ‘the public should not be expected to have an opinion. There are many things for which quite legitimately the public looks to government to make up the mind of 56 million people. Nuclear energy is a matter that is largely in government hands and is a matter for government decision’.

Corporate Watch has made extensive inquiries to BNFL under FoI rules, trying to find out how this public relations campaign has been conducted. Whilst we have extracted some illuminating insights from them BNFL has been continually obstructive to the requests, breaching both the spirit and the letter of the Freedom of Information Act, dragging its heels continually over requests, and seeking to give as little information as possible. Whilst we know that BNFL spent around £11m in the five years up to 2005 it refuses to give a break-down for how this is spent, how much it pays Weber Shandwick, and the other PR agencies it employs, and has refused to divulge crucial details of its agencies’ activities. Several documents requested BNFL claimed to have lost and when we phoned on 7th July 2005 to try to find out what was going on with an FoI request filed in early January, the spokeswoman tried to suggest that the tragic bombings in London that day were holding up the process. In an absurd conflict of interests, final control of FoI requests is retained by Philip Dewhurst, BNFL’s head of PR.

We did learn however that Weber Shandwick is employed to monitor relevant Parliamentary processes, for instance the deliberations of the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee, whose Sixth Report (published in March 2006) throughly refutes the arguments for new nuclear power. After taking evidence from over 41 expert witnesses from industry, NGOs, government and science, the cross party committee reached some very clear conclusions: that the ‘history of the nuclear industry gives little confidence about the timescales and costs of new build’; that ‘nuclear can do nothing to fill the need for… new generating capacity… by 2016, as it simply could not be built in time’; that ‘uranium mines can only supply just over half the current demand for uranium, and the situation is likely to become more acute’; whilst ‘nuclear power can justifiably be regarded as a low-carbon source of electricity… the level of emissions associated with nuclear might increase significantly as lower grades of ore are used’; and that ‘no country in the world has yet solved the problems of long-term disposal of high-level waste. The current work being conducted by CoRWM (the Committee on Radioactive Waste Management) will not be sufficient to address the issue.’ Unsurprisingly its conclusions received very little coverage in the national press. Meanwhile the British public continues to pay to be covertly propagandised with the message that nuclear will keep the lights on and save us from global warming.

References:

[1] www.niauk.org

[2] FAME database

[3] from BNFL documents obtained by Freedom of Information requests

[4] former press secretary to Margaret Thatcher, lobbyist for BNFL, director of PR multinational Hill & Knowlton, and journalist.

The Next Gulf

Alex Doherty — Thu, 06 Apr 2006 18:31:24 +0000

__The Next Gulf – London, Washington and Oil Conflict in Nigeria,
Andy Rowell, James Marriott and Lorne Stockman__

2006 is the fiftieth anniversary of the discovery by Shell of large oil reserves in the Niger Delta. The day I write this review, news has been announced that Exxon plans to invest over $2 billion in Nigeria to ensure a steady production capacity of 1 million barrels per day. Ten years after the judicial murder of Ken Saro-Wiwa, how much has changed in the world of Nigerian oil?

Only a few weeks ago Shell was instructed by a Nigerian court to pay $1.5 billion to the people of Ijawland in compensation for pollution. Shell, whose profits for 2005 exceeded £13 billion has refused to pay. Now decades of struggle for control of the oil and peaceful protest against the ecological devastation wreaked by the oil industry has given way to armed resistance and kidnappings of oil workers.

Released last year to commemmorate the 10th anniversary of the execution of Ogoni activist and writer Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight others, The Next Gulf by Andy Rowell, James Marriott, and Lorne Stockman investigates the appalling history of the oil industry in Nigeria, particularly documenting the recent history since 1995 after the media’s attention moved on to other things.

1995 was a crisis year for Shell. After the Brent Spar protests, the death of Saro-Wiwa ignited a public relations crisis and a collapse of morale within the company. Shell embarked on an unprecedented public relations campaign to rebrand itself as an open caring and responsive company. Glossy reports, such as Profits and Principles, followed and selected journalists were invited on tours of the region. The previously obscure concept of ‘corporate social responsibility’, became Shell’s mantra. Whilst Shell was forced to pull out of the small Ogoni region, for the rest of the delta little has changed. Shell and the other oil companies continue to pollute the land, water and air, whilst denying all responsibility. In 2005 Shell’s non-executive chairman, Lord Oxburgh, even claimed that the hated gas flares were a positive benefit, ‘the locals appreciate the flares as a heat source to dry their fish.’

The book also traces a detailed history of Nigeria since the British takeover in the 17th Century. It illuminates the long centuries of exploitation, administered by the Royal African Company (founded 1672) and its sucessor, the Royal Niger Company (1886), through slavery and then palm oil and other industrial products, up to the modern era of oil production. It shows how Shell and the Nigerian government have become intertwined and interdependent and how the oil giant has profitted from the brutal military repression of the people of the Delta and from inter-ethnic conflicts in the region. It details also the corruption which is endemic to the oil industry in Nigeria.

In December 2003 a report by Shell’s consultants WAC was leaked. The report, examining the poltical situation in the Niger Delta, concluded that Shell’s own operations there are actually fuelling the inter-ethnic violence and warned that Shell may lose its social license to operate throughout the whole region. Predictably, this part of the report was dismissed by Shell which maintains that it can keep going by changing ‘operating, security and community development practices.’ In 2004 Christian Aid’s report Behind The Mask found that Shell’s CSR programme in Nigeria had utterly failed to deliver real benefit to the Delta’s people.

Appalling though the history of Nigeria is, it is the authors’ examination of the area’s likely future that is most chilling. In recent years, with the security of Middle Eastern oil supplies becoming a source of deep anxiety to American energy interests, the hungry eyes of the White House have turned towards the Gulf of Guinea and identified it as a source of strategic interest. US arms and military advisers are now pouring into Nigeria to protect new investments in Nigerian oil.

The Next Gulf is a highly authoritative work of history and politics but it also contains many poignant and personal reflections. In a number of different ways the authors attempt to show how many facets of British life are intimately connected to the Niger Delta, just how much of our lifestyle is made possible by oil. The book quotes Ogoni leader Ledum Mitee, ‘When I travel outside Nigeria people often ask me how far away Ogoni is. I tell them it’s as far as the nearest Shell service station.’

Atomic Waste

Fri, 03 Jun 2005 12:16:14 +0000

Britain holds hundreds of thousands of cubic metres of lethal radioactive waste. The stockpile of plutonium alone totals 4300 cubic metres. More than once plutonium has been known to go missing from Sellafield. But very rarely is plutonium found again.

So what happens when anomolous levels of plutonium are discovered in a back garden in suburban middle England, apparently having escaped from a site owned by a well-known multinational with documented links to the nuclear industry? Answer: absolutely nothing.

Raymond Fox’s life has been wrecked by chemical and radioactive pollution leaking from a former Shell petrochemicals depot behind his old home in Earley, Reading¹. Since being made critically ill by the pollution, three surveys of the property have been conducted by independent scientists. Two were conducted by Dr Kartar Badsha on behalf of Fox’s insurers, Royal Sun Alliance and one by Dr Chris Busby of the Low-Level Radiation Campaign. All three investigations found raised levels of radioactive contaminants, far in excess of background levels. Although well below national safety limits, both scientists considered them major long term health hazards and recommended a full investigation of the area in order to find the source of the pollution. Fox’s own investigations indicate that nuclear materials were stored on the site, possibly including a small reactor, and that the site caught fire in 1986, distributing radioactive materials across the area.

Fearful of a cover up Fox has imposed a condition on the Environment Agency’s testing of his land: that each sample should be split in two, with one going for independent analysis. The Agency refused this condition and had their consultants Harwell Scientifics, test the garden next door. This test found only normal background levels of radioactivity. On this evidence DEFRA (the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) decided to do nothing.

A Clandestine Meeting

With the backing of Caroline Lucas MEP, Fox had hoped that the European Commission would be able to help him. However the European investigation was moved from the Directorate General for the Environment, to that for Energy, which has quietly dropped his case. They seem to be using it as little more than a bargaining piece to pressure the UK government into implementing parts of the ‘Euratom’ radiation treaty that should have been ratified into British law many years ago.

Whilst Corporate Watch was investigating the case last summer, the Commission and DEFRA were holding a meeting regarding the case. The Commission was not satisfied with DEFRA’s report on the matter due to the discrepancies between the data in the Environment Agency’s survey and those conducted by independent scientists. So the commission sent experts to meet with representatives of DEFRA. The DEFRA team was Chris Wilson, Steve Allen and Fiona Shand. Corporate Watch attempted to interview Wilson and Shand in August of 2004. Both of them refused. Shand claimed then that she knew very little about the case.

Ultimately the August 19th meeting concluded that Fox’s case was ‘unsubstantiated’, and that the ‘results of the different analyses were not completely concordant (e.g. regarding the isotopic ratios of some radionuclides), due to differences between measurement methods.’ After two letters of inquiry as to progress with the case, Commissioner Piebalgs finally informed Caroline Lucas of the meeting and its outcome on 2nd February 2005.

More Unanswered Questions

Corporate Watch approached DEFRA and Piebalg’s office in April 2005 to ask why no one was informed of the meeting for so very long, and why Fox and others were not asked to attend it or given any input to it. DEFRA simply replied that it was because it was a ‘technical’ meeting. The Commission, on the other hand, took over three weeks to answer and told us that Fox, Busby, Badsha and Lucas had not been informed of the meeting because it did not directly concern the Fox’s case. We got back in touch with the Commission to ask how this could be, when Commissioner Piebalgs himself had told Lucas, in his February letter, that the meeting concerned the discrepancies in the survey data from Fox’s garden and apparently provided their reason to drop the case. Although an answer has been promised several times, at the time of writing they have yet to reply. Spokeswoman Marilyn Carruthers refused to comment on the case by telephone.

Dr Chris Busby, one of the two scientists to test Fox’s land, has a different explanation of the data: ‘The differences,’ he says, ‘were due to the fact that the measurements showing the anomolous high plutonium levels and strange isotope ratios were made on Mr Fox’s property and the ones that were made by the Environment Agency were made somewhere else… What would Mr Piebalgs say if the reactor collapsed next week and concentrations of Cobalt-60 or Plutonium-239 in the Thames began suddenly to rise, contaminating millions…?’ he added.

Legal Liabilities

Fox continues his struggle through the courts. His adviser told us that the case should have been referred to the European Court of Justice when Ray first went to court in 1999. Under the Nuclear Installations Act, he said, UK courts have no jurisdiction in dealing with any claim for damage from radioactive contamination causing personal injury and property damage. Under the Brussels Convention (supplementary to the Paris Convention on Third Party Liability in the Field of Nuclear Energy) twelve European governments contribute to a fund to compensate ‘if a nuclear incident were to cause damage totalling more than… approximately £150 million’. Fox argues that damages to himself, his family and property, and to many hundreds or thousands of others in the surrounding area would certainly exceed £150 million and would set a precedent for many more claims. This may explain the European Commission’s reluctance to properly investigate.

¹ see Corporate Watch Newsletters 11, 14, 16 & 20