International Worker No 239, Saturday, September 13, 1997 BSE and the risk to the environment On the following pages we conclude our coverage of the Workers Inquiry into the BSE crisis held on May 17 in Sheffield. The inquiry -- which brought together relatives of victims of CJD, scientists and other specialists as well as campaigners against government incineration, students, workers and others -- was the outcome of a six month campaign conducted by the Socialist Equality Party and on July 5 the findings of the commissioners were presented to a public meeting. Here we publish the edited submission by Paul Mitchell, a water technician The primary health concern has been the risk from eating beef, but what about the wider threats, both to the environment; and from a polluted environment? Information known on the resistant nature of the BSE infective agent, indicated that whatever methods were proposed to dispose of it, an environmental risk was a strong possibility. On March 20, 1996 Stephen Dorrell, then Minister of Health, admitted a possible link between BSE and CJD. Within days, stories appeared in the press about blood soaked fields and abattoir waste spilt on roads and running into ditches. Three months later the Ministry of Agriculture Fisheries and Food (MAFF) sent out a news release with the headline "Ministers accept advice that BSE does not pose a risk to the environment". The advice came from the Spongiform Encephalopathy Advisory Committee (SEAC) and said the following could continue: 1. Meat and edible offals from cattle less than 30 months could be used for human and animal food. 2. Blood and gut contents poured onto land. 3. Cleaning water emptied into sewers. 4. Resulting sewage sludge poured onto land. 5. By- products (non- Specified Bovine Material offal and Specified Bovine Material -- the brains, spleen and spinal cord deemed by the government to be the main source of BSE infection) sent to landfill or incineration. The government, water companies and regulators all stressed there was no risk because "multiple barriers" prevent infectious agents getting into the water supply i.e. all the stages and processes used in water and sewage treatment. Abattoir cleaning water SEAC saw no reason to stop cleaning water going down the drains as long as particulate matter was trapped and treated like bovine material. Geoff Stanfield, a technical specialist on microbiology at the Water Research Centre gave as the reason behind SEAC's recommendations: "Animals over 30 months old would not go to the rendering plant. He said that the call for filters 10 times stronger than normal refers to the fact that 'one gramme of brain tissue equals the infective dose from one cow to another. Therefore the regulations say filter out to 0.1 gramme'. He said that as there appears not to be a blood stage of the disease, these should ensure the safety of land surrounding plants." (Geoff Stanfield, Water Research Centre Global Water Report, June 19, 1996) When I phoned up Mr Stanfield he said: 1. He doesn't remember the article and that it would have been wrong to say animals over 30 months old would not go to the rendering plants. 2. He gave a report to the water companies last December which does not appear to have been published yet. 3. In it he recommended that sludge containing abattoir waste should not be spread on land or if it is, it should be injected. 4. Because of the ban on the dumping of sludge to sea in 1988, "the last thing we wanted was to lose the confidence of farmers having sludge on their land". 5. The one gramme infective dose is probably wrong. It's more likely one thousandth less i.e. one milligramme. 6. To clean the "traps" the abattoirs would probably use a high pressure hose. Sewage sludge On the question of sewage sludge, the water companies said spreading it on land was covered by stringent British and European legislation. SEAC's main concern was what would be done with the majority of the UK's sludge if land spreading was banned. However, the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution published a statement on the May 7, 1996 saying that it: 1. "Has long been concerned at the potential hazards from pathogens in wastes". 2. "that the potential hazards... have received too little attention". 3. "Raised in its report on Agriculture and Pollution in 1979, of the possibility that using poultry faeces as a source of protein might transmit disease to ruminants and thence through the food chain to humans". 4. "Its recent report on Sustainable Use of Soil discusses in particular the parasite Cryptosporidium, sewage sludge, and other types of waste which can be spread on land without a waste management licence". 5. "All sewage sludge applied to agricultural land should be treated". 6. "The present legislation governing the spreading of wastes on land (should be reviewed)". 7. "Drew attention to the shortage of appropriate disposal facilities for animal carcasses and offal and that Agricultural Departments (ensure) that suitable incineration facilities would be available... rejected by the government on the ground that "there already exists a range of options for the disposal of fallen stock generally". (Potential Hazards from Pathogens in Waste, Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution, 7/5/96) Water safety -- The case of Cryptosporidium The Royal Commission statement refers to Cryptosporidium. Like many other organisms and chemicals, Cryptosporidium has got into the water supply and caused a risk to public health. It has been in the news again recently with the outbreaks in West London. Why didn't the use of "multiple barriers" prevent this infectious agent -- a very small and resistant parasite causing acute diarrhoea -- getting into the water supply? There have been many water related outbreaks in Britain and throughout the world, the largest in Milwaukee, in the US in 1995 made 400,000 people ill. In the West London outbreak, 300,000 households were at risk and 250 people became ill. The supply came from a deep borehole. A spokesman said the "conventional wisdom is that deep boreholes are not vulnerable to contamination". Just in case you think this is a one- off here are some more facts about the water companies: 1. Water company prosecutions went up by 56% between 1988 and 1994. 2. Severn Trent -- 41 convictions and fines of [[sterling]]125,800 in the same period. 3. Nearly 10,000 sewage related incidents in 1994. Landfills SEAC said landfills were still an acceptable way to get rid of most abattoir by- products, but they have a history of leaking into the groundwater around them. Earlier this year Bob Harris, a manager at the Environment Agency said they knew about some areas of polluted groundwater but, "It is the tip of the iceberg. There are a lot more out there. We don't monitor groundwater very well, there is no statutory duty to report and we don't know what's under the big industrial sites in the country" Water Bulletin, April 4, 1997). The implications for the spread of the BSE infective agent has been highlighted by Douglas Hogg's admission in March 1997 that over 6,000 carcasses have been buried in landfills. Research in the United States shows BSE infective material can survive in the ground for years, so dumping infected cows in tips could pollute rivers or wells for an unknown period. Another question is what has happened to all the missing cattle? The people who kill sick animals on farms, the knackermen, reported a 45% drop in the number of cows being slaughtered by them. Some of their comments were reported in the newspapers: 1. "I presume they're going for on- farm burial. Because cows don't just stop dying". David Lovatt, Brassington & Co (knackermen) 2. "We could find no trace of them. They simply have to be going into the ground". Chris Ashworth, Licensed Animal Slaughters and Salvage Association 3. "We've got an absolutely mega-problem. Farmers are stuffing animals down holes in the ground and putting them into rivers". Anonymous National Farmers Union official, (Mail On Sunday, May 12, 1996) Role of the Environment Agency What is the record of the environmental agencies? At the launch of the Environment Agency (EA) in 1996, Environment Business magazine reported, "Chief Executive, Ed Gallaher said the National Rivers Authority might have been excluded from policy formulation because it was "a little too independent" perhaps implying the price of influence... was a less independent relationship with government". Recently the same Mr Gallaher was reported in The Guardian saying environmental groups could be bought off if a few thousand pounds were spent on nature reserves. Back in 1994, the CBI welcomed the proposed formation of the EA, seeing it as a deregulatory move. It wholeheartedly supported the introduction of cost- benefit, one of the most controversial duties on the new organisation. Why controversial? Because an important question concerning business is what is the cost of the environment or human beings? And will these costs threaten British competitiveness? Cost- benefit was thoroughly discredited over 20 years ago after the Roskill Commission tried to use it to determine the site of London's third airport. Its conclusion was that a human life was worth [[sterling]]9,300. Despite this, it has now become a growth industry and a central plank in policy- making. The Department of Employment, for example recently introduced a similar idea, called Compliance Cost Assessment (or CCA) to work out the cost of any proposed environmental legislation. Quite soon after its introduction, the DoE admitted that "costs to business tend to become the chief driver of any debate on environmental proposals". Short-term costs also take precedence over long-term ones and the DoE rely on those who are going to be effected by any proposed legislation to provide the costing figures. EA and Canterbury Mills The EA and its predecessors have been dogged by charges of incompetence. The close relationship between the EA and business interests became obvious during the Planning Inquiry for Canterbury Mills rendering plant. This was the first time that the environmental aspects of BSE were subject to such close scrutiny. Canterbury Mills was fined twice in 1993 and 1995 for illegally discharging waste, but was nominated as a cattle waste disposal facility by the government in 1996. At the 1997 Planning Inquiry, however, the EA stressed that you have to assume that everyone would follow the regulations, despite Canterbury Mills history of breaking them. Canterbury Mills was about to start processing the most infective BSE material but things hadn't changed much when the Daily Telegraph reporter paid a visit and reported: 1. "Rotting offal and carcasses left in the open". 2. "What appeared to be dried blood covered the driveway, to which the public had access. 3. "One worker could be seen operating an earth mover near piles of decaying offal on which lay a carcass" (Daily Telegraph, June 10, 1996). 4. In conclusion, therefore, despite the rules and regulations, the possibility exists that the BSE infective agent has been and will continue to be recycled through the environment.

Top of page Front Page

(c) SEP, PO Box 71, Rotherham, England, S60 1SU Tel: 44 (0) 114 2438 117 Fax: 44 (0) 114 2618 424 Email: sep@dial.pipex.com