Silenced witness

This month Jon Hughes wades back into murky world of Monsanto, Brofiscin Quarry and the Environment Agency and into a story that simply refuses to fade away.

In the years 1967-74 Douglas Gowan was the lead investigator into mysterious animal deaths in the vicinity of Brofiscin and Maendy quarries in South Wales. He traced the cause back to the dumping of uncontained PCB wastes by the Monsanto chemical plant in Newport.

In 1972 Gowan’s assiduous work led Monsanto and its waste contractors Purle to accept the environmental implications of its actions and, in the presence of Gowan and government representatives, the drawing up of a legal agreement to remediate. The 1972 agreement was signed – but never implemented. In 2003 the quarry at Brofiscin erupted, disgorging an acrid pall over the area, and discoloured water into the environment for weeks.

Faced with widespread public anxiety the Environment Agency (Wales) appealed for people with knowledge of the quarry to come forward. On being alerted to this in early 2006, Gowan contacted the Agency, armed with contemporaneous reports, expert analysis and evidentiary proofs secured at the time; a sworn affidavit from 1972 as to what he witnessed at...

To view the rest of this article - you must be a paying subscriber and Login