CANK received this moving letter from a campaigning resident who lived close to the Killamarsh waste incinerator which was recently shut down.

His story may relate to a waste incinerator but there are clear parallels here, especially when read in conjunction with the experiences of the people of Clitheroe.

Subsequently reported in The Chester Chronicle, 31 March 2000
 

2A Berklane Drive
Killamarsh
Nr Sheffield
Derbyshire

10.2.00

Dear Sir,
I write this letter to the people of Mold, in the light of the decision to install the 48 million pound kiln with the 360 foot high chimney and that it burn alternative fuels, tyres, plastics and waste solvents.  I come from a village in North East Derbyshire called Killamarsh.  We have had to live with a toxic waste incinerator on the edge of our village for the last 25 years.

The story I come to tell you is one of having to live day after day with toxic fumes, putrid smells, toxic chemicals rising from the sewers, as they discharge with the consent of Yorkshire Water.  No sitting in the garden.  No barbecues.  No windows left open at night.  I can tell you of our school children, where we have 46% asthma in the schools close by the plant.  Tell you of the villagers who claim cancer clusters are starting to appear.  The final straw came in May 1998 when in the space of two weeks our village suffered two huge nitric acid leaks from this plant known as SARP UK, the result being that the village was sealed off by helicopters and police road blocks.

The village mounted a community campaign.  What we found will not make easy reading for the people of Mold.  We thought the Environment Agency was there to protect us.  In reality the truth was very different.  We checked public records to find that this company who were self monitoring only had to report incidents every quarter.  We found that in one year, 1996, they had exceeded the emissions limits by 8,000% and 5,500% more than they should have.  We checked these unlawful emissions against the Environment Agency’s own ‘complaints register’ from local residents who had alerted them.  In response, the Environment Agency’s response ‘was unable to find anything wrong, everything working well, will revisit if further complaints’. This did not happen once but time after time.

Our campaign which involved 24 hour pickets, had the Environment Agency out day and night, night and day.  The days of tea and biscuits in the managers office were over.

We finally closed out toxic waste incinerator on November 8th 1999.  It had taken us the best part of two years.  Originally there had been seven processes at this site, now only one remains, the secondary liquid fuel blending that will go to cement works like yours at Mold.  We still fight on to close this last process.  We know where it goes.  We know what it does.  We have recently forced the Environment Agency and the Company to install a warning siren/klaxon, to warn us of any unauthorised leak or explosion that is imminent.  The danger is still there.

I finish by saying, let the people who made this decision think on my words.  Regarding jobs lost, we had that decision to consider.  This is an old pit village, we knew all about closure of the pits, high losses of jobs.  We decided that ‘every job has a price’, the price of the health of our children and community was greater.

Yours faithfully,
JOHN MORAN
(PRESS OFFICER)
R.A.S.P. Residents Against SARP Pollution.
KILLAMARSH