News Flash Page
The Guardian Children at risk from poisoned ash on paths David Hencke, Westminster correspondent Monday May 8, 2000 Hundreds of toddlers have been banned from playing in allotments in Newcastle because poisoned ash has been spread on footpaths from an incinerator which the government has earmarked to double in capacity. Public health officials have had to issue a ban on children under two playing in 27 allotments in the constituency of the agriculture secretary, Nick Brown, and have warned people not to eat eggs or poultry from there. All produce grown on the allotments will have to be washed and root vegetables peeled because they could be contaminated with dioxins, lead, zinc and copper. Newcastle council has also ordered the removal of 2,000 tonnes of the ash spread on 14 footpaths, bridlepaths and parks in the Byker area of the city. Workers have had to be issued with protective clothing, and told not to smoke or eat anything while they clear up the ash. They have also been warned to wash their hands before and after handling it. Tricia Cresswell, director of public health at the Newcastle and North Tyneside health authority, has also taken advice from the new food standards agency over the contamination of food grown there. The discovery that the ash was contaminated came six years after it was first spread on public paths, when the Byker residents sent soil samples to Newcastle council's public health department. The results showed very high levels of toxic heavy metals - including mercury at 2,406% above accepted levels, cadmium at 785% above normal levels and lead at 136% above normal. No previous tests appeared to have been made on the ash despite the environment agency having a duty to protect the public. The disclosure led Newcastle council to send 23 samples to Newcastle University for further tests. The samples were then sent to a specialist laboratory in Hamburg. After receiving initial findings the public health authorities immediately issued the health warning. Dr Cresswell said yesterday: "I decided to take precautionary action after receiving the raw data of the results. The full results will be published and I have commissioned further reports on dioxin in eggs and contamination in the allotment soils. This will be also be carried out by Newcastle University using a laboratory in Hamburg." Residents in Byker have launched a pressure group, the Campaign Against the Incineration of Refuse, to fight plans to double the capacity of the incinerator and to get the area cleaned up. They commissioned Alan Watson, an environmental consultant, to investigate the health hazards of the new expanded incinerator. His findings - disputed by Newcastle council - say that the expanded incinerator could lead to 800 deaths and 1,600 hospital cases over the next 20 years because of the exposure to chemicals through emissions and dioxins getting into the food chain. The present incinerator is run by Contract Heat and Power in partnership with the council. Between 1993 and last year it turned 50,000 tonnes of municipal waste a year into fuel pellets, which generated large quantities of ash that were then sent, until last year, to municipal sites including allotments and parks. Under the proposed £100m expansion the incinerator will burn some 80,000 tonnes of muncipal waste and 13,000 tonnes of tyres. Dr Watson said: "Municipal waste incinerators are a particularly effective way of generating very large quantities of a huge number of compounds and dispersing them into the air and food chain." Newcastle council said yesterday that it had decided to commission with the health authority a full-scale environmental and health study into the effect of the new incinerator before taking any decision to proceed with the scheme. Val Barton, the co-ordinator of the campaign, said: "We are determined that it should not go ahead." <!-- HTML Markup endspan --> </td> </tr> </table> <a name=bottom></a> </body> </html>