Orders of the Day — Fluorine Pollution

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 18 January 1979.

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Photo of Mr Kenneth Marks Mr Kenneth Marks , Manchester, Gorton 12:00, 18 January 1979

I shall ask my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services to take note of what my hon. Friend the Member for Dundee, West (Mr. Doig) has said.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley (Mr. Hardy)for raising this matter on the Adjournment because it provides a valuable opportunity for me to deal, so far as I can, with the specific problem of my hon. Friend's constituent, Mr. Ellis, as well as to answer other questions which this subject may raise generally in the minds of hon. Members.

The subject spans several Departments' interests and I have been in close touch this week with the Ministry of Agriculture,Fisheries and Food and the Department of Health and Social Security, as well as with the Yorkshire water authority and other local bodies. I endorse what my hon. Friend said about Rotherham metropolitan district and its environmental health officers because of the work that they had done.

I have read both articles in The Guardian on the case to which my hon. Friend referred, as well as the Bedford-shire case, and I propose to have further meetings with the various Departments and to include the Alkali Inspectorate in future meetings.

The Yorkshire water authority has invited Mr. Ellis to approach it with a representative of the National Farmers' Union to discuss ways of assisting him with his problem. I understand that the authority enjoys good relations with Mr. Ellis and that it took the initiative before this debate was requested. My hon. Friend will, however, be aware that there has been some speculation and, as I have realised this week, some controversy, about the source of the fluoride contamination which caused the illness in these animals, although I know my hon. Friend has his own opinions about the cause. Results of investigations are still inconclusive and incomplete. I believe that my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food has explained that point, and I know my hon. Friend will appreciate that, with the sensitive question of compensation in mind, the Ministry has been concerned to avoid premature comment and conjecture.

I am sure my hon. Friend will appreciate that I cannot comment to night on the question of compensation. Never the less, I know that the water authority is sympathetic to Mr. Ellis's problem of financial loss and appreciates that he does not want to await the results of the various investigations being carried out and it has, without prejudice to the out-come of the investigations, offered to help where it can.

However, I am sure the water authority would like to stress that, whatever the cause, the situation that has arisen is extremely rare and that the combination of circumstances involved is quite unusual. As my hon. Friend said, the contamination caused by atmospheric pollution is one possibility and has been a certain factor in the past. The spreading of digested sludge on the land is another. We have to ask our selves whether there has been a combination of these factors.

In the past, fluorosis in cattle was generally associated with certain industrial areas producing high emissions of fluorides into the atmosphere. Rotherham was one such area, with a history of fluorosis going back to the 1940s. In fact Rotherham is, I believe, one of the few areas, if not the only one, manufacturing fluorine compounds as the main product, as distinct from those produced as by-products of other processes. Tighter emission standards required by the Alkali Inspectorate have, in the past decade or so, brought about considerable improvement in airborne pollution although evidence exists to show that intermittent atmospheric contamination has affected some farms in the area up to 1975.

The case is the first brought to my attention where it has been suggested that contamination stems from a high concentration of fluorides in sewage sludge. The argument, of course, is that the reduction of fluorides in the atmosphere has transferred the problem from atmospheric pollution to the liquid trade effluent received at Aldwarke sewage works and applied to Mr. Ellis's land. However, from investigations conducted so far, a number of factors cannot be reconciled to show that the sewage sludge is necessarily the cause of the contamination which started in 1976. One factor concerns the timing of the application of sludge to the land in relation to the normal course and manifestation of the disease. Sludge was first applied in May1976 and in the same year well established clinical symptoms are known to have appeared. I am advised by the Ministry of Agriculture's veterinary service that the symptoms take at least a year to manifest themselves, which means that if sludge was the cause it would have to have been spread in 1975or earlier. My hon. Friend has pointed out that 1975 and 1976 were drought years and that that may have had an effect. I shall follow up that idea.

Other factors concern the fluctuations of fluorine in the soil. Though tests have shown that some levels have been un-deniably high—the implications of different patterns of farming in the area—Iunderstand that Mr. Ellis's cattle are in pasture all year round, whereas other cattle are taken in for winter feeding. There is a lack of similar evidence from any of the other 35 farms in the area which have received Aldwarke sludge,18 of which have cattle.

Take-up of fluorine by vegetation and herbage is minimal as only the soluble fluorine is available, but it is arguable whether the insoluble portion remaining in the soil could be ingested continually by cattle. All these aspects need further investigation and I hope that my hon. Friend will accept that position.

But I should like to make a number of points generally by way of assurance for the future. First, my Department's guidelines on sludge disposal do not refer to a limit or analysis for fluorine be-cause it has not been regarded as a problem in the past. However, I am considering suitable modifications to the guide-lines for the future for all water authorities, although I see no reason to depart from the views expressed in 1970 by the working party on sewage disposal which advocated the application of sewage sludge to land as good agricultural practice. My hon. Friend has confirmed that view. The South Yorkshire code has already been adopted for analysis of fluorine. I shall draw the attention of the DHSS and the Minister of Agriculture to what my hon. Friend said about the need for analysis of certain cases.

Secondly, although the water authority's current agreement with industrialists for the reception and treatment of trade waste containing fluoride cannot be altered until1980, it is the authority's intention to reduce the fluoride content in the waste as soon as it can legally do so.

Thirdly, disposal on pasture land was discontinued as soon as the fluorosis was confirmed. The water authority does not propose to resume this practice until the levels of fluoride in the industrial effluent have been reduced. Disposal on arable land was discontinued because of weather conditions and, when resumed, will continue to be applied strictly within accept-able limits.

My hon. Friend also expressed concern about the wider aspects of human health. These matters are more for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services. I refer him to a written reply on 11th April last year when it was said that no human hazard had been shown by inhalation of fluoride. I also refer him to the Adjournment debate on 10thNovember 1978.

Other reports and investigations have shown that man's fluoride intake from vegetables in contaminated areas is insignificant that the fluoride content of milk from cows suffering from fluorosis is negligible and that there is no specific accumulation of fluoride in the meat. and prolonged boiling of bones from cattle bred in contaminataed areas has shown that there is no hazard to man in the making of soups and stews. The negligible intake of fluorides from the meat or milk of affected cattle would not affect the safety of the consumption by humans of fluoridated water containing one part per million of fluoride—a concentration which takes account of dietary intake.

I am aware of the emissions from the London Brick Company's works in Bedfordshire and the case of Peter Goode to which my hon. Friend referred. The company has been farming dairy herds local to the Stewart by works in Bedford-shire for many years, and appears to have demonstrated that good husbandry methods make it possible for farming to be successfully carried out in the area despite the presence of fluorides. How-ever, this matter is currently under discussion with the Ministry of Agriculture central veterinary laboratory at Weybridge, and a further investigation is being considered.

I am assured that the Alkali Inspector-ate is concerned about the problems associated with these brickworks. I understand that a liaison committee, including the relevant local authorities, was established in 1974. The inspectorate considers that continued external monitoring might pro-vide additional information and is accordingly co-operating fully with the company, the local authorities and other organisations.

The case of the Invergordon smelting plant is not directly comparable with this case. Invergordon involved planning per-mission with a condition relating to monitoring procedures. Although the power under English law to impose planning conditions is wide, case law has limited the discretion of planning authorities and it is accepted that conditions must serve a genuine planning purpose. Monitoring might be included as a planning condition but anything wider than that would not be acceptable under planning law.

Finally, I return to the subject of compensation. We are, of course, always ready to consider measures to deal with hardships, where no other remedy is avail-able. But a formalised compensation system is not the answer. Where responsibility for damage can be allocated with-out difficulty, the court or other tribunal will be able to assess the compensation under the law as it stands—usually on the basis of restoring the injured party to the position that he was in before the damage. But where, as in this case, responsibility cannot easily be ascertained, and there may be no breach of a statutory function, formal rules clearly have no part to play. But the water authority is meeting my hon. Friend's constituent informally on that matter.