Poison in the wind

A 40 foot high, 147 acre plateau of mining waste is lying in a valley near Nenagh, Co Tipperary. When the wind rises, clouds of poisonous dust blow from the plateau onto neighbouring land causing human ilness and the death of animals. The problem is getting worse.

On Sunday February 10 this year, the tailings pond started to blow again., Thick lead-filled dust blew like a black fog for six miles into the countryside near Nenagh, County Tipperaary. Geraldine Hogan and her family were living a few hundred years from it.

By Tuesday, Geraldine, who was seven months pregnant, was spitting up blood. Her doctor came out to see her. The house was a health hazard, said Dr Maureen Carmody. By Thursday Geraldine was in Nenagh Hospital. On Friday her husband John evacuated the rest of the family - Niamh (2), and Edel (5). Soon afterwards, Johns mother moved out of her house which was next door to them.

For over a week, the thick black dust came down heavily on the area of Castlecranna, and on the Hogans' land. It was a very fine dust and it went everywhere, "like a breeze", into clothes, skin, hair. Several farmers used masks while going out in it. Many contemplated leaving the area if it continued much longer. People suffered from streaming eyes, blistered lips and chest complaints. Animals suffered. Several died in the months afterwards.

The source of the dust was a tailings pond in the valley where these people lived. Not really a pond at all, but a man-made dam of drying liquid sludge of tailings (waste matter from lead and zinc mining) pumped from the lead and zinc mine in the Silvermines two miles away. The pond is owned by Mogul of Ireland Ltd, a subsidiary of a Canadian based mining multinational. The pond was begun in 1967 when production began in the mine. For fourteen years it gradually grew, first from a height of about ten feet and a size of ninety acres, to what it is now: nine million tons of sludge in a forty foot high mountain that covers 147 acres of farming land in a fertile dairying area outside Nenagh, County Tipperary.

The mine closed down in 1982. The sludge being pumped into the pond through an eight-inch steel pipe stopped flowwing. The liquid that was keeping the pond wet, making it look like an artificial lake, stopped. The surface of the pond started to dry up. It developed a flat hard crust, while under it the sludge remained like putty down to the bottom.

Patsy Gleeson, whose farm and home bordered the pond on the opposite side to Hogans, watched it dry. With the mine closed, there were few of the Mogul staff around, save a handful at the plant. One day in May 1983, Patsy saw the then manager, Mr Hitchman, at the pond and went over to him. They stood on top of it at the edge watching it dry in the sunshine.

Patsy asked him would it blow. Hitchman said no, there was no danger. The substance on the pond was too heavy, he said. ""If it does," said Patsy, "where will you be?". "We'll always be represented here," said Hitchman.

That summer of 1983 was long and dry. The following summer was equally so.

Patsy Gleeson says he will not forget April 15 1984 for a long time. That was the day that black dust first started to blow off the edge of the tailings pond onto his meadows and cattle. For fourteen years he had watched the pond growing. He knew that one day he would have a big probblem.

Patsy watched as the wind gathered the fine dust up and blew it up into the air and across the fields, sometimes as far as five miles away. Some days the dust was not visible at all, but when he looked up at the clear blue sky in the direction of the pond, he felt grit hitting his face. Some days it was coming at him in waves. He wore a mask when he was out in it.

"The dust was unbelievable. It was wicked. I took to wearing a mask to avoid it. You couldn't stand in front of it. You had to duck down when you saw it coming."

Patsy's cattle did not thrive. He had to move them to fields out of the path of the dust. Their eyes streamed.

Patsy's house was not in the direct path of the dust blow but PJ. Leamy's was. Mrs Leamy remembers that it got into the house, into everything, the clothes, the delph. P.J. would come in from the fields, she said, with his eyes streaming, his face as black as a miner's, with the whites of his eyes staring out. His chest started to hurt, he got a bad cough, his lips blistered.

Mary Ryan moved her cattle out of the fields. Their backs were covered in black dust. There was a strong smell a bit like sulphur around all the time.

Gleeson and others contacted Mogul. They made a note of it, but nothing was done to stop the dust. "There was no positive action," said Patsy Gleeson. "They never did anyything."

In June, Patsy and his neighbours decided to call a public meeting in the area to see what they could do about the problem. On June 19 they set up the Silvermines Pollution Action Group, which was made up of families living all around the pond. Patsy Gleeson became the chairman.

The group decided to .get samples of the dust tested to see what was going into their lungs. The Institute for Indusstrial Research and Standards did the tests, and wrote to retired civil engineer, Jim Gill, a member of the group, early in July with the results. They found a "significant" amount of lead in the dust on the surface of the pond. On the basis of the figures given, Jim Gill worked out that there were 35,000 tons of lead alone in the tailings pond.

Mogul's solicitor, Patrick F. Treacy, state solicitor for the area and a member of the company's board of directors, wrote on behalf of the company saying that "my clients are quite satisfied that none of the members of your group could have been badly affected by the dust to which you refer, but, despite this, immediate steps are being taken to investigate the complaint." That was July 4 1984.

The group started writing letters and getting in touch with local public representatives and the County Council. The dust blew all SUmmer, up to October when the rain came.

The County Council told them that they had made reppresentations to the company on behalf of the group, but that they did not consider it appropriate to attend their meeting.

The group considered taking legal action to get someething done. They wrote to the County Secretary, Tom Griffin, asking him if planning permission had been sought and granted for the disposal of mining waste, as required by the 1963 Planning Act.

A month later they got a reply stating that planning perrmission had never been sought or granted for the tailings pond. The County Secretary pointed out however, that the planning authority was precluded from taking any action about this, as the pond was in existence for more than the statutory five years within which time action can be taken, under the 1963 Planning Act. The pond had been in exisstence since 1968, and this was 1984.

Tipperary (North Riding) County Manager John McGinnley also told Magill that the County Council did not find out about the pond until after the five-year period. Howwever, the Council had a responsibility for annual mainteenance of a drain that had become covered over by the taillings pond as early as 1968. In 1981, they verified to Jim Gill that they had been properly maintaining the drain. "The drains and the river which form the Kilmastulla Drainnage District have been properly maintained by the Council to the satisfaction of the Commissioners of Public Works." They therefore must have known of the existence of the tailings pond soon after it began.

Jim Gill pointed out to the Council that there was no planning permission in the planning files for the pond, whereupon the Council wrote to the company telling them to apply for permission to retain the use of the pond.

Mogul in reply put a public notice in the local newspaper, the Nenagh Guardian, the following week seeking retention of use. But the application for retention was never received from the company, and the County Council did not pursue the matter. For a second time, the County Council had negglected its statutory duties regarding planning permission.

In July Dan Ryan brought his cattle down to graze in the meadow beside the pond, but their eyes started to water and they started coughing. He moved them away to other fields out of the path of the dust and the problem cleared up.

Local farmers came to cut their hay a few weeks later.

Dinny Quinn says that the dust was up to his knees as he turned the hay. P.J. Leamy came home with a black face, eyes streaming and blistered lips. Patsy Gleeson said that when they saw the dust coming, they had to turn away beecause of the amount of grit that was coming at them.

At the end of the summer, the weather changed, the dust settled down and little happened. Mogul had done nothing to the pond meanwhile to stop the dust blowing. The County Council decided to commission a report by consultants on the pond. This was finished in September.

The report, by a group of consultants, looked in detail at the tailings pond, and looked at possible solutions such as removal of the pond, its re-use, re-grading it, and putting vegetation on it. A short term solution to the dust problem was to spray it with a dust suppressant, said the report.

It was a dry winter, and in the spring, the wind changed to an easterly one. It was now blowing in the opposite direcction to the prevailing north-westerly one of last summer. The weather was very dry for February, people remarked.

The dust that blew in February of this year was much heavier and thicker than the previous year's blow. It came from the other end of the pond, and the easterly wind blew it in the opposite direction. It blew steadily for a week and sporadically for days afterwards. This time, it was the Hogans and the people of the Castlecranna area who sufffered the brunt of the dust blow.

John Hogan's mother lives across from them and was also in the direct path of the dust storm. "I had clothes on the line outside and they were black and heavy," she said. "It was like a fa g to see it from the main road. I left the house before it stopped. I came back twice but I was very depressed just looking at the outside of the house. The dust was acrid," she said. "It would cut the throat out of you."

Hogan's neighbours were equally affected. Carmel Scanlon, who lives in Castlecranna, said she saw it for the first time on Monday morning. "We didn't notice what it was. At first we didn't pay any heed to it.

"The eyes were cut out of our heads with it," she said.

"In the end we had to wear masks when we were going out." Officials from the Mid-Western Health Board came out during the week and advised them not to go out in it. Carmel laughs at this. Farming people have to go out, she said. Her youngest child was four and a half at the time. Her older children were at school and were out of the path of the dust.

Carmel tells of a heavy curtain that she had against the door. The dust piled up against it, and came in through closed windows. Four of her calves came down with lead poisoning. They later recovered.

"I'd move the kids out if it happened again," she said.

"That's what I should have done at the time. We tried all day to get through to the mines, but the number was enngaged."

Mrs Catherine Minogue's farm was in the direct path of the February dust blow. "We were nearly smothered in it. I had sore eyes. There was water running from them and they were red. My lips were all blistered and I was coughing. On Monday morning everything was covered in it. You could see nothing only dust. It would blow down from the pond, and then rise up again, sometimes hundreds of feet in to the air."

Mrs Minogue says that her cattle got sick. The dust got into the hay in the haybarn. Since February two of her cows and one heifer have died of lead poisoning. They were healthy before, she says. All of them had high lead levels in the blood.

The dust went all over the grass, and down into the soil. ACOT came out to her farm and told her not to graze the cattle, but a man from Mogul who came said they would be healthier outside.

The vegetables that were growing in her back garden were heavily contaminated with lead dust. Health Board readings show some readings of unwashed brussel sprouts at 45ppm. The normal level for vegetables is 2ppm.

Mrs Minogue says it never dawned on her that the dust was coming from the pond. "It wasn't until I saw it on the windowsill that I realized. what it was." Mrs Minogue's daughter, Ann, suffered sore eyes which watered when she went out in it. They rang Mogul who took a note of it.

Her neighbour Mrs Gleeson who lives in Castlecranna said that it took months to get the place clean after the blow. "We dumped everything that was in the garden. The Health Board told us to wear masks if we were going out." Her doctor said that she would have to move out of her home if it continued to blow much longer.

When John Hogan's mother returned several weeks later her house was black inside and outside. The local creamery wouldn't accept milk from farmers in the area because there was dust floating in it.

The dust blew everywhere, into people's fridges, into cups, into rooms that had no windows. Cars on the Limeerick Road had to put their lights on to travel through it.

On February 20 the Mid-Western Health Board sent officials out to take dust samples and blood levels. The Chief Medical Officer's report to the County Secretary the following week said that grass samples showed a reading six times above the maximum EEC levels allowed. Readings of vegetables in Mrs Minogue's garden, which was in the direct path of the dust, showed a reading over twenty times above the normal level. Milk and water levels were within normal limits, said Dr McGowan, the Chief Medical Officer. So were the blood samples taken from the adults and children in the immediate area of the pond. Samples taken from the surface of the pond itself were said to have a "high lead content".

Dr McGowan told the County Secretary that there was no immediate danger to public health. He said that a remedy for the situation was a matter of urgency as lead is an accuumulative poison.

"The continual exposure of people to such high levels in lead is a definite health hazard and remedies to have this matter rectified should be carried out as a matter of urgenncy," he said. The Health Board advised people to wear masks if they had to go out in it, and to take precautions against over-exposure to the dust.

The dust had stopped blowing by the end of the month when the County Council meeting was told that Mogul had said that they were investigating the proposal to spray the pond with a special bitumen substance to keep the dust down.

By now people on both sides of the tailings pond believed that the dust had got out of control, and feared that the company were not going to do anything. They decided to take a court injunction to put pressure on the company, Mogul ofIreland Ltd, to act quickly.

At the High Court injunction application at the end of March, mining experts employed by the company signed affidavits outlining what remedies they had for the dust. Essentially they had two strategies. First of all, they sprayed the edges that had blown dust with a tar-like black bitumen which succeeded in keeping the dust down on a short term basis. They then began trials with special types of grasses to investigate the possibility of re-vegetating the pond with a grass that would keep the dust down, and preevent it from blowing again.

Through the affidavits, the company said that the bituumen spray would keep the dust down along the edges where it was blowing for approximately three months. Mining engineer Dr David Fitzgerald said that neither he nor Mr Timpson, Consultant Environmentalist, had enviisaged a dust blow when they looked at it in August and September of 1984. The dust blow in February 1985 was a great surprise to him, he said, and he believed that this blow was caused by unusual and unforseen weather condiitions.

The judge did not grant the injunction as he was satissfied that the company were remedying the situation.

They experimented with bitumen on February 19 and when it seemed to be keeping down the dust, they sprayed most of the edge with it. In April they began experimenting with different types of grasses on plots on top of the pond.

By now the Action Group had got the attention of the politicians. Local Labour TD John Ryan arranged a deputaation to see the relevant ministers involved, who all happened to be in the Labour Party. The ministers involved were Barry Desmond (Health), Dick Spring (Energy) and Liam Kavanagh (Environment). When the members of the Action Group arrived at Leinster House on March 5, they were surrprised to see a major delegation from the County Council there as well. Someone said it was like a who's who of the local authority officials.

The County Council had earlier abandoned an estimates meeting to join the deputation. The County Manager, the County Engineer, the Sanitary Services Engineer, the Counncil Chairman, the Chief Medical Officer, five councillors and the TDs for North Tipperary, all went to Leinster House.

A week later, Minister for Labour Ruairi Quinn was passing through the area, and called out to see the pond. He was enthusiastic when it was suggested that perhaps the pond could be covered with some top soil by people emmployed under the Department of Labour's Social Employyment Scheme.

Between Ruairi Quinn's visit and the deputation, one- -e: fifth of the Cabinet was involved in the tailings pond probblem.

The company are still growing trial plots of grass on the pond. A progress report in June stated that growth was slow and it would not be possible to make a decision on seeding until the end of August. Experts in industrial reevegetation say that it could take up to five years before grass reached a satisfactory level to prevent dust blowing, and because of the lack of nutrients in the pond,sit would have to be fertilised for up to twenty years afterwards.

Local people fear that Mogul will not solve the problem.

Mogul of Ireland closed down the mine in 1982, and last year, the company was taken over by Ennex International, a multinational company with mining interests all over the world.

The County Council say the pond is not their responsiibility, but Mogul of Ireland's. Mogul have effectively been taken over by another company, but maintain a token preesence in the area. In theory, the pond is their responsibility, as it is on their land.

Magill made enquiries concerning the mining lease that Mogul of Ireland signed with the Department of Energy in November 1965 after they had decided to begin production in the mine. We sought information regarding the terms of this lease to ascertain whether or not it contained condiitions compelling the company to carry out remedial work in the area after it had ceased production, or when the lease had come to its end.

Fine Gael TD David Molony put a written question to Dick Spring in February concerning the conditions of the lease. The minister's reply was that he was awaiting the company's response about remedial measures before he looked at the lease conditions. "On receipt of the company's response I will further consider its position in relation to discharge of the conditions under which the lease was granted."

A spokesperson for the Department of Energy told Magill that "these leases are negotiated individually beetween the company and the Department. It would not be in the interests of the company to make them public."

Mogul of Ireland Ltd, signed a lease with the Departtment of Energy on November 22 1965, for thirty-three years, ending on December 1 1998. According to section K of the lease, the company is not under obligation to reehabilitate the area until the lease expires. Therefore, the company does not have to legally do anything to remedy the tailings pond for thirteen years.

Irish environmental pollution laws do not cover air pollution caused by dust from tailings ponds.

County Manager, John McGinley, said that the County Council has very limited legal powers as regards atmospheric pollution. He said that the onus for having an emergency plan ready in case of another dust blow lies with Mogul. "They have given assurances to do so," he said.

He said that the County Council, in meetings with the company, have quizzed them quite a lot on their emergency plan in the event of another blow. They said that they are ready to act within half an hour of a blow, as they have dust suppressant spray ready on site, and they keep in connstant touch with the weather office in Shannon to monitor weather conditions.

Mr Meldrum of Ennex International was unable to say how many staff were available to deal with a blow. Local people say no more than four are available. Magill's own observations at the site showed that there were only four barrels of Coherex spray beside the pond. Each of these barrels would hold about forty-five gallons of liquid.

After the heavy dust blow in February, the company needed 12,000 gallons of bitumen just to spray 75% of the perimeter of the pond. The pond is now drier than it was in February.

Trial plots of grass being grown experimentally on the surface of the pond show some progress, though it is slow. Mogul's experts advised against large scale seeding taking place, and said it would be several months before they could reach conclusions on the experiments.

The report also said that the tailings were still incapable of supporting the movement of heavy civil machinery, so that "the use of cover material would be impossible at present."

While Mogul of Ireland have closed down the mining plant and have been bought out by Ennex, their successors are now prospecting the area for further deposits of lead and zinc. In the 1984 Annual Report, they said that followwing an intensive drilling programme "test work carried out in early 1985 on bulk samples indicate that good recoveries of zinc can be achieved in a marketable concentrate on a commercial scale."

Local people are sceptical of the company's efforts to remedy the dust problem. They say that the company is not really interested in covering the pond with grass, beecause that would mean that if they wanted to use it again they would have to apply for planning permission, which they would not get.

The farming community that have been directly affeccted by the dust blowing say that if it starts again they will have to leave the area and stay with friends and relations. They are worried about the effects of the dust on their children, and the problems that they are having on their farms. They say that it could take years to know what effects the dust is having on them.

The Action Group is not interested in taking a law suit against the company. All they want, they say, is to see the pond covered, and the dust to stop blowing.

Geraldine Hogan remembers her fears the last time and says that she will not stay in the area when the spring comes again and the easterly wind rises. •