A lengthy report was published in 2001 by the Irish Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) into possible links between environmental pollution and severe animal and human health problems in Askeaton, Co Limerick.

Having examined the report, and compared it to information available elsewhere in the public domain, Hot Press believes that the EPA document contains errors of such magnitude that it must be investigated as a matter of grave urgency by the relevant authorities.

The investigation must establish why crucial scientific findings about pollution and contamination in the Askeaton area were excluded from – or perhaps altered in – the main body of the final EPA publication. This is what we have established so far…

THE CONTRADICTIONS START HERE

Reports of serious animal and human health problems across an area comprising 27 farms in Askeaton, in Co. Limerick made national news in the mid-1990s. The farms worst affected were owned by Liam Somers and Justin Ryan and their families.

The area is downwind from three large industrial sites: two ESB power-stations, Moneypoint and Tarbert, and the largest aluminium-processing plant in Europe, Aughinish Alumina Ltd. Moneypoint and Aughinish are the largest and third largest sources of industrial pollution in the Republic respectively. One of the many toxic substances emitted by these plants is fluoride.

Local people in Askeaton reported that a rash of health problems erupted in the area in the late 1980s. These included, in humans, it was said, high rates of miscarriage and fetal abnormalities; respiratory and skin problems; stinging eyes; and, most alarmingly, a higher all-cause mortality rate amongst children aged 14 and under, than anywhere else in Ireland, and a higher respiratory mortality rate for males in the region.

Many people in the area believed that their health problems – and comparably severe health issues among their farm animals – were caused by environmental pollution from the three large industrial sites nearby. At the time, some farmers began taking their own measurements of airborne pollution.

In response to the growing controversy, the Irish government asked the EPA to conduct what became the most expensive environmental investigation of its kind ever undertaken in the Republic of Ireland, costing the state at least IR£4.19 million (€5.321m). The EPA carried out its investigation over a four-year period from 1995, and published its report, Investigations of Animal Health Problems at Askeaton, Co Limerick, in 2001. There was no reference to humans in the title.

Reading the EPA report is a deeply troubling experience. Far from getting to the nub of the issue, there is a strong feeling that it is written in such a way as to distract the reader, and lead him or her away from evidence of environmental pollution on the farms being investigated.

In addition there are numerous contradictions (more on which later), which bring the veracity of the report’s findings into question. But most disturbingly, there are complete divergences between the conclusions in the EPA report, and the findings made by a different experts hired by the EPA to study contamination in the soil, hay and silage of the farms in question.

The EPA’s report also contradicts (a) evidence presented by an independent British scientist hired by the EPA as part of its investigation, and (b) data separately provided by Aughinish Alumina Ltd, the aluminium-processing plant at Askeaton, about its own contaminated waste.

In short, there is increasing evidence that the EPA report simply does not add up.

WERE THEY MAKING IT UP?

An increasing number of observers are now beginning to believe that the EPA report was a whitewash by any other name. It stated, for example, that while it could not find a clear cause for unusually severe ill-health in Askeaton’s animals from the late 1980s onwards, there was no evidence of environmental pollution being a causal factor.

It also concluded that, since there was no evidence of pollution affecting the health of the animals, it was very unlikely that the animal health problems implied a risk to human health.

It stated furthermore that since the evidence of human ill-health was based largely on self-reporting, and since there was a commonly-held suspicion in the area that pollution was causing illness, the evidence for human health problems was not reliable. In other words, the EPA was implying that those who were claiming sickness in the Askeaton region were either imagining it or making it up.

The EPA report also stated bluntly that there was no evidence in Askeaton of a potential industrial source of environmental contamination with fluoride.

SO WERE THERE INDUSTRIAL SOURCES?

How could the EPA make this remarkable claim when just down the road from the farms are two of the country’s biggest producers of industrial waste? This is the key question in relation to accusations, which are currently beginning to surface, of a possible cover-up.

The Aughinish Alumina plant is a huge aluminium processing plant, located beside the farmland of Askeaton. Waste streams are discharged from this plant, which are stored in ‘open waste lagoons’ directly adjacent to the farms. Aughinish’s Annual Environmental Reports (AER), which are on public record and were therefore accessible to the EPA, document that some of their waste streams contain fluoride as a contaminant at concentrations of up to 9,000mg/k.

According to Declan Waugh, the Irish scientist who has been researching the dangers of fluoride, this makes the Aughinish waste lagoons not just the biggest single source of fluoride pollution in the country but also one of the most fluoride-contaminated sites in the world. The prevailing wind blows right across these lagoons towards the area of Askeaton.

“The EPA report said there was no source of fluoride from industry anywhere in the area,” says Waugh. “Now this is simply untrue. The main waste that Aughinish produces contains highly toxic levels of fluoride. And on top of that, the industrial processes which the plant uses also release atmospheric fluoride emissions into the air. Significantly, it is acknowledged that coal-fired power stations, such as Moneypoint, as well as heavy oil power stations like Tarbert, are also major sources of fluoride emissions. So why was that ignored in the EPA report?”

What is utterly shocking in the context is that the EPA – the acronym stands for Environmental Protection Agency – apparently made a conscious decision not to investigate the possibility of fluoride pollution in the area, citing the ‘absence’ of industrial sources of fluoride in the area as its justification.

WHAT ABOUT SOIL POLLUTION?

As part of the EPA investigation, a group of scientists from Teagasc, a division of the Dept of Agriculture, were assigned the job of researching whether pollution and contamination in the soil, silage and hay on the farms may have triggered the animal health problems in the area.

The Teagasc team found that the levels of fluoride, titanium and arsenic on some of the farms was indicative of significant environmental pollution which could result in toxicity to plants and animals.

Their analysis revealed that fluoride levels in herbage from the Somers and Ryan farms was twice that of the control farm, and reflected soil contamination of the herbage on these farms. The control farm itself may also have had sigificantly elevated levels.

The Teagasc report also stated: “The high titanium values in the silage from the Somers and Ryan farms are indicative of a high degree of soil contamination. This is also reflected in elevated aluminium, iron and fluoride levels and to a lesser extent in values of the other elements on the various farms.”

Levels of aluminium, iron and titanium in hay were also elevated, further indicating a degree of soil contamination. Fluoride levels in the hay on the Ryan and Somers farm were 11.4mg/kg and 9.2mg/kg, respectively – in the region of five times accepted background levels.

High levels of aluminium, titanium and fluoride were also found in algae samples from the farms. Similarly, water on the farms showed generally elevated levels of fluoride.

Teagasc concluded that the farms showed clear signs of contamination. However, these conclusions were apparently altered in the final EPA report, which stated repeatedly, “There was no evidence to suggest soil and herbage contamination by potential pollutants from the local industries.” This view is based on the claim that high levels of fluoride found in the soils on the farms “was a natural characteristic of the area.”

One section of the EPA report does acknowledge that Teagasc found areas on the farms with elevated levels of fluoride, “It should be noted,” the report says, “that this fluorine is of geochemical origin and, being largely unavailable to plants and animals, is therefore of little toxicological significance.”

There is strong evidence to suggest, however, that the high levels of fluoride in the soil at Askeaton is not in fact a ‘natural characteristic’.

Since soil acts as a long-term reservoir, soil analysis can provide evidence of historical contamination. Declan Waugh’s latest report – A Review of the Epidemiology of Fluoride and its Contribution to Inflammatory Respiratory Disease, which is currently undergoing peer review for full publication in an international scientific journal ­– includes a section on sources of fluoride exposure, covering industrial fluoride emissions, as well as soil contamination. It makes the startling claim that Askeaton represents one of the worst cases of industrial fluoride pollution in Europe, if not the world.

Hot Press has seen the Askeaton section of Waugh’s upcoming report.

It points out that, in 2004, the European Commission (EC) reported that the average concentration of fluoride across the EU in soils is 300mg/kg. In the USSR, mean values of 200mg/kg have been reported in soils, in the USA 290mg/kg and in New Zealand 200mg/kg. Significantly, the EC has reported elevated fluoride soil concentrations near aluminum sites. Within 4 km of an aluminium plant in Greece, the average fluoride concentration spiked to 823 mg/kg.

Incredibly, Teagasc measured even higher fluoride levels in soil samples taken from Askeaton, with concentrations up to 1,000 mg/kg being documented – over three times the European average. While these EC figures were released after the EPA report, it seems impossible to reconcile the EPA’s insistence that there was no evidence of potential soil contamination – whether from the Aughinish Alumina plant or from Moneypoint or indeed both – with the levels of fluoride discovered by Teagasc in the Askeaton soil.

This, however is not all. The Aughinish facility began operations in 1983 and Askeaton residents said they noticed an escalation in human and animal health problems in the late 1980s, several years after aluminium processing began in Aughinish.

Fluoride levels in archived soil samples from one of the worst affected Askeaton farms, taken in 1979, prior to construction of the Aughinish plant, measured fluoride levels of 760 mg/kg. At first glance, this might seem to support the EPA’s contention that this is simply a characteristic of the area. After all, this level is significantly above the normal level of fluoride to be found in agricultural soils. But why did the EPA not investigate this information more thoroughly? And why did they avoid making the obvious connection to the presence of Moneypoint in the area?

Declan Waugh has analysed the soil types – and he believes that the EPA report is completely wrong on this issue. According to Waugh’s report: “The clay and organic carbon content as well as the pH of soil are primarily responsible for the origin and retention of naturally-occurring fluoride in soils. In the Netherlands, total fluoride concentrations in clay soils range from 330 to 660mg/kg.

“It must be assumed therefore,” writes Waugh, “that the significantly higher concentrations of fluoride measured in soils in 1979, indicates either a high clay fraction in the soils or industrial fluoride pollution from the Moneypoint coal-fired power station, which has operated since 1954. Since the soils on the farm were predominantly classified as grey brown Podzzolic/brown earth and loam, it is evident that the very high soil fluoride concentrations are anthropogenic (industrial sources) in origin.”

As already stated, the Aughinish plant produces waste streams – stored in open lagoons adjacent to the farmlands of Askeaton – with reported fluoride levels in excess of 9,000mg/kg.

Waugh attributes the subsequent dramatic increase of fluoride levels in Askeaton soil by 250mg/kg to 984mg/kg – representing an average net increase of 12.44mg/kg per annum – to the operations of the Aughinish facility.

“This indicates that fluoride pollution may be a significant risk factor in the reported animal health problems,” Waugh writes. “It should be noted that in China, a country with serious endemic fluorosis, a level above 800mg/kg in soil is classified as likely to result in endemic fluorosis.”

CUTTING TO THE BONE

So did the EPA find evidence of fluorosis – ie, fluoride poisoning – in the Askeaton farm animals? Evidence of fluorosis would have to be looked for in the bones of the cattle, not the teeth; teeth are only affected by the mottled markings, which indicate fluorosis, during the early developmental stage of animals and humans.

According to the EPA’s final report, there was no evidence of fluorosis in the cattle. Animal health was examined by a group of Teagasc scientists for the EPA investigation. They said they found no evidence of fluorosis in Askeaton’s animals. But nestled at the back of their report, in an Appendix, evidence given by an independent UK consultant also hired to investigate animal health in the area, flatly contradicts Teagasc’s and the EPA’s conclusions.

Dr N.F. Suttle, Consultant in Livestock and Honorary Research Fellow at Moredun Foundation for Animal Health and Welfare, states that the few bone samples that were taken from Askeaton cattle were from the tail bone. He notes that tail bones are never normally used to test for fluoride toxicity, as they do not represent the true exposure of the animal. The sample should have been taken from a rib-bone, which is the standard everywhere in the world. In other words, a bone sample was chosen that would significantly under-represent the exposure of the animal.

“But Dr Suttle, the UK scientist, copped it,” says Declan Waugh. “And he wrote in his report that the fluoride result Teagasc quoted would need to be doubled, and then increased by another 50 per cent, in order to give a true indication of the level of fluoride the animal had been exposed to. And that would put the figure way over 5,000 mg/kg fluoride accumulation in the cattle’s bones. The limit that has been established where fluoride toxicity occurs in animals is 2,000 mg/kg.

“So even with the bone samples they have, they’re indicative of chronic fluoride exposure,” says Waugh. “The independent consultant said there is evidence to show the animal suffered from chronic fluoride exposure.”

 “There is a highly significant correlation of bone fluoride with age, indicating chronic fluoride exposure,” Dr.Suttle stated. “Furthermore, the levels recorded in the herbages, hays and silages of both the Somers and Ryan farms in 1995 are often into double figures and consistently higher than values recorded in Area C in the baseline survey.”

Yet the EPA’s report reiterates several times that there was no evidence at Askeaton that overexposure of any kind was linked to animal health problems – and that there was no evidence of fluorosis in the animals. It is as if they expected no one to read the appendices.

THE MILK OF HUMAN UNKINDNESS

The EPA have questions to answer again, where their report looks at fluoride levels in milk and rainwater on the Askeaton farms.

According to the report: “All fluoride levels [in milk] were reported as less than 1.0 mg/l, as the method used is not regarded as reliable for levels below that value. It is not possible, therefore, to make any detailed comment on this substance; however it should be noted that drinking water in the public supply is required to contain 0.8 to 1.0 mg/i of fluoride.”

It is extraordinary that while the EPA were apparently unable to measure fluoride levels in milk below 1.0 mg/l, they were able to measure fluoride in rainwater in Askeaton down to 0.1mg/L. According to Declan Waugh, the EPA ‘difficulty’ with fluoride measurements below 1 mg/L does not make any sense.

“Studies done worldwide on fluoride levels in milk have been able to measure it down to 0.02,” says Waugh. “The average level of fluoride found in cow’s milk is 0.03 mg/L. If it goes above 0.1, it’s indicative of the animal being chronically exposed to fluoride.

“The EPA said the Askeaton milk contained less than 1 mg/L of fluoride, but they couldn’t measure it. That means it could be between 0.1 and 1 – and if it were closer to the latter, that would show chronic exposure of the animals to fluoride. But they reported it in a way that was fudging it. It means nothing. Is it possible that they found elevated fluoride levels in milk and hid these results? Actually suggesting that levels in water were already in the order of 0.8-1ppm, so that levels in milk in this region are therefore irrelevant, is just nonsense.”

The EPA were able to measure fluoride levels in rainfall in the area (fluoride accumulates in rainfall from industrial gas emissions). On one farm they measured up to 0.4ppm in rainfall, although in the report, this finding is simply glossed over and not discussed. According to Declan Waugh, levels of fluoride in rainwater at this level are indicative of chronic pollution.

“They’re monitoring fluoride levels in rainfall in the most polluted regions of Central Europe, and they’re not getting the levels they found in Askeaton,” he says.

“It is impossible to say that the authors of these reports deliberately got it wrong. But the effect, in my view, was that they covered up the industrial poisoning of a community. On the basis of the evidence I have analysed, it seems irrefutable to me that the EPA report is wholly inadequate. And the consequences are so shocking for the local population that, at the very lease, it calls for an immediate public inquir.”

(See ‘Soil Herbage, Feed and Water”, compiled by D. McGrath, O.T. Carton, S. Diamond, A.M. O’Sullivan, WE. Murphy, P.A.M. Rogers, PJ. Pane and E. Byrne, Teagasc Johnstown Castle Research Centre, Wexford.