Two Tales Of Toxic Waste - Civil Action Versus Civic Action

OPINION
by Tim O'Dwyer M.A., LL.B
Solicitor
Consumer Advocate
watchdog@argonautlegal.com.au

"It's a gold mine," says actor John Travolta playing real-life attorney Jan Schlichtmann in the movie A CIVIL ACTION. "Yeah, fools' gold," muttered former Kingston resident Thelma Towers in a suburban cinema.

Schlichtmann convinced his partners and bankers he'd win his clients hundreds of millions of dollars in damages, and his firm 40% of that, if they funded and fought the 1986 Woburn Massachusetts toxic waste trial.

For Thelma Towers the futile nine year legal battle waged on behalf of eight families from working class Woburn was all too reminiscent of the toxic waste wars she and other Kingston residents had to fight without lawyers ten years ago here in Queensland.

"Travolta could talk about his gold mine," Towers tells me over coffee, "but at Kingston we were poisoned by a toxic waste dump that was once a real gold mine - arsenic, heavy metals, PCBs and all."

The Woburn tale began in the 1960s when dumped chemical wastes started to leach into underground waters. The Woburn City Council was warned that the local river was polluted, but still sank water supply wells. After residents complained about the taste, odour and corrosive effects of their tap water, it was eventually tested and found to be contaminated with industrial solvents.

Between 1964 and 1986 28 leukaemia cases were diagnosed in Woburn. The families wanted those they believed responsible for poisoning their water and killing their children to apologise and pay.

The Kingston tale began in 1931 when cyanide and other toxins used in the Mt. Taylor gold refining were disposed of around the mine site.

For twelve years after the mine closed in 1955 the Albert Shire Council allowed used oil to be dumped into a sludge pit. From 1968 to 1973 the main open-cut was a domestic and industrial waste tip.

In 1968 the council required the sludge pit to be filled as a condition of residential subdivision. Displaced sludge was re-dumped into the open-cut. In 1975 the council health surveyor ordered rates cards for homes built over the pit to carry a warning note. This wasn't done. In 1982, after the Logan Council took over the area, it found high acid levels in the soil.

In September 1986 residents complained to the Logan Council about sludge seeping into their yards. By April 1987 the council was warning people to avoid this caustic ooze which later tests showed was a toxic cocktail. Surrounding soils and ground-water were also contaminated.

In May 1987 RATS (Residents Against Toxic Substances) was formed. Thelma Towers was the committee's feisty secretary. Because of increased leukaemia and other diseases in Kingston, they condemned the council and demanded action.

The Woburn law suit had been unsatisfactorily settled by then but Schlichtmann was working on an appeal which came to nothing. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency afterwards announced a multi-million-dollar clean-up plan for Woburn with the polluters having to contribute to the cost.

Thelma Towers says the people of Kingston were vindicated after four years of fighting councils and governments when the Minister for Emergency Services Terry Mackenroth ordered a review of all scientific and medical evidence, offered full health tests for residents and announced the Goss government would rehabilitate the site and pay for families to be moved away.

Why did no legal class actions come out of Kingston? Because Australian lawyers are not permitted to take a percentage of damages, the difficulty was essentially one of costs. "We had solicitors chasing our ambulance," says Towers. "They wanted our money up front. So we went to the media instead. Kingston residents could not afford a costly civil action. We had a self-funded civic action."

The people of Woburn got their clean-up (projected to take 50 years), a pitiful settlement but no apology. The people of Kingston were moved on, Mt. Taylor was sealed and landscaped, but no compensation came for their illnesses and deaths (Towers says there were at least six leukaemia deaths). The final medical report found no evidence of "a major toxic hazard" in Kingston but recognised the "stress on a number of residents because of the uncertainty". Kingston finally could not prove, any more than Woburn could, that dumped toxic chemicals caused leukaemia or any other disease.

Although the Mt. Taylor site was "capped" in 1991, no toxic waste was removed. Thelma Towers believes a major toxic hazard lies buried and waiting under the ground at Kingston.

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