Adverts have been appearing on Facebook for a while now publicising the legal action that Leigh Day, the law firm, want to take against the chicken farms causing pollution on the River Wye.
They were also at Hay Festival talking to people about it, and I had a good chat with them there.
On Friday evening they held a meeting in the Globe in Hay, one of a series of local meetings they'd been holding all week across Herefordshire.
Doors opened at 5pm, but the speakers didn't start until 6.30pm, so I had a good chat with Françoise and Carolyn, and some very nice cake that had been laid on for the meeting.
Leigh Day is a firm that specialises in environmental legal cases, and they have been doing this since the 1980s. They believe that the law is a tool that can be used for positive social change.
One of their big cases was against Shell in the Niger Delta, where they helped the local community to bring an action against Shell for pollution, and took them back to court when they failed to clean up the local water supply when the judgement had been that they should do that. Another case they worked on was against a Zambian copper mine, but in this case the copper mine cleaned up their act as soon as liability was proved against them.
In recent years they've shifted their focus to the UK, and in particular the water companies, and the consistant failure by the regulators and government to hold them to account for the sewage and pollution in our rivers. A recent court success was that planning applications now have to include a climate impact assessment.
The way it works is that the firm organises a group litigation, on a no win - no fee basis. If the case is won, then Leigh Day take a proportion of the damages to cover their costs. If they lose, they will have taken out insurance which will cover the cost - and the fact that the insurance company is willing to take out a policy means that they think the case has a good chance of success. Each person who signs up to be a part of the case is represented individually, but all the cases are heard together. When damages are awarded, this is a deterrent to the companies - if they have to make a big pay out because of their actions, they should be less likely to do it again.
In this case Cargill, one of the companies involved, have been shown to have done the same thing on the Oklahoma River in the USA that they are now doing on the River Wye, so there is a body of evidence already in existance to support the River Wye claim. Cargill is an equal shareholder in Avara in the UK. Someone said that the Cargill family are the richest people in the world, which isn't quite true, but they're certainly up there with the top billionaires. So they can afford to clean up after themselves.
The representatives of Leigh Day invited a couple of local speakers. One was Oliver Bullough, who talked about the plan he's been involved with to gain bathing status for the Warren. Testing the water has now started, and the Welsh government has to publish the findings. The Friends of the River Wye (including the Friends of the River Lugg) are considering the possibilities of extending bathing status to Glasbury and Rhayader, too.
The other speaker is the owner of Black Mountain View caravan park, near Lower House Farm close to Hay. Which used to be a nice place to stay until the chicken shed was erected. Now they have to deal with the smell of the chicken manure and flies, and the fans in the chicken sheds making a noise constantly. They are also worried about the streams that feed into the River Wye, where there are white clawed crayfish and newts, which are supposed to be protected species.
They have fishing rights along a stretch of the River Wye, and this used to be quite busy, but now only a handful of fishermen come, and they say they never catch anything, and there's been at least one case of a dog getting sick after it had been in the river.
The speaker (Dave? I think) had all the facts and figures about the failures of the planning process with Powys County Council over a number of years.
Later in the evening, a member of the audience spoke as well. He turned out to be the Labour candidate who stood against Jesse Norman in the general election - he's also a teacher. He ran the length of the river to raise awareness of the pollution, and was surprised to find how many people have no idea that there is a problem.
In the Question and Answer session, they explained who could join the claim. It's people like the owner of Black Mountain View caravan park, of course, and any other businesses that have suffered damage because of the pollution, but also anyone who uses the river for recreation - or who used to go swimming or kayaking or fishing, but no longer do.
Even before the claim has been brought, the Avara management has been talking about their management of manure from the chicken sheds, presumably in an effort to appear to be doing the right thing.
Someone asked about why the focus was on chicken farms, and they explained that the population of Herefordshire has remained fairly constant over the last few years, and the amount of agricultural run-off has likewise been fairly constant - so what's changed to pollute the river? And the answer is an explosion of chicken farms, which have been given planning permission without any thought as to the cumulative effect of so many of them. They also need to make clear that it isn't the farmers they are taking action against - it's the big companies that the farmers are working for.
Civil law does not require the same amount of proof as scientific proof (the citizen scientists were mentioned for the good work they are doing in testing the water regularly and building up a body of evidence on the phosphate levels). In court they only need to prove something on the balance of probability, so that it is likely that chicken farms are the main culprit without having to trace the pollution back directly to their door. And even if Avara say they are complying with all the regulations, the problem still exists, and it is something that they should have to do something about.
A judgement against Avara would include damages for past loss, but also injunctions to prevent future loss - so they would have to work to clean up the mess they have made, and make sure that they don't cause a mess in future.
One recent development that may be helpful is that people can now sue the water companies for discharging sewage into the rivers, which only happened about two weeks ago.
The meeting ended with a short film called Fish Boy, by Rivers that Dance, about a theatrical presentation for schools about a boy who is friends with a fish, and when the fish disappears, he goes on a journey to find out why, and finds out all about the pollution of the river.
So Leigh Day needs as many people as possible to come forward to be part of the claim. The leaflet I picked up only has a QR code to contact them, which I can't reproduce here, but I found their website at:
https://www.leighday.co.uk/forms/river-wye-join-the-claim/
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