Corby Families Pursuing Clarity About Toxic Waste Sites

Alison Gaffney and Andy Hinde faced heartbreaking diagnosis in 2018 when their young son their child was confirmed to have a rare type of childhood cancer.

24 months of intensive medical care ensued, involving chemotherapy, targeted radiation, and immunotherapy before a stem cell transplant. The young boy, by age three, made a remarkable improvement from the procedure, with physicians confirming the illness in remission.

During this period that Gaffney, 36, began seeking explanations. She could not stop thinking about comments made by medical professionals at the time of her son’s diagnosis. “We're tormented wondering how Fraser got his illness,” a doctor had shared with her.

“It keeps us up at night wondering how Fraser got his cancer,” a consultant had shared with her.

Past Events

The improper handling of enormous amounts of toxic materials after the cessation of the town's primary employer in the town in 1979 had “always been a known thing,” said Alison. A court ruling linked the improper remediation efforts of the site to a series of developmental issues in community youth during the 1980s and 1990s.

Increasingly, the concerned mother started to associate the situation to her own. “[His illness] is not inherited,” she stated. “What could cause this? … It has to be down to the area. So many children [with] illness.

“Each person here knows somebody who’s got a minor [with] illness. That’s not normal.”

Collective Efforts

Gaffney and Hinde started to reach out to additional households in the town with parallel situations – including some of Gaffney’s past schoolmates at a local school – and the organization began compiling comprehensive documentation on those affected. They now lead a movement advocating for about many parents with situations of pediatric illness going back to 1988.

The organization has been pressuring the town council to investigate any links between occurrences of pediatric illness in this community and the decommissioning of the industrial site. Soon, medical experts are preparing to share their study of whether the area has had a unusually high rate of occurrences of childhood cancer for its residents of seventy thousand.

“All we want is to try and protect future people so they can avoid the hardship that we’ve been through,” said the mother.

Legal Precedents

The ruling in the court proceeding recognized that, between a fourteen-year period, millions of tonnes of contaminated materials from the industrial facility were relocated “regularly” from the southern part of town to a specific location in the opposite end – with “significant amounts” of hazardous materials transported and dumped on public roads and “substantial quantities” of airborne particles produced by the remediation.

Nevertheless, it also cited reports from the environmental authorities in 1997 that discovered collections of toxic substances that had been abandoned at this location were later taken away in “large quantities”.

Additional Issues

Gaffney believes toxic substances was not only dumped at the Deene Quarry site but in other parts of the town. Recently, she applauded a “important advancement” after municipal government said it would examine land that could be contaminated and research where toxic waste was disposed of.

Alison said council staff confirmed in the conference that they lacked information where the sites of contaminated waste could be. “They explained: ‘We're uncertain where these locations are. Documentation is missing, there's no data available.’”

Community Support

The council’s announcement was also embraced by another parent, a pastoral lead at a local school, whose school-aged girl, Bella, was diagnosed with a hematologic malignancy in recent months.

“I had to shave my nine-year-old daughter's scalp because her tresses was coming out from the drugs she had to use to destroy her disease. Consequently it’s in everyone's benefit, it’s in the child's wellbeing [for the council] to reveal that data,” she said.

“There are so many individuals in the community that have been confirmed to have youth disease and I just feel it’s too much to ignore – it needs looking at. This isn't typical.”

Individual Accounts

Meg Lyons, 31, who has a professional career and now lives in London, said families deserved “full transparency and transparency” from the government.

The woman's 11-year-old sister, Eve, passed away on in recent years after being confirmed to have a rare bone cancer at the age of nine. Her sister, who fundraised for health organizations, was “one of the most lovable, humorous and kindest” people, she recalled.

Her family member remembers the impact of the shutdown of the manufacturing site on the community, the woman said. “She mentioned you were unable to place your hand in ahead of you because [of] the particulate matter.”

“These issues have continued since I’ve probably been about early childhood. It's too long and it is negligence toward the local residents.”

Past Associations

Another family member, a community member, was one of several families participating in the 2009 claim against the then Corby council after her infant was had a congenital issue. Her spouse, her partner, was among the vehicle operators participating in handling substances from the manufacturing facility. Their experience was shown in a media production, and demonstrated Maggie cleaning the debris from her husband’s jeans.

The campaign leader said the campaign group has been reached out to by individuals with information who were participating in the dumping of substances in the town.