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The Bawtry gasworks contamination involved the contamination of land at Bawtry, South Yorkshire, England with hazardous by-products from the manufacture of coal gas. Remediation of the land was carried out at public expense by the Environment Agency (EA), who then sought to recover the costs from National Grid Gas (NGG), then known as Transco, declaring it the "appropriate person" under Part IIA of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 and therefore liable on the basis that the contamination was caused by one or more of its statutory predecessors. NGG sought a judicial review in the High Court of Justice where Mr. Justice Forbes ruled that they were liable for the costs of the decontamination work. The ruling was considered a crucial issue by NGG as, if they were deemed liable in this particular instance, then they could be found liable in a substantial number, possibly thousands, of other cases involving former gasworks. The case was the first time that a UK business had been pursued through the courts to pay the remediation costs for land which was contaminated by utility companies no longer in existence. Phil Kirby, the managing director of NGG, said: "If this judgment were allowed to stand it would inappropriately allocate liability and discourage brownfield land being brought back into beneficial use." They appealed to the House of Lords, who overturned the previous ruling, stating "National Grid did not cause or knowingly permit any substances to be in, on or under the land. This was done by East Midlands Gas Board or its predecessor gas undertakers many years before National Grid came into existence. There is nothing in the Act to say that an appropriate person shall be deemed to be some other person or which defines who that person shall be." This decision was deemed to have significant implications in determining liability for historic environmental contamination and potentially placed the financial responsibility for remediation of former private commercial sites with public-funded local authorities. There are an estimated 4,000 similar sites in the UK where coal gas was once manufactured. These are potentially contaminated with carcinogenic coal tar and asbestos, phenols, sulfur compounds, cyanides and combustible substances. In 1995 Cedric Brown, the chief executive of British Gas, clashed with Labour Party MP Frank Dobson by refusing to release details of former gas works which may have been contaminated. Brown said that the information would be shared only with property speculators "with a future interest in the land". Dobson alleged that British Gas was "more interested in profiteering than in protecting the public. They are willing to tell property speculators who never go near sites, but not willing to tell local people whose children may stray on to them. Tell the truth and shame the devil. What have they got to cover up?" ==Background== Bawtry Gasworks, operated by the Bawtry and District Gas Company, was founded in 1834 and began manufacturing coal gas in 1915. The process involved the destructive distillation of coal, and the by-products included coke, coal tar, sulfur and ammonia. The disposal of the coal tar was by burying in brick-lined pits which were then backfilled. In 1931 it was taken over by South Yorkshire and Derbyshire Gas Company and as part of a nationalisation programme under the Gas Act 1948 the site - including the rights and liabilities from the previous owners - was subsequently transferred to East Midlands Gas Board (EMGB). The production of gas at the site ceased in 1952 and it was latterly used for storage and distribution purposes. The increasing use of natural gas in the 1960s led to the closure of the works and its sale to Kenton Homes Ltd. in 1965. It was sold again, still undeveloped, in 1966 to Kenneth Jackson Ltd. who obtained planning permission to build 11 houses there.〔〔 Before erecting the houses, the builder was aware of the presence of the coal tar beneath the site and in the soil, and the details of the sale described the site as including "the underground tanks installed on part thereof."〔 The Gas Act 1972 further reorganised the industry and EMGB's liabilities passed to the British Gas Corporation (BGC), while the Gas Act 1986 subsequently transferred them from the BGC to British Gas plc. Restructuring in 1997 split British Gas plc into BG plc and Centrica, and BG plc then de-merged into BG and Lattice Group. In 2002 Lattice Group merged with National Grid, creating National Grid Transco, which in 2005 split again to form National Grid plc and Transco plc. Transco was later renamed National Grid Gas.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Bawtry gasworks contamination」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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