Toxic Waste
in the Tees Valley:
A Growing Hazard?
Sludge, dredged from the Tees, at Seaton Meadow Landfill, Hartlepool
Is it hazardous? That depends who you ask
Scott Hunter
31 July 2025
Sludge is not a pretty sight. But a century and more of heavily polluting industry has left the Tees Valley with vast amounts of it and other waste to deal with. If the regeneration of the region is to succeed, cleaning up must go hand in hand with levelling up. But proposals currently under consideration by the Environment Agency would allow radio-active waste from around the country to be brought and dumped here. Is this a step too far?
Public consultation is underway to assess opinion on the proposal by environmental services company, Augean North Ltd, to use its landfill site at Port Clarence to store low level radioactive waste. The consultation period ends on 4 August. The Environment Agency which initiated the consultation appears to be expecting an overwhelmingly negative response from the public. But are people justified in their concern? Doesn’t the Agency provide sufficient guardrails to ensure that the site operates safely under its watchful eye? And, in any case, hasn’t the site accepted radio-active waste in the past with no sign of ill effects?
The short answer is yes, the public should be concerned. The regulatory environment in which they operate leaves something to be desired, and has, in recent years, led to instances of lax oversight by the agency. One such occurred at a landfill in Hartlepool in 2023 and is described in detail below.
To be fair, not all of the concerns that are likely to be raised are justified. The mere mention of ‘radio-active waste’ is triggering. But, along with the public consultation goes the Environmental Safety Case document that has been prepared for the proposed development. This document contains much of the detail that the public should be aware of when forming opinion on Augean’s plans.
We present a summary of some of the detail of those plans before discussing our view on its shortcomings. With that, we also present the result of our investigation into the incident at Seaton Meadow, which highlights, among other things, some of the weaknesses in the EA regulatory regime.
Port Clarence Landfill Environmental Safety Case.
The Environmental Safety Case is a large document (it’s here). We have selected some key points from it: what precisely is ‘low level radio-active waste’; where does it come from; how is it stored; what checks are placed upon it.
What’s Low Level Radio-active Waste?
“The major components of LLW are building rubble, soil and steel items. The LLW can include framework, pipework and reinforcement from the dismantling and demolition of nuclear reactors and other nuclear facilities and the clean-up of nuclear sites … [and] … radioactive wastes from other sources including the oil industry, research facilities, remediation of contaminated sites and hospitals.”
Where does it come from?
The government’s map of Nuclear sites shows that there four sites across the UK that are currently licensed to accept such waste – Dounreay, Sellafield, Clifton Marsh and King’s Cliff:
Nuclear sites themselves are in clusters: Cumbria and Merseyside; the South West around Hinkley Point; to the South of Oxford; and a smaller cluster in Central Scotland.
Currently waste could potentially be accepted by Port Clarence from any of these sites, but not from outside the UK, as stated in section 7 of the ESC:
“7.4.2.2 LLW01 Part B – Acceptance Procedures
"All wastes must arise in the UK and the consigning site must have an appropriate transfer authorisation issued under EPR2016”
How is it Stored and what Checks are Placed upon it?
Generic guidance provided by government states
“Environment Agency design requirements consider: the stability of the lining and capping system, wastes and underlying geological strata; the leachate collection system; operational and management control of the leachate and groundwater systems; collection of landfill gas and preventing migration of gas; and, environmental monitoring. The design will contain the disposed radionuclides for as long as reasonably practicable and thereafter limit the rate at which any radionuclides are released to the accessible environment.”
Source: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/the-uks-nuclear-history
While the ESC for Port Clarence states
“Environmental monitoring will be undertaken by Augean during the period over which the site is managed. Baseline conditions have already been established. Environmental samples will be taken on a regular basis and results will be reported to the Environment Agency, who may also undertake an independent sampling programme. An agreed programme is specified and follows protocols set by the Environment Agency. Monitoring information will be published on the Augean website for review by the public.”
The report elsewhere states that hazardous and non-hazardous waste must be separately stored at the facility.
So, What’s the Problem?
While information available to us is limited, we understand that the Port Clarence site is orderly and well managed and is fully compliant with the regulations under which it operates. This may not be the case with some other landfill sites in the region that have been licensed by the EA to handle various kinds of hazardous waste, however.
The first issue concerns the procedure that accompanies the consultation process. The EA has made the ESC available to the public, but it neither prepared nor commissioned that document. The ESC was prepared for Augean, which is the client of the company that prepared it. The document is therefore not impartial. It advocates for its client. The commissioning of such reports has been problematic in projects in this region in the recent past.
An example is the Environmental Impact Assessment prepared for the South Bank Quay project, where sampling was commissioned by the South Tees Development Corporation, but tests were undertaken only on a standard set of chemicals, not one tailored to the unique circumstances of the lower Tees, the UK’s most polluted watercourse.
Furthermore, while the Marine Management Organisation stipulated that some of the dredgings were too toxic to be dumped at sea, no statutory authority took responsibility for ensuring that the dredge was undertaken safely (and, in the event, it wasn’t as Tees Valley Monitor reported at the time – Poison Earth Part 2: Government Shields Polluters on Teesside).
It seemed to us at the time that, as that dredge involved lifting the sediment out of the river and on to the bank, neither the EA nor MMO took responsibility for overseeing the operation. And in the case of the Port Clarence Landfill, the public is invited to comment only on a limited range of the issues involved.
While Augean seeks a permit for its site, the company will not be involved in the transportation of the waste to the site from locations around the country. As can be seen from the map above, much of the waste must travel some considerable distance. All transportation must be by road, as there is no rail link to Port Clarence. So, there is a hazard before the waste even reaches the site, a hazard that increases as traffic converges on Teesside’s roads. However, the matter of transport does not directly feature in the consultation, and members of the public, while they may choose to comment on it, do so without knowing how Augean and the EA plan to deal with the issue.
A second issue concerns the importation of waste from other countries. While the ESC clearly states that waste will only be brought from UK sites, that is because current regulations do not permit it to be imported from abroad. That may be subject to change, however.
Guardian columnist, George Monbiot, reported last week (Want to import toxic chemicals into Britain with scant scrutiny? Labour says: go right ahead) that the Health and Safety Executive quietly initiated public consultation (open until 18 August) on a proposal to allow the importation of chemical waste. At present it is no more than that, just a proposal, but if it succeeds, Augean would be entirely within its rights to apply to accept it at its sites. The issue with that is that it would be much more difficult to regulate what enters UK landfill than current regulations allow. So, there is a potential future hazard that the public has not been informed of in relation the proposed permit at Port Clarence.
While Augean, as we stated earlier, appears to be scrupulous about its waste handling, its site is a commodity, and can be sold on to another waste management company (as appears to have happened recently at Seaton Meadow). The public would have no say in that transaction, and not all environmental service companies are scrupulous. And where they are less than scrupulous, as the incident described below lays bare, EA oversight is manifestly inadequate.
Sludge dumped at Hartlepool landfill. Hazardous or non-hazardous?
In early January 2023 a consignment of dredge sediment (sludge) was delivered onto the quay at Able Seaton Port, Hartlepool. The consignment was estimated at the time to be around 1000 tonnes. The Environment Agency has confirmed that permission was granted to dispose of this material at the nearby Seaton Meadow landfill site. Samples had been tested and the sludge was classified by EA as non-hazardous. The consignment was duly delivered by trucks over a period of about two weeks. Certain things about this operation are unusual, however. To say the least.
A local carrier was contracted to move the consignment by road. The transfer of that material was problematic in a number of ways. The transport of the consignment raised some health and safety issues, while the Environment Agency’s permit to dispose of it raises yet more. Both of these have some bearing on the application to dump radio-active waste at Port Clarence, which is about three miles from Seaton Meadow.
First, health and safety. A number of issues about that operation have been reported to us. The first relates to the fact that the drivers who moved the sludge from Able Seaton Port to Seaton Meadow were not provided with PPE. This would normally be provided by the company that commissions the job, in this case, Able UK (owners of the port, the landfill site and the sludge). Throughout the operation, both Able Seaton Port and Seaton Meadow staff stayed well out of the way. It is/was standard procedure for lorries entering the Seaton Meadow site to be accompanied by an escort vehicle to the location where their load was to be deposited. This also did not take place at any point during this operation. All of which leaves the impression, rightly or wrongly, that there was something clandestine about the whole thing.
The material itself was reported as being gun metal in colour with the consistency of tile adhesive, which stuck stubbornly to the sides and the wheels of the open trucks in which it was being transported.
It is standard practice for drivers accessing the Seaton Meadow site to wash the wheels of their vehicle upon departure. However, during this time, the facility was not made available. The road surface between the port and disposal site became covered in a thick layer of sludge. So much so that the haulage company had to send out a road sweeper to try to disperse it. The truck drivers with no PPE and no one on either site to help them, meanwhile, struggled to get what was basically glue out of the backs of their tipper trucks and into the space allocated it at Seaton Meadow. Each load, we have been informed, took about 15 minutes to slide out of the back of the trucks.
Undeniably, neither stickiness nor unattractive colour are indicators of chemical hazard. On the other hand, pungent odour, such as that which emanated from this consignment, is generally accepted as an indication that the material may be toxic. Several drivers assigned to the job refused to continue on account of the smell alone.
The sludge sliding at a leisurely pace out of a tipper truck
One driver required medical treatment after getting splashes of the sludge in his eye. Staff at the emergency unit he attended identified the sludge as being a very strong alkaline, which runs counter to the Environment Agency’s designation of the consignment as non-hazardous.
As for the tipper trucks used to carry the material, the ones initially allocated to the job were fitted with an electric rear gate. However, the non-hazardous sludge burned through the plastic sheath on the electric cables rendering the gates inoperable.
Older trucks with manually operated rear gates were then substituted. In addition to the fact that this meant that drivers came into closer contact with the sludge than they would otherwise, the gates did not seal tightly which resulted in more sludge being spilled out onto the road than would otherwise have been the case.
The operation took almost two weeks. It was reported to us several months later, at which point we contacted the Health and Safety Executive about it. Firstly, we asked if the accident had been reported to them, to which they responded (on 3 August 2023) that it had not. So, we then presented HSE with details of the unsafe operation. Their response was that they would not follow it up because the incident was not ongoing. They also referred us to the Environment Agency for concerns relating to the sludge itself. Which we duly did. While EA was less dismissive than HSE had been, their response gave considerable cause for concern.
The Environment Agency and the Toxic Sludge
We contacted EA to ask where the consignment of sludge had originated, what analysis had been undertaken of the material, and how it had been ascertained that it fell within the permit for the Seaton Meadows site. The waste transfer note is here, which identifies the consignment as approximately 1000 tonnes of ‘dredging spoil’ whose transfer was to begin on 23 January 2023.
Waste transfer note issued by Able UK
The EA confirmed that “the material [was] non-hazardous dredging spoils EWC 17 05 06 and not Hazardous dredging spoils EWC 17 05 05” based on analysis submitted by the producer of the waste. Sampling of the waste had taken place on 20 January. They also provided us with the test results. Four samples were taken, each yielding very similar results.
Lab report on one of the samples tested
There are a number of reasons why this document is concerning. In the first place the lab to which the sample was sent was hired by ‘the producer of the waste’. Its report states that it did not collect the samples, however. The response we got from EA indicates that it didn’t either. We do not know at present who actually did carry out the sampling.
The testing itself appears to cover a limited range of chemicals. We assume here that the testing conforms to EA requirements for the testing of maintenance dredgings. That being the case, the fact that polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are lumped together as a single entry in the table appears wholly inadequate for dredge material that originates in the Tees Estuary, famed for the elevated hydrocarbon concentrations in its sediment. But it is typical not only of the EA but also of other Defra agencies, that a predetermined, standardised list of chemicals to be tested for is used, with no account taken of local circumstances.
The pH values given in the table are also remarkable in themselves. In each case the value shows the waste to be close to neutral, with alkalinity similar to that of baking soda. A substance with this degree of alkalinity would not cause facial injury on contact, neither would it burn through the sheath on electric cable. There is an enormous disparity between the material as classified by the EA and the testimony of those who undertook its transfer to landfill.
Another question arises here. Given that dredge material is usually deposited offshore unless permission to do is denied by the Marine Management Organisation where the material is deemed too toxic for such disposal. In 2022, on the South Bank of the Tees, for example, permission to deposit at sea dredgings from one section of the river was denied for precisely this reason. So, why deposit this consignment on land? And why didn’t the EA query this unusual application before granting permission?
Maintenance dredging in the Tees is normally undertaken by the Harbour master, PD Ports, which maintains two dredgers for the purpose and which is licenced by the Marine Management Organisation to undertake the work. Sediment raised through routine dredging is not tested and is normally dumped at a licensed site (in this case Tees Bay A) at sea. It is not normally deposited on land unless it is tested and found to be too toxic. So why was this consignment handled differently?
We contacted PD Ports who informed us that they did not, in fact, carry out the dredge but instead, in their capacity as statutory harbour authority, issued a licence for Able to carry out this work themselves. Non-hazardous estuary sediment is not normally deposited in landfill as it would be expensive. However, Alab Environmental Services, which at that time owned Seaton Meadow, is a subsidiary of Able UK, so this was an in-house job.
Dredger near Able Seaton Port
That still leaves the matter of the disparity regarding the make up of the sludge between those who handled it and its classification by the EA. Sadly, the truth casts a shadow over the EA. It is contained in the dates given in the lab report:
So, the lab report was issued on 15 February, and therefore, the EA designated this consignment of sludge as non-hazardous several weeks before they received it. They then licensed Able to deposit it as non-hazardous waste without knowing anything of its constituents (apart from what they already know about the typical make up of Tees sediment, which gives no cause for complacency discussion of recent analysis of sediment dredged from the Tees is in a report by Defra partner agency, Cefas).
We have now written to the EA to invite them to reconsider the designation of this consignment as non-hazardous now that the report is in their hands. At the time of writing, however, we have not yet received a response.
Able UK has not responded to our request for comment.
Why Object to the Plans for Port Clarence Landfill?
The Environment Agency has not supplied sufficient information on which to base a rational appraisal of the plans for the site. We are invited to judge the proposals on the basis of the information contained in the Environmental Safety Case (ESC), yet that document, while informative in many respects, is not an impartial presentation of the facts. The company that produced it was commissioned by Augean, and advocates for Augean. The EA (in line with other Defra partner agencies) insists that such a document is produced but has no input into it.
This arrangement has led to negative consequences in this region in the recent past. The sediment that Cefas sampled during their research at Tees Bay C, where elevated levels of certain contaminants were found, had come most recently from the capital dredge for the South Bank Quay. But that operation had been supported by an Environmental Impact Assessment paid for by the South Tees Development Corporation, and which understated the amount of contamination present (as we reported here).
While we make no allegation against the authors of the ESC for Port Clarence Landfill, the fact remains that, as a source it is, in itself, inadequate.
The public consultation is too narrow in scope, as there are significant issues that are not up for consideration. One of these concerns the transportation of hazardous waste material considerable distances across the country by road, finally converging on Port Clarence. While, as we stated earlier, we believe that Augean itself is scrupulous, we can not be similarly reassured about those unknown hauliers who will transfer the material to the site, as these do not form part of the consultation.
We are reassured to learn from the ESC that all waste must be sourced from the UK, but that regulation is potentially subject to change. Given its location, Port Clarence Landfill could, given its location, become a prime location for imported material, which will be much more difficult to regulate that UK-based material.
While the ESC seeks to reassure us that Augean will work within the regulatory framework set out by the EA (and HSE), the consultation invites us to look at that company but not at the EA the quality of whose oversight is not part of the conversation. Yet, the incident at Seaton Meadow shows an indifference to proper oversight by the EA. Until we obtain information to the contrary, the accusation stands that the agency allowed a large consignment of toxic waste to be deposited in a part of the Seaton Meadow landfill that is reserved for non-hazardous waste, with attendant risk of contamination of groundwater and air pollution through escaping gases. The indifference to the hazardous working conditions by the HSE also inspires little confidence that a robust inspection regime exists.
Before any permit is issued to Augean, the Environment Agency and the HSE need to examine their own conduct.