Farm's mystery ailment still unresolved

A NEW report prepared for the Department of Agriculture has failed to explain the cause of prolonged animal health problems on a farm.

Farmer Dan Brennan, who blames chemical pollution by “Cadmium and other deadly poisons”, is frustrated that despite the State spending “hundreds of thousands” of euro investigating the matter, “the report is unable to reach any definitive conclusions”.

Mr Brennan farms 170 acres in Kilkenny near the former coal-mining town of Castlecomer. Since 1990, his dairy herd has suffered from stunted growth, low milk yields and high calf mortality. Trees on his land have also died.

The problems on the farm have been the subject of previous lengthy investigations by the department and other State agencies but no cause could be established. Frustrated by what he regarded as the failure of the Irish authorities, Mr Brennan petitioned the European Parliament to investigate.

In 2007, following a visit by a delegation of MEPs to the farm, a report by the European Parliament’s Petitions Committee concluded that the cattle had been affected by “toxic emissions from the local brick factory”.  The MEPs were also critical of tests carried out by the Irish authorities, claiming they had “serious methodological shortcomings”.

Cement Roadstone Holdings, owners of the Ormonde Brick company, rejected the report and said the parliament’s “findings have no scientific basis whatsoever”.

Following the publication of the report in Brussels, Minister for the Environment John Gormley paid a “private visit” to the farm and the Government undertook to carry out further investigations.

Irish veterinary experts and international consultants from the University of North Carolina and Imperial College London carried out “a critical epidemiological review” of all “available evidence relevant to this problem”.

They  concluded that while there was “evidence of background Cd [Cadmium] exposure” among cattle, “these concentrations are not of toxicological significance based on current knowledge, and would not be expected to adversely affect animal health”.

However, Mr Brennan has questioned the findings of the report which he believes contain several “weaknesses”. He has claimed that “even though Cadmium is a known pollutant associated with brick kilns, the researchers were not permitted to investigate the possibility that the adjacent brick factory was the source of pollution”.

He said the report ignored crucial blood tests on cattle which found levels of Cadmium which were so high that scientists believed the samples “must have been contaminated”.

He noted the report states Cadmium levels “are much higher than those reported in a very recent pan-European study” but that the source “has not been determined, and additional testing may be warranted”.

He also criticised the Environmental Protection Agency for failing to set any limit on Cadmium emissions from the brick factory.

Mr Brennan told The Irish Timeshe still had "only one question for the department: 'where's the pollution coming from?' "