Dirty Business Spotlight

2013 showed The Maiden City off in a new light.

Street party after street party. The capital of the North West was

rebranded as a modern and progressive City of Culture.

A tourist destination. But just outside the city, officials

were finally getting to grips with a shocking discovery.

And an ugly truth was bubbling to the surface..

A huge illegal dump - thought to be one of the largest single cases in

Europe. The scale of this is beyond anything

that has been seen before. It is something of biblical

proportions. It is a festering mass of steaming, stinking, putrefying

waste. Tonight, in an investigation that

has taken us to Eastern Europe, we reveal how over 500,000 tonnes of

illegal waste ended up in the scenic countryside of the North West.

The moment it would get dark, they were starting to dump things till

the morning. We ask how the authorities got it so

wrong? A huge illegal dump in the area says we need to do better.

And we track down some of those involved with the site, to look for

answers. Mr Doherty you must be able to

explain how 500,000 tonnes ended up in your land? If Excuse me, I don't

want to be ignorant to you. Could you please leave the golf

course? Disposal of waste is a controversial

business in Derry. This group are objecting to proposals for the

future of waste management. Last Halloween, they took to the streets,

to campaign against the development of a new plant that would turn waste

into gas. Trust me, it is not an incinerator!

But just a few miles from the city centre, an example of how waste has

been dealt with in the past is buried just beneath the surface.

In June of last year, a recycling company was dramatically shut down

overnight. Six months earlier, the directors of a quarry company across

the road had been arrested. They were later released and have not

been charged. The then-Minister, Alex Attwood, ordered a full-scale

investigation of activities at the Derry site.

The scale of environmental damage and vandalism is beyond what we have

seen before and, consequently, we have taken unprecedented steps, in

order to revoke the licence of a waste management company, so that

any and all of those who were responsible for this criminal

activity are all dealt with. At first glance, you would have no

idea what has really been going on in this area for the last few years.

But the truth is astonishing. Just over there is a dump containing an

estimated 500,000 tonnes of illegal waste... About ten Titanics in

weight. And the truth is, nobody even knows

what is in there. The land being investigated

stretches for almost 1.5 kilometres - as far as the eye can see. In

order to appreciate the sheer scale of the dump, thought to be the one

of the single biggest cases discovered in Europe, you have to

look at it from another perspective. And that is just what I am about to

do. We are, literally, pretty much

parallel with the road here and then, we are going to pick up the

Faughan River here and follow it down to Drumahoe.

Just below, we can see where the River Faughan meets the River Foyle,

just outside Derry city. All The river, famous for its salmon

fishing, is Special Area of Conservation, the highest degree of

protection set by Europe. The council may want this to be a

tourist magnet, but from up here, you can see how other industries got

here first. Industries like quarrying. It is

quite shocking how close the River Faughan is to the quarry and the

waste management company, given that the River Faughan is a major

drinking water source for the people of Derry.

Two companies on the Mobuoy Road are at the heart of a criminal

investigation. The quarry company seen here on the

left, Campsie Sand Gravel, is owned by a man called Paul Doherty.

Across the road is a recycling company, City Industrial Waste, that

was paid by seven different councils, including Derry, to

process recyclables. Paul Doherty initially owned City

Waste, but in 2004 he sold it to these men, Gerry Farmer and Gerry

O'Malley, from Armagh. Journalist Kevin Mullan says there was no

reason to believe City Waste was anything other than a good news

story. They were the poster boys, in terms

of their own industry. They were painted as extremely professional.

We assumed they were. Local press covered them and were quite gushing

about their investment. As was only correct, I suppose, in the sense

that they were employing people, they were making things here. But

little did we know what was coming down the line.

Sources have told Spotlight that investigators have found rubbish

belonging to City Waste buried in one of Paul Doherty's quarries. We

understand making the connection was a painstaking process and, in a

statement in June, the DoE said the material was shredded, to disguise

where it came from, Gerry Farmer, Gerry O'Malley and Paul Doherty

strenuously deny any allegations of criminality.

So how did 500,000 tonnes of illegal waste get there? For the last four

months, we have been piecing together evidence, including

eye-witness accounts, which suggest that, whoever was responsible, this

was a complex and sophisticated scam. We have tracked down former

workers from inside both companies. No-one has spoken publicly about

what they say happened. Until now. Many of those processing rubbish at

City Waste were Polish. Former workers we have interviewed have

asked that we disguise their identities. "Tomak" says that,

instead of being transported to lawful landfill, rubbish was

shredded on site, loaded on to small dumper trucks, covered over and

hidden with clay and dumped on the Mobuoy Road.

I seen it being loaded and, even when they passed you, you know, you

seen rubbish sticking out. Sometimes it was covered better than others,

but you, you knew what it was. When the dumper trucks left the

yard, what happened? They went out and the only place

they went was either across to Campsie Sand Gravel or up to the

dump. The "dump" is a disused quarry,

owned by Paul Doherty, on the same side of the road as City Waste and

accessed through the shared gate. Our source says you could not miss

the trucks coming and going between the two companies.

From what I seen, it was going on every day. There were dump trucks

going every day, bar the days that NIEA was there.

The NIEA is the Environment Agency within the Department of the

Environment. It is their responsibility to keep an eye on

sites like these and prevent illegal dumping. But according to our

source, it was easy to get around the regulators. And when the

inspectors left? That was business as usual - get the

dumpers going. I had managed to track down another

worker from inside City Waste who claimed to have witnessed rubbish

from the company actually being illegally buried in Paul Doherty's

quarries. I wanted to hear in detail his account of what he saw and Pawel

agreed to be interviewed, in Poland's second city, Krakow.

TRANSLATION: I was a witness, I have basically seen it happening. Plus,

everybody was talking about it. It was basically shredded waste.

Domestic waste, food, plastic bottles - anything you can find in

any waste, basically. We have been told the site manager

in charge of co-ordinating the dumping operation at City Waste was

also Polish - this man, Radoslaw Dudzic, also known as Radek. Gerry

Farmer and Gerry O'Malley were company directors, but our sources

have told us that Radek was given a free hand to direct the Polish

workers. So Radek coordinated the dumping?

He told the people what to do. They didn't do anything without him

telling them what to do. He was the one in charge. He was the one who

was responsible for most of the things going on on site, And the

people he was employing, all of them were Polish people.

According to workers, instead of being processed properly, vast

quantities of waste would simply vanish from the site overnight.

At the end of the week, when you left, the shed would have been full

of rubbish. And you come back in on a Monday, there would have been

about half the rubbish gone. But waste was hidden in other ways

on the site, too. We have obtained a copy of the notice issued to City

Waste when their licence was revoked in June. It reveals that the site

itself is effectively built on waste. Tens of thousands of tonnes

of were hidden in different parts of the site, beneath bales, behind

sheds and even used to construct banks at the edge of the yard.

Spotlight understands that the NIEA asked Gerry Farmer whether he

noticed these banks growing around him. He insists that he did not. Our

ex-workers claim the illegal dumping was an open secret. How much

knowledge do you think that the management had about what was going

on? They knew everything. They knew

where the rubbish was going and what was going on.

Gerry Farmer was there all, all the time. The more He was, he was one of

the first ones in the yards in the morning and one of the last to leave

at night. Than The amount of cameras they had over the place.. They say

they do not know what was going on. It is lies.

Is it possible that Gerry Farmer and Gerry O'Malley were not aware of the

illegal operation on site? I think, no. I think they knew. I

think they must have known. We tried to speak to Radek Dudzic,

Gerry Farmer and Gerry O'Malley about their actions at City Waste.

Radek did not respond to our e-mails or letters. Sources say he has left

the country and is building a new house in Poland. Company directors

Gerry Farmer and Gerry O'Malley told us, via their solicitor, that they

could not comment, due to the ongoing investigation. In fact,

there is no legal reason as to why they cannot speak to us I mean, they

can if they want to, so I am just coming up to Gerry Farmer's house.

He lives in Donegal, just across the border.There is no response at the

door. If there is someone in, they are not answering. So, I am going to

leave another letter for Gerry Farmer, which is just one in a long

list we have sent to him. Gerry Farmer's car was parked at his gate.

A pair of workman's boots lay just inside the front door and there were

fresh footprints in the snow. We're just on our way now down to the

South Armagh border now where Gerry O'Malley lives. Let's see if he will

speak with us. Hello? Good morning. Alys Harte from BBC Spotlight. I'd

just like to ask you a few questions please. The lights at the house have

just gone out so I'm not sure we're going to get a response. We've

written letters and emails to him asking questions about Mobuoy Road.

We haven't had any answers to our questions. It doesn't look like they

want to speak with us. What happened at Mobuoy Road has serious

implications for all of us. Since its closure, the DOE has been

cleaning up the City Waste site in an effort to prevent potential

pollutants from reaching the river. When rainwater seeps through dumps

like this, gases and bacteria from the decomposing waste dissolve in

the water. This highly toxic run-off, known as leachate, can then

contaminate streams and rivers. Since the investigation started,

pollution has been discovered in this tributary which runs just

beside where City Waste used to operate. Dean Blackwood has been

fishing the River Faughan for years. This is my river. I've grown up on

it since I suppose 45, 50 years, I remember my father brought me out

here and I learned to fish. Now you can see I'm bringing my sun out to

fish. I hope some day he will bring his children but to the river. I

think it's just something that's always been in me, just sitting with

a stick on a line on a hook and lemon curd sandwiches, that was just

that was my river and it still is my river. Dean believes the planning

authorities let Paul Doherty off the hook. Oh! I lost him. Doherty

quarried into his land here along the river for over a decade. These

quarries needed planning permission. Which Doherty didn't have. He may be

a keen fisherman, but Dean also wears another hat. Up until March of

last year, he was a Principal Planning Officer at the DOE. Since

his early retirement, he's taken a special interest in what happened

here at Mobuoy Road, and how huge quarries have operated for years

here with no planning permission whatsoever. They are quarrying

without permission. And it is important to realise at this stage

that planning law does not forbid that as such. It is these

unauthorised quarried holes which have become home to huge amounts of

illegal waste. The problem, I suppose, has been that they have

been allowed to continue to operate and quarry for a period of around 11

years, or possibly more. Do you think that without these

unauthorised holes in the ground, do you think that the illegal dumping

would have happened? It couldn't have happened, no, it couldn't have

happened. In fact, 60% of all current quarry operations in

Northern Ireland have no planning permission. Dean thinks the Planning

Department has a lot to answer for at Mobuoy Road. By operating that

policy of not taking action against unauthorised development, it clearly

leaves the department complicit in the damage that's being caused here

and permanent threat that is now being posed to our river. The

Planning Department says unauthorised mineral extraction is

of concern to it, but suggested we ask the quarry industry why it was

so common. They say it places a strain on existing staff resources

but are restructuring to allocate more resources to enforcement. They

fully accept that a lack of joined-up thinking between planning

and the Environment Agency meant they failed to deal with this

illegal activity effectively. But it wasn't only planning who took their

eye off the ball at Mobuoy Road. A recent independent report

commissioned by the Minister into the failings of the DOE in this case

found that both planners and the site regulators failed to do their

job. The author Chris Mills found that lax planning provided holes in

the ground that were then exploited, and a regulator that wasn't looking

closely enough. Spotlight has uncovered evidence that shows that

directors from both companies should have been on the department's radar.

Paul Doherty was prosecuted by the Department for pollution arising

from illegal dumping at Mobuoy Road in 2000. This file shows

investigators found a dead calf, car exhausts, tyres and computer screens

dumped at the site and described the pollution as "very serious" and of

"high severity". Gerry Farmer and Gerry O'Malley were convicted in

2012 for illegally storing over half a million tyres. In both cases, the

prosecutions were taken by the DOE. Dr Ciara Brennan is an environmental

lawyer with expertise in this area. Regardless of who is responsible for

burying waste at Mobuoy Road, she thinks the current system makes

illegal dumping attractive to criminals. Landfill tax has

gradually increased over the last few years. It is now at about ?72 a

tonne. It is designed to be a disincentive for companies and waste

management companies to get rid of their waste by landfill. But at the

same time, it is also an incentive for people to try to avoid paying

any landfill tax whatsoever. There are very big incentives for

companies to try to avoid paying landfill tax, it is considered an

overhead. But whenever you come to a site like this where we know there

is over half a million tonnes of illegally dumped waste, that is half

a million tonnes of waste that have not been subject to landfill tax.

And that is tens of millions of pounds the public purse has missed

out on. And that is before we take into account what they were paid by

the council to dispose of the waste in the first place. Exactly. So they

have essentially profited twice. When the gates of City Waste were

dramatically closed last summer, it came as a shock to many. But it

shouldn't have been a shock to the Environment Agency. Under Freedom of

Information, Spotlight has obtained paperwork from site visits by the

Agency for the last seven years. These inspection reports show that

the Agency knew for years that this was a problematic site. City Waste

broke the same rules over and over. And the Agency's response was weak.

Any written warnings given by inspectors seemed to fall on deaf

ears and ultimately did little to bring the company into line. This

was a site heaving with compliance issues. These photos show how waste

got so out of hand, the company had to build a shed around the rubbish.

It reached crisis point in 2010 when a major fire occurred on site. --

three major fires occurred on site. E-mails between the Environment

Agency and City Waste catalogue a series of compliance demands from

the NIEA and a series of excuses from City Waste. I am in the USA and

the compliance manager is on vacation. Unfortunately due to me

getting delayed by a hurricane, this didn't happen. In March 2011, the

NIEA are beginning to run out of patience. I would warn you this

level of tolerance is now nearing an end. The new boss at the Agency

agrees that more could and should have been done. We can't argue that

we didn't do a good enough job here. There is a serious level of illegal

dumping, there is a track record of noncompliance at the waste facility

site. We do need to fix our system. But was it good enough in this

instance? I wasn't here at the time. But you are in charge now. I am in

charge now. What I am doing is looking at this case. We will take

advice from the Mills Report and we need to get tougher and better on

those who are breaking the law. It wasn't until Spring 2012 that the

truth of the illegal dump began to surface. A planning official noticed

methane gas actually bubbling up through a disused quarry - a sign

that decomposing rubbish was fermenting underground. But the

Mills Report listed a string of opportunities missed by the

department going back years, that could have led to its discovery much

earlier. During our investigation we

uncovered a letter to the NIEA from a government agency back in 2008.

The letter clearly warned of the possibility of material being

shredded and disposed of on site. This should have been a major red

flag to the authorities. I asked the author of the letter,

John McCartney, of the Loughs Agency, what he had expected to

happen. I suppose in an ideal world an investigation undertaken, a

subsequent prosecution or a response to say there wasn't an issue, that

we were misinformed or our concerns were unjustified. The NIEA says is

has no record of having received the Loughs Agency letter. This is a

government body telling the agency that they suspect that there is

illegal dumping and shredding of waste, which is exactly what

happened. I can't change the past. I know we need to do better. That is

very clear. John is concerned about pollution already detected in a

tributary that flows into the River Faughan. There is a real fear that

we could wake up one morning and find the fish population have been

wiped out in the river. That is the absolute worst case scenario, but in

the absence of any real information, we have to consider that as a

possibility. Ciara Brennan says whoever the illegal operators might

have been, she is shocked at the response of the Department, given

the combination of warning signs. It amazes me that no meaningful

enforcement action was taken before 2012. And the fact that these

reports and these warnings go back almost ten years is highly

concerning because essentially the illegal operator was able to

continue to make money, to make huge profits and continue polluting and

harming the environment without really any ramifications, despite

all of these warning signs for so many years. The head of Friends of

the Earth says the DOE is dysfunctional. Here we have a

classic case that should have been predicted, where strong agents

within the system were calling for action for many years and those

agents within the system were neutralised or completely ignored. I

think these things are inevitable when we have what I would describe

as a complete breakdown in environmental regulation in Northern

Ireland. We'll probably never know all the

secrets of the dump at Mobuoy Road. The notice that closed City Waste

said suspected asbestos was found on site. We've spoken to sources who

say they saw what they believe was chemical waste and medical waste

dumped on site. The truth is, no-one knows. Since the licence was revoked

back in June, the NIEA has been investigating Gerry O'Malley, Gerry

Farmer, and quarry boss Paul Doherty and his wife Margaret. But in a

remarkable twist to the story, Spotlight has discovered that within

months of the beginning of the NIEA investigation, Paul Doherty sold one

of the quarries that harboured a lot of the illegal waste. The law says

that if you own the land, you're responsible for any illegal dumping

on it. A Polish man, Waldemar Piecki, bought the contaminated

field for ?26,000 in November 2012 - lands Paul Doherty had himself paid

?200,000 for in 2009. It's unclear as to whether or not Mr Piecki, who

is said to be a vagrant, knew the land contained illegal waste before

he bought it. Paul Doherty refuses to answer any of our questions. Like

Gerry Farmer and Gerry O'Malley, he strenuously denies all allegations

of criminality or that his actions resulted in environmental harm,

public health risk or implications for the public purse. His solicitor

cites the ongoing criminal investigation as a reason not to

comment, but there's no legal reason why he can't speak to us if he wants

to. Hello, Mr Doherty. My name is Alys

Harte. I'm a reporter from BBC Spotlight. I'd just like to ask you

how half a million tonnes of illegal waste ended up in your land on the

Mobuoy Road. I've nothing to say to you. You can go and speak to my

solicitor, please. How did half a million tonnes of illegal waste end

up in your land? Would you go and speak to my solicitor, please? We

have done. I've written letters to you for months, Mr Doherty. Look,

would you please leave the golf course. You're standing on a green.

That's a putting green. Mr Doherty... We're all wearing golf

shoes. You're not. Please get off the golf course. You must be able to

explain how the waste ended up in your land. Mr Doherty... Would you

please leave this golf course? Do we have to call the guards? If we have

to, that's what we'll have to do. Would you like to talk to us off the

golf course, Mr Doherty? Please leave the golf course. It's clear

that lack of effective regulation played a major role in events at

Mobuoy Road. The NIEA and Derry Council both have a responsibility

to make sure that when it comes to waste management, people stick to

the rules. How waste is disposed of in future has been mapped out by a

group of seven North West councils. And just three miles from the Mobuoy

Road, plans are under way to build a large-scale plant that would turn

waste into gas. But the technology is controversial and some locals are

petitioning against the plant. I'm not just coming for Hallowe'en! Up

for grabs is a ?500 million contract - the biggest of its kind in

Northern Ireland's history. A consortium of companies, including

Derry-based bin collectors Brickkiln Waste Ltd, has been declared

"preferred bidder". When we spoke to local councillor and former Derry

Mayor Shaun Gallagher, he was leading the charge for the new

plant. Throughout his career he has taken a special interest in waste

management. He has represented local government on waste matters at the

Executive, and until recently advised the Minister as vice chair

of the Northern Ireland Waste Programme Board. I live here, where

the plantains. -- where the plant is. I am across the river from it. I

am not going to poison myself, I am not going to poison my children, and

if somebody can come up with a better plan, we are all ears. But

what do we know about Brickkiln? Spotlight has discovered that the

company has been involved in a legal dispute with Derry Council over

accusations of overcharging. We've seen a leaked legal opinion which

details that Derry City Council received an anonymous tip-off from a

whistle-blower back in 2011. According to the document, the

council commissioned an independent investigation into the allegations,

which concluded that Brickkiln appeared to be charging the council

for waste that was not theirs. The leaked document details how CCTV

footage appeared to show Brickkiln lorries arriving in their yard

already partially loaded with waste and being topped up with Derry City

Council waste. It says they wrote to Brickkiln accusing them of passing

off waste from other sources as theirs. In the barrister's opinion,

the evidence was sufficient to terminate the contract. Derry City

Council officials declined to be interviewed for this programme, and

claimed not yet to be in a position to release the investigation report

to Spotlight.? But in writing, they told us that very serious

consideration was given to terminating the contract with

Brickkiln and that they had referred the matter to the police and to the

NIEA. The council say that no criminal activity could be

determined, and in the end, they chose to settle the case with

Brickkiln. But the council did confirm that it withheld ?30,000

initially billed by Brickkiln because the company was unable to

provide satisfactory documentation for the invoices in question. I

asked Shaun Gallagher about the council's legal dispute with

Brickkiln. I know for a fact that legal dispute was settled out of

court. Derry Council had evidence that Brickkiln was charging for

waste that was not theirs. I am not aware of that. As elected members,

we haven't got any of that detail. You haven't been told about the... I

am not aware of it, no, I haven't. Well, Derry Council commissioned the

report. I am not going into it because we have very strict

guidelines given to us as elected members as far as the North West bid

is concerned and we can't comment until that process is processed and

basically if you put those questions to them... I know, but you should

know this, you are on the waste management group.

Shaun Gallagher was the Derry City representative on the coalition of

councils who decided the half a billion pound contract. Derry

Council has confirmed to Spotlight that all elected members were

advised of the findings of the independent investigation. The legal

dispute lasted at least a year and a half,?and an argument about

arbitration ended up in the High Court. There, the judge referred to

the council's contention that Brickkiln had engaged in possibly

criminal acts - an allegation that Brickkiln denied. At the end of the

day, I am not aware of any of that. Should you have been made aware of

it? I am not going to comment, on record or anything on it. But why

not, if this is the company that is involved in the consortium? You know

what is happening here? Is this an ambush, is this an ambush on myself?

No. Well, I feel like I am being ambushed here, so we will probably

end this now. But you are the Derry City Council representative, that is

why I am asking. No. We will just end it now, OK, thank you. After the

interview, Shaun Gallagher wrote to Spotlight and asked us not to

broadcast any part of it. He claimed the questions were not what he

expected. He says he now accepts he must have missed the detail of the

report given by the council about the Brickkiln dispute and puts that

down to human air. -- mistake. Brickkiln Waste Ltd has three sister

companies based at their headquarters on Heather Road. The

director of all four companies is a man called Thomas McGlinchey. During

our investigation, Spotlight has discovered that one of those

companies, Brickkiln Civil Engineering Ltd, was convicted of

illegal dumping in Donegal last year. The company pleaded guilty to

the offences, which took place on the Inishowen Penninsula. Brickkiln

Civil Engineering Ltd also had a 2006 conviction under the Waste and

Contaminated Land Order. We wrote to the director of Brickkiln, Tommy

McGlinchey, asking him about the dispute with Derry City Council. His

solicitor wrote back and said Brickkiln Waste Ltd had to issue

proceedings in the High Court against Derry Council and that this

action was settled by the parties in 2013 by the payment of a substantial

sum to Brickkiln. They also said that they could not comment on the

ongoing procurement as the project has not yet closed. We asked them

about the convictions on both sides of the border and whether they had

informed the councils and the North West management group about them.

The solicitor confirmed the convictions but said they related to

Brickkiln Civil Engineering Ltd, which "is not part of any

consortium, nor has it tendered to the North West Management Group".

What they didn't say, of course, is that the two companies both have a

director called Thomas McGlinchey and are based at the same address at

Heather Road. We asked the North West Waste Management Group if they

were aware of Brickkiln Civil Engineering's convictions. In a

statement they said, "Before final award of contract, we would complete

a considerable number of further due diligence checks" and "we are making

inquiries in relation to the events relating to Brickkiln" and that "it

would be inappropriate to comment further until fully appraised of the

facts". What's clear is that we need to learn lessons from how scenic

countryside around Mobuoy Road has become home to one of Europe's

biggest illegal dumps. Taxpayers can expect to cough up in the region of

?100 million to clear out contaminated lands at Mobuoy Road.

As the Department of the Environment considers criticisms of its

regulation, Derry is left to ponder the unknown, buried underneath its

feet.