Coroner says water authority ‘gambled with lives’

Coroner Michael Rose criticised the now defunct South West Water Authority for keeping quiet and not telling the residents of Camelford, north Cornwall, that 20,000 tonnes of aluminium sulphate had mistakenly been added to the drinking water.

The coroner branded the poisoning an “accident waiting to happen”, as he recorded a narrative verdict into the death of Carole Cross, 59, who was living locally at the time.

The disaster at the Lowermoor treatment works in July 1988 occurred when a relief lorry driver dumped the chemical in the wrong tank at the deserted yard.

Members of the public were not told for 16 days of the cause of the poisoning with the Authority insisting the water was safe to drink.

Many people reported rashes, diarrhoea, mouth ulcers and other health problems after drinking the water or bathing in it.

The water became so polluted in the first few hours that customers reported hairs sticking to their body like superglue as they got out of the bath.

Residents flooded the switchboard of the water authority but were told it was safe and it has been claimed some were even advised to boil the water, which increased the levels of aluminium still further.

In the years that followed, Mrs Cross experienced deteriorating health and died in hospital in Taunton in 2004.

It was only after her death it was found she was suffering from the rare neurological disorder cerebral amyloid angiopathy, which is usually associated with much older people with Alzheimer’s disease.

The inquest, which first began in November 2010, heard that a post-mortem examination later found high levels of aluminium in Mrs Cross’s brain. Experts said this was a factor in her death.

Mr Rose, who is the Coroner for West Somerset, said there was a “very real possibility” that the ingestion of aluminium by Mrs Cross had contributed to her death.

“I regard the failure of the Authority to visit every house after the incident to advise them to thoroughly flush their systems as a serious dereliction of duty,” he said.