In 1967, Douglas Gowan discovered a deformed calf at a farm in South Wales. The environmental campaigner spent the next five decades trying to blow the whistle on the secret toxic waste dumping he discovered had been taking place for years at a nearby landfill site, and the devastating impact of these ‘”forever chemicals” on the food chain. Gowan died in 2018, but his extensive files form the basis of the BBC’s disturbing 10-part series, “Buried: The Last Witness”.
After receiving the tip-off, married investigative reporters Dan Ashby and Lucy Taylor teamed up with Welsh actor Michael Sheen to delve into Monsanto’s illegal disposal of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) – fire-resistant chemicals used in everything from paint to paper before eventually being banned in the late 1970s.
Before he died, Gowan had given a seven-hour taped interview to Sheen. The actor had come across an article mentioning Gowan’s work online and was so shocked by the scandal (and lack of coverage) that he travelled to meet him to listen to his story.
While Ashby and Taylor’s “relentless fawning over Sheen made me want to shred my own ears”, said Fiona Sturges in the Financial Times, the trio nonetheless make for compelling listening. The podcast is filled with “moments that will make you gasp”, not only because of the massive human and environmental cost, but also the “brazenness” of those responsible.
During his lifetime, Gowan was portrayed as a “crank and conspiracy theorist”. Through his recordings with Sheen, though, we hear how his tireless campaign to uncover the scandal cost him his marriage, friendships and, following persistent exposure to PCBs, his health.
The “mind-boggling” series has plenty of “terrifying” material, said Miranda Sawyer in The Guardian. However, it’s only when scientists are brought in to reveal the shocking levels of banned chemicals in soil samples at various locations across the world that “you start to feel sick”.
There is much to “take on board”, added Patricia Nicol in The Times. But what lingers long after the podcast has finished are the “bleakly sobering details about the trace chemicals in our water, land and food”.