Unfortunately, investigative journalism is a very rare thing these days, and few stories that aren’t verbatim given to many of these people never make the news. I have had great difficulty with some “journalists” over the years, who didn’t appear to understand that a banned rat poison buried in accessible waste that the birds could easily access was bad news, and somehow believed that there might be another cause of death! 😥
They also appeared more interested to take the story of the chemical polluter, my “claim” to their apparent “facts” of the case, when all it was was desperate lying spin. I don’t waste my time with these people anymore, or their pro business, anti environmentalist agenda. Fuck em! The point of this website was to put the evidence in the public domain, and almost everyone that I have come across believes the facts that I am telling on here and that this place and the activities that went on here should never have been allowed.
When the lying scum at Albright and Wilson applied to continue their British Government chemical weapon manufacture dumping at Rattlechain lagoon under the application for a licence, they had the audacity to proclaim that it was a “safe” method of dealing with “small quantities of phosphorus” by “natural oxidation”. None of these statements are factual or accurate, and that can be proven with direct evidence. This licence was waived through with Government help to continue their cover up of weapons of mass destruction- British made in Oldbury.
What an absolute crock of shit! The process was neither “safe” and the amounts were not “small”. Albright and Wilson liars of the chemical industry.
This licence was of course passed in 1978 and numbered SL31 by a bunch of imbecile councillors of West Midlands County Council under the direction of the cretin waste county disposal officer Ken Harvey.
An investigative FOI request to the site regulators , the environment agency by itself revealed that the quantities were “large amounts” as expressed in tonnes.
I did however manage to obtain information from a National newspaper journalist to probe the Rhodia liars and this is what they stated. Their statements are made in red and his follow ups in blue.
1) “Prior to 1974, we have estimations of levels of white phosphorus”. – what are these estimations?
The Cremer & Warner Report (I understand you already have a copy of this report) allows us to estimate the total quantity of waste deposited prior to 1974 as 375,000 tonnes. That report also analysed the sediments and derived an average concentration of white phosphorus of 0.0035%. Using this data we estimate the quantity of white phosphorus to be around 13 tonnes.”
2) From 1974 to 2006 all deposits have been recorded and figures have been shared and monitored by the EA. This information is publicly available. Note that we closed the site in 2006 following a change of technology which resulted in the elimination of the primary calcium phosphate waste stream. The landfill site is not full. What is the total amount of waste dumped over this 32 year period and how much was white phosphorus?
The abstraction of the precise tonnage of waste deposited between 1974 and 2006 requires significant time to be spent processing the records. To answer your question in a time to meet your deadline we have used our experience to derive an estimated total tonnage of 265,000 tonnes and have applied the measured average concentration from the C&W report to estimate 9 tonnes of white phosphorus.
3) We have previously carried out some analytical tests on waste sediments. Results are entirely consistent with the requirements of our licence.
– when were these tests carried out and could we see the results?
The most extensive series of tests were carried out in 1990 by Cremer & Warner and the results are given on pages 38 and 50 of their report.
The results confirm high levels of calcium and phosphate (to be expected – calcium phosphate was the primary waste stream) and very low levels of white phosphorus (ranging from 0.00004% to 0.0122%, with an average of 0.0035%).”
The problem with Rhodia, and most likely Tom Dutton, who is now retired as a former director of this company is that the answers given are completely disingenuous. The Cremer and Warner report was a very poor analysis of the site, with limited readings taken for white phosphorus in the sediment. IT IS ALSO A FACT THAT THIS CONSULTANCY WERE APPRAISED OF THE LAGOON BY ALBRIGHT AND WILSON THEMSELVES, WITH THE LIAR PETER BLOORE BEING THE CONTACT AT THIS TIME.
For example, the small lagoon was not even probed for this chemical as it was falsely claimed that this was “the clean side” where water could be pumped out to the Birmingham Mainline Canal by discharge consent. The egregious report failed to examine that the site was once one pit, and this was only spilt into two when the water levels required raising because the waste mountain was getting too high to keep under water. THIS WAS BEFORE WASTE LICENSING, SO THE FIGURES OR “ESTIMATIONS” NEVER EVEN ACCOUNTED FOR THIS.
Average concentrations are a joke, and another completely failed but useful lie. You cannot derive concentrations of a chemical that has been mixed, spread, pumped and repumped into different areas on a regular or semi regular basis, and some areas not at all. The discharge pipes into the lagoon were moved over time, and so any readings taken were transient and not accurate unless a total grid system across the site had been used. IT WAS NOT. The calculation that Dutton applies here is totally bogus and is not accurate. NEITHER HE NOR RHODIA HAD GOT A FUCKING CLUE AS TO THE VOLUME OF WHITE PHOSPHORUS IN THE LAGOON, BUT IT LOOKS BETTER TO MAKE UP SOME PATHETIC SCIENTIFIC ATTEMPT TO DO SO, WHEN IN FACT THAT “SCIENCE” DOES NOT STAND UP TO REAL SCRUTINY OF THE FACTS.
OBVIOUSLY DUTTON ATTEMPTED SIMILAR LIES WHEN BIRDS HAD INGESTED LETHAL AMOUNTS ON WHITE PHOSPHORUS, SYSTEMICALLY POISONED, WHICH WERE IN MICRO GRAM QUANTITIES.
The evasiveness of this company can be measured in the email below to my genuine questions. I think it’s not unfair to conclude that industrial scientists are not used to being asked awkward questions.
Sent: 29 May 2010 18:59
To: DUTTON, Tom
Subject: a couple of questions
My advice to anyone with a similar issue of a toxic problem landfill in their back yard is to tell the story yourself and show all of your receipts, as at least then the story will not be spiked by a bunch of cocksucking industrial shillers .
