Millpool West Bromwich#4 MARred by historic pollution and fake “clean up” – Part 2

 

THE PATHWAY AND RECEPTORS

In the preceding three posts, I have discussed the historic legacy of the polluting and incompetently run W H Keys factory specialising in bitumen based products. I have shown how this company imploded and the heavily contaminated site was taken on by administrators who then sold it to Developer Mar City Developments. 

Whilst the very grey area between their acquisition of the site and their application for a change of use from industrial to residential was submitted, in early to mid 2006 it was noted that serious contamination into the Millpool via the Hobnail Brook pathway was occurring.

This was as I would later find out via the FOI request to the Environment Agency, an issue which had happened before, being conclusively traced to the factory on the hill with swans and other birds being covered in pollution needing to be rescued.

All had been well at the site in terms of this, and for a number of years, a pair of swans had attempted to nest on the millpool, only thwarted by the rise in water levels during heavy rain which washes surface water through at a rapid rate via the brook and exits via the outfall into a continuation of the culverted brook and into The River Tame.

To counter this, swanwatch put in place a nesting raft on the pool in 2001. At this stage the pool was accessible by boat and the silt levels were not as they presently are, indicating that a great deal of material must have migrated into the pool towards the middle of the decade.

Some success followed for this pair and one year they had 6 cygnets without issue.

Tragedy struck however with the female swan looking ill in August 2005. On attempting to rescue her, she unfortunately died. I was in contact with top avian vet Martin Brown from Slimbridge, who agreed to undertake a post mortem, and the results show cause for concern with regards to Millpool.

I knew that this swan had not ever ventured far from the site in around 5 years of being there. She was therefore very parochial to this site and its contents in the silt and water.

The post mortem revealed no foul play. The swan had been in good condition and had a good weight. There was however a large tumour present in the left lung which had been bleeding. Some metallic fragments thought to be aluminium were present.

Now that I am aware of what W H Keys were producing on their site, I would like to point out some of the statements made in the safety data sheets for the three COMAH chemicals for which they were regulated. It is worth pointing out however that there had been extensive contamination of ground and groundwater for decades at this site, all flowing into the silty millpool of fluctuating levels, making this pool contaminated itself by definition as the only unculverted receptacle of the Hobnail Brook.

orthocresolphenolmix SDS

The COMAH chemicals below are also extremely hazardous in the environment, but also can be short lived to trace.

cresylic acid SDS

LIGHTS SDS

Her mate found a new partner fairly quickly and in 2006 they attempted to nest in the reeds near to the raft we had put out. It was at the start of nesting around March/April that things began to go wrong.

The male swan began to be covered in a greasy material that affected waterproofing meaning that he was unable to stay in the water due to his feathers becoming severely matted.

What was apparent was the black/yellowish mixture pouring out of the culvert on the millpool from the Hobnail Brook. Of course with the brook being buried, this was the first visible view of what was coming down here. The following pictures although of not great polaroid quality do show the issue. The boom was placed by the EA, though with heavy rain, as seen in previous pollution issues, this had little to no real effect of preventing pollution. One EA officer who attended claimed that it looked like “white spirit”.

 

The male swan was admitted to Wychbold swan rescue, as other swans had been in the previous incidents. Whilst his mate was still on the nest, you can see the effects on the feathers. Once cleaned up, he was put back, only for the same to have to happen again!

 

The environment agency were utterly useless. Of particular note was one Jim Woodhall, pollution control officer, and also I believe ex of the Walsall council Hazardous waste unit. This was the same bloke who was also at this time “responding” to issues that I was reporting at Rattlechain and the deaths there, which we would obviously find out … eventually… were being caused by the white phosphorus in the pool, dumped there by the industrial polluter. Not that the EA ever contributed anything to that knowledge base, FFS! 

This bloke on that occasion told me

“phosphorus isn’t toxic, I’m a chemist, I did A level chemistry.” 🙄 

He professed zero knowledge of the previous incidents outlined arising from the proven W H Keys source and the pollutants that affected swans in the same way as this incident. What made matters worse were the unknown nature of the contaminants and how to describe them. The viscous nature of the chemicals made them appear like cooking oil or even “sewage” which we now know they were not. Reports therefore did not help confirming the chemical, and Woodhall’s lack of knowledge was the crux of why it continued to unravel.

The cygnets hatched and after this it became a disaster when they took to the water.

The Express and Star article from 13/6/2006 is shown below. Not for the first or last time would I be wading into chemical contaminated crap to rescue ailing birds.

There are points to be made from this article.

• The “open sewer” claim is quite correct- a spillway for anything from a culverted brook to spill into and then exit via the River Tame.
• The “piece of wood” was the raft we put out- the female swan clinging to this with her cygnets out of the water which was destroying their waterproofing from the chemicals within it.
• The swan “attacked by a dog” was the male swan- this was not accurate. He had allegedly been “attacked” but had no injuries from this, he was however “oiled” as the picture above attests.
• The EA and Severn Trent may have been investigating sewage- they were not investigating W H Keys and the activities on that site, which was the problem.
• The water level plunge is correct. When we had put the raft on a few years earlier, it was accessible by boat. I had great difficultly getting buoyant to get across to the raft and had to plough through silt just to get there.
• I do not know if Severn Stench found sewage, but that is not what was on the birds, and I smelt none on myself I have to say!
• The mention of other factors are not accurate. This unfortunately is typical of many pollution investigations where the wrong chemicals are identified, or more importantly not identified. Take for example the many red herrings put in the way at Rattlechain, before we got to the truth about white phosphorus.
• What was strange about some of the contaminants is that they were jet black- as seen above. Other observations were of exploding colourful bursts of silvery light in the water.

All Woodhall kept parroting was “iron sesquioxide”– basically rusty water. I continuously along with others told him that he was talking bollocks. I even asked for evidence of what he was testing for at The Millpool and also the Hobnail Brook after this garbage began to get untenable. Why had this “natural” chemical suddenly arrived at this site causing serious harm to water birds but had not done so for many years? How can it possibly have been unconnected to events occurring at the previous source of contamination causing the same issue via the same pathway from the  bitumen based products manufacturer undergoing “remediation”? 

The following are examples supplied of what he was testing for- none of them the chemicals from Keys, and none of the results would point to that source either. None of the solids in the millpool- the contaminated silt were being tested, which is the same issue problem the EA demonstrated at Rattlechain. This is another issue with the EA and their inability to tie down specific chemicals, or set testable limits- as I found out with them also allowing discharge of water from Rattlechain into The Birmingham Canal.

 

 

 

 

It was possible to take samples from the brook further downstream of Keys. For example where it crosses onto the field in Gordon Avenue.

All of the cygnets died. It was also later noted that the culvert had began to give off hot material with clouds of “smoke” billowing out visibly. I now take that to be material connected to the “thermal desorption” work being undertaken with the contaminated soil. Where else could this have come from? It defies belief that it was unconnected to this which was happening at the same time, and had not happened before or since.

The pair of swans were relocated away from this site, but the issues continued with around 15-20 other swans landing on the site and having the same issues. Some of these flew out to other pools, meaning that we had to keep track of where they flew out to because they would soon have waterproofing issues. They situation became ridiculous with a 50 mile round journey to Wychbold swan rescue.

Another article appeared in the 24/11/2007 Express and Star

Some points I would like to make about this article.

• The fat and cooking oil was a then best guess given the lack of information coming from the Environment agency. At this point I knew nothing of the W H Keys situation- why would I or the chemicals involved, which was all being conducted behind closed doors and via a culvert that made it impossible to see from where the source originated?
• By now I had been told about previous incidents by members of the public who had recalled the issues of the late 80’s/early 90’s. I had yet to substantiate these, but the EA FOI request showed them to be correct.
• As for the EA comment, this shows the problem. No information of any use, just speculation.

As the farce continued I complained to Sandwell Council, The EA and just about everyone else as I had with Rattlechain, all to little avail. By now I had exhausted most avenues with organisations that were not interested.

Whilst this was going on, the houses given permission were now being constructed.

The next leveller was a puff piece in The Sunday Mercury dated 6/7/2008

This was Mar City boasting about their alleged “remediation” of the site, their experimental shit thermal desorption technology, and how wonderful they had been in “cleaning up” the contaminated site.

 

• The “greasy, grime-filled Black country site” was of course Malcolm Grainger’s ACME chemical muppet factory, aka W H Keys.
• It was only “written off” for industrial use by Mar City who applied for a change of use using dubious tactics and suspect “remediation”.
• To where was the “blast out” of grease and oils, I think I know. 😡
• The first, and should be the last to use it. It was a scam, a lie and a fraud, and the environmental impact was flushed down the Hobnail Brook, you lying fucking wanker.
• The rest of this shit journalistic piece is just an advertisement for the Solihull scum.
• The housing associations are another part of the green credential hoax and fraud promoted by the political class.

Incandescent with rage, I contacted The Sunday Mercury to reveal the truth about Mar City’s fake claims of wonderful remediation. A week later on 13/7/2008 the following appeared to set the record straight.

The no comment from this company says it all. 

The spin PR continued with the fake “awards” ceremonies associated with this sector. These are the type of event where perhaps three companies are invited to enter themselves into a “competition” each paying an upfront fee to attend some fancy dinner, well away from their scene of pollution- in this case, the Grosvenor Hotel in London. This shite was known as “Key Gardens”- who in their right fucking mind would even want it to be associated with the company that had left behind the contaminated shithole that Mar Shitty further despoiled?

The streets arising from the development were as follows, named precociously as they usually are, in this instance after Cumbrian hillocks, including Skiddaw Drive, not to be confused with the brilliant Sandwell skidder. I bet they don’t have bituminous waste arising anywhere near there.

The demise of Mar City and the Ryans. 

Karma is a wonderful thing. Mar Shitty continued their brownfield land building in places such as Tipton and West Bromwich, but all was not going well behind the scenes, and the couple at the helm of it appeared to be falling from grace.

An eye watering loan was given to them via HSBC of £10 million in 2015, as reported HERE.  

Quite what this was all about is of course all part of the very murky world of business and moving things around- like contaminated buildings for example. 😛 😆 😆

Patrick and Margaret Ryan resigned as directors and relinquished their executive responsibilities within the group they founded in 1984 on 10th December 2015 but remained as major shareholders.

On 24th May 2016 administrators were appointed and once again a Rayment was at the helm, as with W H Keys, how strange? Official records confirm them dissolved on 20th September 2022.

One does wonder where the Government money went with this supposedly thriving business to build houses?

The Ryans together hold a string of dissolved and insolvent businesses, many with the same MAR initials. Many of their company sites, some heavily contaminated like that at the former T & S Element site very near to Millpool as it happens, were left in a state of limbo, and one in Great Bridge unfinished from the same clone company Aurora Living Properties leaves some who bought homes still attempting to finish the unfinished estate. 

As for the Irish couple, they even had the guile to attempt a quite ludicrous claim against HSBC in that a “friend” had given them the loan of £10 million in bad faith!

“His Honour Judge Parfitt, sitting as a High Court Judge, found that it was “unsubstantiated”, “inconsistent” and “speculative” and as a “Hail Mary” last ditch claim it did not fulfil the statutory requirements for proceeding.”

You can read more on that one HERE. 

I can honestly say the heart bleeds. 😆 😆 😆

MILLPOOL AND SURROUNDING TODAY.

There have been no swans attempting to breed at this site since this time. Few have landed on there and do not stay there for long.

There have been window dressing efforts is all I can call them by groups set up with yet more Government money such as “The Hateley Heath Initiative” and now “Hateley Cross” to plant trees. A total waste of time and money in terms of the elephant in the room which is the contaminated pool. Sandwell council have even now put forward this site as one of the bogus “biodiversity net gain” areas where scum polluting developers like Mar Shitty can transfer sums or bungs into useless further rubbish like more trees no doubt. The council have been cutting down trees around this site over the last year, and so the “gain” is an utter fraud on their part as well.

What this site needs is not platitudes like the one above, but actions to remove the contaminated legacy of industrialism. I think it is probably impossible to desilt this pool due to costs and the contamination potential of disturbance that would heavily impact The River Tame.

The only option is some form of geotextile membrane, which would at least have some effect so long as no more pollution arises from The Hobnail Brook. I cannot see this ever being undertaken however.

The pool water is increasingly disappearing to eventually just become a millbrook, or continuation of the Hobnail Brook. Perhaps at this stage when the silt is so prominent, it will be culverted and buried like the rest of it. I wonder what will hide under that “shade”?

More window dressing on top of the polluted Hobnail Brook at Hateley Heath shows even more absurdity. For example this ornamental swan on the path of the contaminated brook looks as though it is sitting on a black puddle of pollution, just like the Millpool swans.

 

We even get this Garden City-esque symbol rubbing our noses further in the warped urban planners mind. All the pollution is hidden underneath our feet, and things look green but as long as the pollution isn’t visible, that’s ok.

SOME CONCLUSIONS

• This issue shows the brownfield building scam for the fraud that it is. All too often we see prick politicians and their media mouthpieces lining up to pour praise over their wonderful new “green” technology which is a fraud like this one.
• Housing developers have an easy job of manipulating the planning system for their own ends- hire some environmental consultant to make up what you want them to say, and Bob’s your uncle.
• Public money is given to individuals and companies without proper checks on what they are doing and their credibility. More scrutiny is needed.
• The Environment Agency are not a fit body to protect the environment, comment on planning applications where the environment is directly threatened, and the quality of their employees in the field leaves much to be desired when they are unfamiliar with troubled repeat offenders.
• They are unable to take accurate real time results, scrutinise these with past incidents which they should be able to access immediately, and test for specific chemicals of interest tied to pollution incidents.
• Environmental health officers in local authorities are quick to pass the buck to the EA to get themselves off the hook. The quality of those in Sandwell council leaves much to be desired also.
• Neither of these bodies ever tested the pool’s sediment to characterise the chemicals it was/is polluted with- that would of course mean that they had to do something, which they do not want to, so leave it in situ.
• W H Keys were one of the most incompetently run factories in the area and probably the whole UK, and those like Malcom Grainger should have been disqualified from management and directorship when it was quite apparent that he and others were not fit or competent to manage anything.
• The COMAH regulations are an utter joke. They fail in every way to protect the environment from the hazards stored on site, which are too voluminous to adequately control.
• “Contaminated land” definitions are also a joke , especially when sites such as W H Keys are not accurately and independently assessed before they are levelled and the contamination finds a way out, as it clearly did here.

The Millpool site is a disgraceful abandonment of a waterbody contaminated by former use, and further contaminated by brownfield building.