Sometime in 2014 I was putting together the story of how wildfowl at rattlechain had first been identified to have been exposed/poisoned by the white phosphorus in the lake. Unfortunately whilst Rhodia claimed to be addressing the issue that they had long delayed and denied, so it began to unravel that Sandwell council had murdered 220 Canada geese in two of its parks.
The council were well aware of the rattlechain issue and did absolutely nothing about it. Yet somehow in their bizarre twisted little minds, the geese posed a “health risk” to members of the public and were exterminated- they have still to produce any credible evidence to prove this.
On the other hand our long battle that they undermined with this single action, was proven by the testing of twelve birds consisting of five different species- all exposed to a poisonous substance, proving that their Oldbury business chums had poisoned the birds.
So picking up the threads of where I had left of, I have now started to put together these important pages to stand as a testament to the unfortunate creatures and hopefully give them and the many others that were never retrieved or those which had shown white phosphorus poisoning symptoms but were never tested some justice.
Part of this is showing up the human incompetence, from a regulatory point of view to how the birds were treated by the then VLA staff, and the poor standard of investigation which transpired.
It is perhaps timely to do this when in the week I saw a dead coot being eaten by a buzzard at the side of the newly profiled North embankment. Who knows what caused its death, it had gone the next day without trace, but it was noted like the many that had gone before.
Let us hope that as more digging has mysteriously appeared on this embankment, that the phos has not awakened, or a portal to attempt to disperse its breakdown products opened.
More bank cover up
So as we take a closer look at Rhodia’s dirty dozen, let’s first look at the incompetence which led to “phosphorus” being tested for in a dead swan and mallard instead of white phosphorus. One would think that scientists would know the difference, but it appears sadly not in this “error of communication”. As ever with all concerning the story of rattlechain lagoon, we only learned of this through persistence and the Freedom of Information Act.