What lies beneath The Gower Trap door?

 

It appears that Rhodia/Solvay’s environmental contractors and stooges have carried out a seasonal Halloween “Texas chainsaw massacre” on all trees, bushes and vegetation at their and Albright and Wilson’s mothballed Gower Tip– located next to a children’s sports field and now unfortunately another housing estate built by Morris Homes, who have long since fled the scene of the grime.

 

I have previously outlined the waste disposal history of this site and the contaminants still present there under the soil that have never been removed. I will go over these below once again for clarity and as a timely reminder. This is important as to what may happen next with this hellish site, and the likely lies and distortions of truth put forward by any subsequent soil testing by “environmental consultants” and “remediation” for an ulterior motive- that motive being to dupe more people into buying a house on such contaminated surroundings. “Environmental consultants” are as I frequently point out really development of housing consultants under a fake guise, and when you have a CEO of a company who wrote policy for the EA , you can see how they can get around any legislation, safe in the knowledge that the Hopeless EA are not ever going to validate any test or conclusions drawn in any report whereby “the environmental consultants” disclaim any responsibility for inaccuracies in the preface.

The waste disposal licence for the Gower Tip, SL32, a tip which dates from 1938– note the wartime connections of this military supplier, can be read HERE.  The map for this site at the time revealed that a confused land border was evident between the local authority land and AW land, ie, between the tip and the sports field. This was supposedly bunded up, and it appears from the photograph above of the field that this is still the case.

Licence SL32 allowed the following to be disposed into the landfill, though it should be stressed that what went into here before this date in 1977 is not exactly clear.

Phosphorus pentasulphide 30tons/year

Phosphorus sesquisulphide 2 tons/year

Dross from limestone mixed with small quantities of calcium phosphate 10 tons/year

Sodium carbonate mixed with small quantities of sodium phosphate 5 tons/year

Building rubble and lagging contaminated with asbestos 5 tons/tear

Paper packaging contaminated with sodium hydroxide or sodium carbonate or lime or trace quantities of other materials of similar toxicity  15 tons/year

*Inert waste for use as cover.

Of particular note ASIDE FROM THE CHEMICAL WEAPON PRECURSOR PHOSPHORUS PENTASULPHIDE, is asbestos which we know Albright and Wilson’s medical advisors were particularly negligent about during the 1960’s and which is now causing some of their employees terminal illness. ‘s also worth remembering that the Gower Tip, along with rattlechain also had sodium cyanide illegally dumped there too.

Let’s delve a little deeper into Phosphorus pentasulphide.

Here is information taken direct from WikiLeaks. 8488_Chemical Weapons Precursors

1. “Methylphosphonothioic dichloride (also known as SWS) (The phosphorus pentasulphide which Iraq had imported into its VX programme had been used as a source, not of phosphorus, but of sulphur in making methylphosphonothioic dichloride, this then being reacted with the precursor which Iraqi workers called “choline”, in fact 2-N,N- diisopropylaminoethanol. In a variant production process being studied late in the programme, the end-product was VX hydrochloride, known as “VX syrup”, a molasses-like liquid, stable in storage, from which VX could readily be generated when needed; dual-use; schedule 2B)
2. Phosphorus pentasulfide (Phosphorus pentasulfide can be used to introduce a phosphorus bonded to a sulfur into an organic compound, such as V-type nerve agents including VX. The most significant commercial use of phosphorus pentasulfide is in the manufacture of zinc dialkyldithiophosphates additives for high performance lubricants. It is also used in the manufacture of insecticides including chlorpyrifos and in the manufacture of thiophosphates used in mining for ore flotation; Like another nerve agent precursor, phosphorus trichloride, it is prepared by the reaction of two elements: molten sulfur and molten phosphorus. Annual production and consumption in the US is about 50,000 tons per year.”

Any residues down the Gower Tip at 30 tonnes per year ?

One wonders which company in the UK certain foreign moustached bastards were happy to do business with in “defence” export deals, and which conceited bastards of politicians in this country were also happy for them to do business with at certain times with their revolving puppet show game of thrones allies to enemies Middle Eastern regimes?

Of course we currently have a Government and civil service who are happy to villainise Russia for allegedly dropping WMD around the country as well as current villain/ex Gulf war “allie”Assad in Syria cropping up from time to time surrounding chemical weapons, yet the actions of the despotic tea towel heads from Saudi Arabia appear to go muted when their war machine butchery goes into overdrive.

The chemical Ali’s at Trinity Street have always been good at covering up their waste dumping activities, somehow turning white phosphorus contaminated sludges into “the stuff used in toothpaste” at Rattlechain lagoon and other such nonsense designed to conceal their past military activities.

BACK TO GOWER

I reported in a blog of September 2014, that ERM, Rhodia’s environmental consultants were messing around on the site and apparently taking readings. Boreholes were clearly visible at this point, and now are even more so with the levelled vegetation.

 

There were two  operatives messing around last week appearing to inspect the Gower Tip site, and of particular note they appear to have exposed some form of trapdoor vent, which may be part of a sewer system running through the hazardous waste site. Indeed they were having difficulty putting the lid on it to close afterwards, despite banging it down several times with their feet.

All of this I would suggest has much to do with the ludicrous so called “Dudley port Supplementary Planning document” , which put forward this none Dudley Port site for housing developments around this “hazardous” contaminated land. This “garden city” branded plan  is a complete and utter joke and ignores the significant industrial damage that has been left behind.

Two of these sites in this monstrous prospectus form a direct land border with The Gower Tip, with the other opposite, an infilled canal basin across the canal.

No doubt this will be presented by developers as offering “stunning canal side views” in a wonderful setting, or the like, and perhaps the Rhodia warning notices will conveniently disappear as they did at Rattlechain when it comes to marketing the new houses.

 

The main problem with phosphorus pentasulphide and sesquisulphide at this very “hazardous landfill” waste site is revealed in the waste management licence report to the former West Midlands County council who granted this “contentious licence” insanity back in 1978.

“I Background

This site is a former clay marl hole which has been used as an industrial tip since 1938. The site has received large quantities of toxic and hazardous waste since this time. These are mostly comprised of various compounds of phosphorus together with some radio-active wastes, laboratory chemicals, solvents etc. The site represents the major disposal outlet for the Company’s waste phosphorus pentasulphide and phosphorus susquisulphide.

These waste arisings are the main problem associated with this site since they are highly reactive especially with water. “

 

The pentasulphide reaction with water produces the toxic gas Hydrogen sulphide as well as phosphoric acid.

P₄S₁₀ + 16 H₂O → 4 H₃PO₄ + 10 H₂S

The sequisulphide reaction with water also produces highly toxic and flammable gases.

 

A paper on sesquisulphide poisoning can be read at  canmedaj00663-0054.

Claims made about the drums being buried on arrival at site only show how this company dealt with their toxic wastes. It offers an opportunity to never deal with the wastes at the Gower tip by surrounding the site with more human shields. Albright and Wilson were a firm who made a packet out of war and Britain’s war machine and weapons of mass destruction, like the firestorm of phosphorus that rained down on Hamburg melting the flesh of babies and all in its wake. Their British Government agent  and chief engineer Alf Loveless toured the German Nazi phosphorus factories after the Second world war had ended, and thus the spoils of war and the fruits of Nazi knowledge incorporated into their designs.

One of the named  new roads “Gower Croft”, will no doubt be viewed as some form of romantic throwback to The Gower brickworks, whilst ignoring the toxic tip next door which filled its space.

I’m just surprised that the boffs at Trinity Street have not tried to invent a new name for the Gower Tip as they attempted to with the quite ridiculous “rattlechain mere” . Perhaps “The Gower Hamlet” or The Gower Peninsula” have a certain ring, though I think the latter may already be taken. 🙂

For clarity to show where this shithole is, here is an overlay 1904 map showing how the brickworks, buildings/pit were once sited within the fenced off hazardous Albright and Wilson landfill of today. The Brades brick and Tile works were situated behind this.

In the newly named “Bullah Way” (who knows), (fullashit way? ) ,Morris Homes considerately left a piece of “green space” complete with a sewer, which may well give some clue as to the trap door in the Gower tip itself, or was it a home guard bolt hole?

I’m just surprised that the site wasn’t considered by Sandwell Council for its Commonwealth games aquatics centre, though they appear happier to build on green space without having to pay for remediation.

A tip blighted by the spoils of war, and surrounded by houses in planning applications conceived in sewage. A “Garden City” of Eden, or the entrance to the gates of Hell?  😈

What could possibly go wrong this Halloween?  Something thought lost coming back to haunt us all? Stay away from that trap door….cause there’s something down there…..