What Lies Beneath Rattlechain Lagoon?

Boats on the water, slaag on the lagoon

The stitching is complete, the cappenslaag has covered the lagoon and now there is just the issue of sinking it.

At first “The H team” looked a bit baffled, or was this a company promo job?

Bonaparte attempted to do a bit of sinking with some old rubble, but not much effect.

All looked lost, blushes were as red as amorphous phosphorus, and then more trials- now which one would the local residents prefer I wonder

The giant suspended toothbrush technique, for dealing with that sticky “toothpaste”

Something completely different!

 But with a little divine intervention of heavy rain in the afternoon, and the pressing into action of Goldmember, the job appeared to be being done.

On closer inspection it appears the effort has left him losing his mojo.

Elsewhere on site there is the Klaar mincer.

And Bonaparte playing king of the castle with the growing mound of sand on the South side of the site nearest the houses.

Heyrmans POTting shed

There may have been trouble with the weed and funny odours affecting the local residents but Don’t mess with the blokes in helmets with funny accents , if you have a problem and no one else can solve it, maybe you should hire “The H team”.

After yesterdays antics, the Heyrmans have taken a leaf out of the Wimbledon court staff’s rain cover techniques.

Mini member acting as the puller and the section of suction pipe utilised as the attachment to pull the sewn up material across the water. Ingenious baggertechniekans! Most of the pool is now covered, on the surface of the water.

Rain didn’t stop play

Paddling pool for birds

On a more ominous note, the sand castles have started to arrive.

Plenty more to come, but where from?

Another mystery of this operation is Thunderbird 4. One of the first to arrive, it has done absolutley nothing but sit on the water, but now it isn’t even doing that.

Goldmember on the other hand has fallen on hard times. It may be he needs some help from “the risers from Pfizer”, given the rustyness of his prize asset, but there again you shouldn’t go dipping your wick into troubled terrain. I’d suggest a trip down the local pox clinic- I suspect a serious case of VOC.D.

And so the long muted “cappenslaag” or geotextile membrane has reached its destination at Rattlechain lagoon. After the phoney dredging operation which removed weed but little else from the smaller lagoon, we now have the world’s biggest bin liner unfolding before our eyes.

As with everything else connected to this waste dump, it arrived on the back of a lorry.

Later on the sheets were unpacked on the beach area- NB “the beach area” has existed for many years- and was so called because of the waste built up there. They are now trying to reinvent this area even though the waste is buried there. Sandcastle building it ain’t.

Today the great unfolding on The North embankment- covering half the North embankment- oh it’s about “protecting the birds bottom feeding” wasn’t it?

And there were some odd moments that I’m not sure which section of The Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 the Heyrmans were following.

Heyrman in a shovel

“The Amazing SpiderHeyrman”

It’s all very well laying out this sheet to float on the water as you would expect it to behave, but its another thing sinking it. We are now told that the technical knowledge that has gone into this, together with the geotextile trials that the Environment Agency backed, that it will be weighed down “with rocks”- what a great scientific feat of civil engineering!

It was a surprise that this material had not been sewn up by importing women from the Kidderminster carpet factories (as with the war phosphorus filling work), that’s if there are any left.

Vann Fasten- knit one

purl one

whoops, he’s dropped one

There were obvious problems with watercraft and weavework mixing.

The sheet kept getting caught in Gullit’s motors, requiring attention.

And later a comical scene of the Heyrmans getting flustered with their ends.

Still Vann fasten kept tailoring away with his work.

As the scene and the “slaag” unfolded, representatives from ERM looked on excitedly like expectant fathers, tripod and camera in hand to watch the delivery of the postal sack on the water. No doubt this is a big deal for them and no doubt it will soon materialise as an “iconic image”.

 But sooo sorry to reign on your parade guys- but it’s still born. The stitch up of how to cover up toxic waste can be seen for what it is. And when the film sinks and the sand is imported, the levels of water will rise- not least due to generation of gas. It has to go somewhere, and the only way is likely to be up, along with the cappenslaag.

And then the “next step” of the deceptive illusion- “we need to import more sand to weigh it down”- and the thickos at the EA will say “yeah, no problem,”

40 lorries a day seven days a week. I don’t remember that one at the public exhibition, and quite frankly it is a joke that this operation has not needed planning permission given the amount of material being moved and imported- but under the auspices of a useless waste management licence that was never ably regulated anyway, you can pretty do whatever you like. Murder of people you may not get away with, but animals and birds- a different story.

View from a grassy knoll

thumbs down from us

When the trucks pack away, ERM disappear off back to Bristol and the Heyrmans are fixing some dyke somewhere else, we will still be here as we have always been- anonymously. The phantoms of John’s Lane, the guardians of Sandwell’s wildlife.

Dear Resident,

Suffering from dust, odours and pongs from the work at Rattlechain lagoon? You have been invited to contact the site operators or their environmental consultants, who will tell you all sorts of stories about how they are trying to minimise the impact of their works.

What they really want is your data. Your name and address, email and telephone numbers. This will make it easier for them to monitor you if you happen to be persistently troublesome to them. Take our word for it!

• DO NOT CONTACT THEM OR GIVE THEM ANY PERSONAL DATA OR HEALTH INFORMATION UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES ABOUT YOU OR YOUR FAMILY.
• DO NOT LET THEM IN YOUR HOUSE.
• DO NOT LET THEM PUT “EQUIPMENT” IN YOUR HOUSE OR GARDEN.
• DO NOT BE FOOLED BY THEM CARING ABOUT YOUR WELLBEING.

You have the legal right to make a complaint to Sandwell council’s environmental health department.

Call: 0121 569 6600

It is important to make your voice known to them and not the site operators.

Some people may remember the dire situation concerning large volumes of foundry sand being moved about on what is now known as “the mound” adjacent to Rattlechain lagoon and McDonald Close in the Temple Way area throughout the 1990’s. Many of those living there took the lull in operations as the chance to get out.

40 lorry loads -7 days a week of sand are stated to be being delivered to Rattlechain lagoon in order to weigh down the geo-textile membrane. This exceeds any previous operations at this site. They are conditioning you to what will follow in the future, should this mound ever be shifted-

THIS IS NOT ABOUT PROTECTING BIRDS- IT IS ABOUT PROTECTING THEM- AND IT ALWAYS HAS BEEN.

PROTECT YOURSELF- AND ALWAYS BEWARE OF GREEKS BEARING GIFTS!

It’s been a slow news week at Rattlechain lagoon and a slow work week at that. The problem is that the site is suffering from piles.

Piles of pipework on the south embankment.

Piles of wood chips and earth

Piles of rubble

Piles of soil being moved around the site

Hopefully Rhodia Solvay will be ale to fix the problem and solve the sites discomfort. There are treatments available but covering the piles over never works- they just don’t go away and the pain gets worse.

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

DYLAN THOMAS.

Today saw the packing up of several familiar “new” landmarks at Rattlechain lagoon. The yellow Klaar container was on the back of a truck by dinnertime. I arrived just in time to see Willemena being hoisted onto the back of another.

Optimus Grime

We are supposed to believe that the sediment has now been dredged in both the large and smaller lagoons.  It is garbage, but yet the Environment agency will no doubt accept this as gospel because Rhodia/ERM have told them so. If they believe that there is no longer any contamination of white phosphorus or anything else in the smaller lagoon, confirmed in the HPA human health risk assessment, then they really are dimmer than I know they are already.

Disconnecting “the bed” from the bed.

The whole exercise is a joke and a pantomime show, which is why this blog has lampooned the new found altruistic intentions of Solvay as they now appear to call themselves,and  the progressing “work”  right from the start, and will continue to do so.  Indeed you have difficulty establishing WHO you are actually seeing or dealing with in connection to this site if you view the rival website to this one (reactive not proactive again), until you look at the contact us page- Rhodia still apparently.

Works on the North embankment were never discussed at the drop in session in January. They have now been slipped into the narrative (note that the embankment works  are not in the glossy photoshop images of how the site will look in a few months/years time).  These works together with the cheap burying exercise  are in the restoration options of Rhodia’s closure plan for the site submitted to the Environment Agency which is the real purpose of these works. The Heyrman de roeck website even mentions “restoring the dyke” as part of their subcontracted task- nothing about bloody birds. So why are they trying to push it as “protecting birds” or even anything else, – they look ridiculous and will only appear to continue to look ridiculous to their international peers until they admit to the real purpose of these works. WHO are they trying to fool- the local residents who could not give a toss about the birds on the lake? What is the problem- a face saving exercise, or is it late in the day guilt?

Rhodia/Solvay management- many of them EX Albright and Wilson have never admitted that white phosphorus is poisoning birds on this site, some of them would still try to blame it on just about anything else.  Indeed they appear to still be in denial and you would think that they have just arrived on this hazardous waste site as though they knew nothing about its history and are now tasked with “clearing it up”.

Throughout the time when we were asking questions, writing letters, making phonecalls- nothing but denial- and we are presenting this on this website as irrefutable evidence of this apathy and denial- as well as that of their regulator. They would like everyone to forget this or pretend it had never have happened- but it did, and we won’t forget that or let them forget it either.

They have never said “sorry”, have never shown any remorse that their company poisoned wildfowl on this site, never admitted anything that they did was responsible. It’s a small word, but also a fairly meaningless one to corporate entities like Rhodia/Solvay.

Indeed they have now started to use the wildfowl as pawns in their newsletters- and will no doubt do so when any return to this wretched hole when they have finished with their carpet weave deception.

The boreholes, newly installed are for “long term monitoring” of the closure plan- nothing to do with “protecting wildfowl.”

As for ERM, we have not really gone there yet with them fellas, but their monitoring of this site will form the eventual babystep to the sites sell off, when “protecting wildfowl” will be dropped and we will then be expected to believe that established fundamentals of chemistry and science have not appeared in this case and that no phosphine gas is being emitted from the site heavily contaminated with white phosphorus, so that more houses can be built on contaminated land in Sandwell.

And where will Solvay be then- “anonymously” blending back into the corridors of Trinity Street with the holy ghost that they left behind down the road.

A unique opportunity exists in the heart of the Oldbury conurbation. Set in a substantial 14.25 acres, “The Rattlechain Mere” area briefly comprises  stylishly presented outbuildings, a modern kitchen facility area- perfect for a smok and a pancake, two storey office space , spacious storerooms with private garden and two *lakes.   *(non- swimming).

Features include the latest GPS satellite technology, 24 hour cctv monitoring by private security with k9 unit support for all your piece of mind. On site parking for many vehicles. Close motorway and transport links and also canal views.

Lakes boast newly refurbished trackway for easier vehicular access and  spectacular views of wildlife in their “natural” habitat. Special feature includes glow in the dark water nightlights. Also included in this exciting  package are special prizes (ex bullseye).

Internal viewing essential. DSS accepted. (please! we are desperate)

…….We will give you £10,000 to take it off our hands.

All enquiries via P. Chalice and Associates. of Trinity Street Oldbury- Broadwell 12345678910.

Thank goodness the Heyrmans survived the sixth hour of the sixth day of the sixth month of the year thirteen. The only sacrifices were the trees as Napoleon and Bonaparte set about inserting them into the newy imported chipper.

Wee willie once again caried off the junk, and tipped them towards the Southern area of the site.

Friday saw the import of Goldmember onto the smaller lagoon- did he levitate over the causeway path or was it lowered again?

My what a big one

Up and down went the head as the sound of rattling in the vacuum like rear nozzle was audible around the rattlechain lagoon. Was it picking up old bricks with the weed?

And on the larger lagoon after it had passed around the elaborate pipe network, an ominous bubbling could be seen underneath the double bed.

But it was only a matter of time before the strain began to tell on the poor overworked fellow. From his back vessel a spurt of water began to spew and the Heyrmans onboard looked temporarily perplexed.

Disappearing below deck there was much banging, and prodding and probably a little Dutch swearing until the leak appeared to be fixed.

Mini member to the rescue

An exploration of Goldmember reveals a veiny mass of metal and hoses. If you ever wondered what the Terminator’s flexed “special part” looked like it would probably be something like Goldmembers. And though not yet taking human form he will no doubt be back in action tomorrow.

Another week and plodding progress around the smaller lagoon, that back in the day used to be refered to as “the clean side” lagoon- what a joke that one was to prove. Monday afternoon revealed Napoleon to be perched on the spud barge, which appears to be anchored by either he or Bonaparte wacking the hell out of one of the two metal pins to make them drop.

the weed being wound up like green spaghetti on a fork to the barge.

Plenty of splashing around but not really a great quantity yielded by the looks of it. Today it appeared that it had found its way onto the pile in the south side of the beach area.

It also appears that the cad digger has acquired a butch tattoo

Grrrrrrrr

Bonaparte on the otherhand is starting to show the strain of the campaign, now into its fourth month- has it really been that long since the first toxic sod on the South embankment was cut, well I never!

The Summer is virtually here and soon Tipton will be enjoying its range of community festivals. It must be interesting to the Dutch visitors carrying out the work on the lagoon on behalf of Rhodia/Solvay/ERM the quaintness of the English customs, and those of the local Tipton area. There are the maypole dancing activities, which usually involve the erection of a large metal pole, usually acquired from a local source.

Then there are activities involving animals, collected from various sources, and very often horses living in the kitchens of the local folk. The drinking of mead and the dropping of undergarments with men and fair? maidens dissappearing into bushes. It would perhaps be a disservice to describe Tipton as “The place where God’s underpants were found”, but if Soddom and Gomorrah were still around perhaps it would be twinned with them both.

I must say I have grown accustomed to the faces of The Heyrmans on the site, and now that they appear to outnumber the birds left at Rattlechain, I have started to note their individual behaviours and that they are a jovial bunch of chaps. With a little singing, a little dancing and the merry pitter patter of commands issued in Dutch with accompanying sign language  it could be possible courtship rituals- (no female Heyrmans detected on site but it’s a broad minded country).

The Heyrmans take a break

But as Summer nears and each day passes in the Tipton heat, I do fear for their safety. Indeed each day in my diary in the immortal words of Brian Hanrahan issued during  the Falklands War “I counted them all out, and I counted them all back.” For there is a dark presence in the area that worship “heathen Gods”. I am not sure that the trusting Heyrmans were told this in their contracts by The Lairds of Trinity Street.  In fact the signs are starting to look quite ominous that something is about to happen soon. Today Bonaparte and his handler had obviously been instructed to round up the wood pile of felled trees on the North embankment.

These were then placed systematically onto the spud barge.

 Later in the day, it was a ruddy big pile, which started to tower over the surrounding landscape. Tomorrow I expect it to be moved again- once more the Heyrmans being lulled into a false sense of security about what is about to happen to them. Their next task will be to construct it into the shape of a giant man, used in another daft “trial” experiment to scare away birds from the lagoon. And they will still think that they are still carrying out ERM/Rhodia/ Solvay’s phase work when

If a child goes “missing” in the area after following a pied piper- please Heyrmans get away whilst you still can, and do not go looking for them for it will be a trap, take heed  before the clans of Tipton descend on the Rattlechain lagoon for their summer sacrifice.

THIS IS WHAT HAPPENED TO THE FOREMAN WHO CARRIED OUT THE TASK OF REMEDIATING ALBRIGHT AND WILSON’S GOWER TIP AT LOWER CITY ROAD!

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEOQqnHMSMc

On the serious side unfortunately hired Foreign help is something that the chemical industry (Albright and Wilson in particular) liked to carry out- with dire consequences. I do fear for the long term health of anyone exposed to toxic chemicals, regardless of what “protective ” equipment is given to them when usually the instruction and the risk is not communicated transparently.

http://www.irwinmitchell.com/newsandmedia/2009/january/search-for-ex-workmates-after-oldbury-man-exposed-to-asbestos