Former Agriculture minister Jack Cunningham, (Baron Cunningham of Felling)was a former paid industrial policy adviser for many years to Albright and Wilson and had in his constituency their polluting Whitehaven factory, now dismantled. His advice must have been extremely poor given the demise of this company not long after in 2000. Here’s a little bit of info on some funny goings on from the past.

Shamelessly jumping on the bandwagon, I just wanted to share that following his suspension today from the Labour party.

“Bottoms up to Albright and Wilson.”

He did ask one interesting question at least in 1989 about pollution by water companies which shows just how bad Severn Trent water really are.- but not as bad as Albright and Wilson!

Lobbying is all that is corrupt about politics in Britain today and it has been going on for too long- the chemical/pharmaceutical  industry being a major player.

Now I’ve got that off my chest to matters concerning the toxic lagoon. The giant Bonaparte removed some boreholes on the North side of the pool from by the embankment and carried off his prize to join the rest of the remaining scrap pile on the Southern side.

Inexorably we are moving to what can only be described as “the bollocks” of the operation- the dredging and disturbance of uncharaterised waste in the smaller lagoon, the purpose of which has not been satisfactorily explained- when it is not going to be capped thereafter.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxXm8Ys3jMY

It’s a dirty job, but somebody’s not got to do it. The former pipe pontoons have been disapperaing out of view, but where are they going I wonder? At the “Exhibition” in January- (see post 1) it was intimated to us that they would be going in the drink with just about everything else in the North part of the lagoon. Out of sight, out of mind (at least for Rhodia/Solvay).

It had also been claimed in the joint ERM/Rhodia “newsletter” that the pipe had been “decontaminated. ” So why were these employees dressed in full face masks and protective overalls and gloves busily scrubbing the undersides that had sat in the sediment for so long?

DJ Solvay on the mixing decks

Hose-a

Hose-B

 It just surprises me that Rhodia managed to fork out for the PPE and not issue its staff/contractors with  toothbrushes and a couple of tubes of Colgate blue minty gel to leave the pontoons “All bright and shiny.”

Elsewhere today Napoleon got amphibious  again on the spud barge. Thrashing about water and watched by some of the Heyrman’s in the Orange boat.

For the last few days the website has been stuck on “Nelson” at 111 pages. Today a few more were added connected to military matters.

There is a saying that “one volunteer is worth ten pressed men”.

New life! This week appears to be the main hatching week for many wildfowl, particularly swans. The prolonged cold snap dosen’t appear to have affected many sitting birds’ nests as some had feared, and there are some evidently large broods about.

The coots are the architects of the wildfowl nesters. They will collect every stick,  branch or piece of vegetation they can carry as well as acquiring all the human litter they can find, plastic bags, crisp packets, even condoms. All get built into the mound, a giant castle in the water for such a small bird. Sometimes swans even steal the base of coot nests as they make a spacious extension to the foundations.

They are also fearless and excellent parent birds.

The armada

All aboard

A far cry from rattlechain lagoon. This week has largely been a tarting up exercise as far as the ongoing works go. A walkable circle has now been completed around the edge of the main pool with the completion of earth moving on the East embankment. In fact a number of distinct levels or “circles” have now been achieved.

Bonaparte scrapping the barrel and a man for scale.

 Elsewhere this week, I make it week 14 of the French/Belgian/Dutch campaign, more action from Goldmember and movement around the lake of the upturned double bed connected at the other end.

 And races between minimember and Gullit around the lake

You certainly could not get lost in the trees anymore around the lake and there is a plan behind this designed by commerce and not nature. The life of this tip is by no means finished – mark my words they are prophecy of the things to come.

“ABANDON ALL HOPE YE WHO ENTER HERE”

The Birmingham New Mainline canal between Birmingham and Wolverhampton was built for business. Designed by Thomas Telford, by 1838 the New Main Line was complete: 22⅝ miles of slow canal reduced to 15⅝; between Birmingham and Tipton, a lock-free dual carriageway. It was also called the Island Line as it was cut straight through the hill at Smethwick known as the Island.

I could go into a long history lesson about this but this is not the point of this blog.

 The badger below was seen floating dead near Dudley Port a couple of days ago. I wonder if it was one displaced from the rattlechain as a consequence of the works? Telford canals are not wildlife friendly at all. The sides are too steep for anything to climb out of. They are a menace; a straight flight for two legged vermin on wheels to churn up paths, and a watery graveyard for mammals. I once counted 6 dead foxes between Tipton and Smethwick in one bike ride along this trail. Unfortunately the plight of the urban animal or bird is one which the great and the bad simply do not care about. They have no vote potential, they have no newsworthyness.

Urban wildlife does not have many friends. The RSPCA is perhaps the best of a bad bunch when it comes to the “top table” animal charities. Most of them are there for educational purposes and making money to further their own enterprises and sell merchandise. 

The politician is rarely on the side of wildlife but there were a few like Tony Banks who did care passionately and speak out against the intrusion and protection of business- particularly dirty business.

 It’s just a shame that there are few media outlets or newspapers that are pro wildlife. There are some that are so anti wildlife because they are also pro -business which means that if a farmer is going to be out of pocket as a result of TB (badger blamed), then brock will get the flack with a subtle run of stories about how they are digging up pensioners gardens and loosening the foundations, or even human graves.

Similarly we have had a run of stories about savage urban foxes entering houses and biting babies after the passing of anti hunt legislation. This has entirely been concocted by the pro hunt countryside lobby media who attempt to lobby the white middle class urban dweller. This dying breed, with a passion for all things 1950’s and rose tinted glass tales of king and country, days when religion mattered and when they thought that “British was best” are themselves a dying breed. They know this, but choose to sublimate their swansong days with attacks on “non native species”, usually using the “it’s killing our native species” argument (i.e they feel that they are being killed). But when these native species affect business, they become public enemy number one, and then we here the cry of “lets’s cull it”. Fox, badger, bird, deer,boar,otter etc etc.

The countryside matters whereas “brownfield land” is fine to build on- even that that has naturally greened without a bricklayer in sight to produce an oasis for urban wildlife- (this does not include rattlechain lagoon which has acted as a venus flytrap for wild birds).

But take a train ride through this important countryside and you will find delapidated farm buildings, slurry pits, piled plastic barrels of pesticides, broken tractors and agricultural machinery, doted with some livestock in fields where the money is to be made through subsidy. We here all the time in the media, some of it urbanly local that we must “protect the greenbelt”, wheras brownfield land is “ripe for development”. So it is fine for 5% of the population to own 90% of the land and enjoy the solitude and view whilst the rest are packed like rats with ever diminishing prospects of hope amongst the sprawl. The brownfield sites are the last places left for urban wildlife- and they are disappearing to fuel the pompous economy myth that building more houses will fix the problems caused by corrupt businessmen and their confederates in the housing markets who caused the recession in the first instance by building homes that could not be paid for.

Industry liked levelling the land for profit, and exploiting the natural for the avarice of the few.  “obscene, perverted, cruel, uncivilised and lethal”

And after this gluttony of spending come the dinnerparties. They give themselves “award” ceremonies to dress up in tuxedos and eat their roast pig dinners and celebate themselves and how good they are whilst the rest of us just read about it in manufactured publicity photographs.   The chemical industry has its own oscars, sponsored for and voted by the chemical industry. Rhodia UK have won a few awards, but don’t mention that their CEO is on the board of the chemical industries association in the PR write up.

This picture shows the scale of the North embankment. Historic records confirm that the original Barnett’s brickworks pit was “100 yards deep”. This is when it flooded in 1899 following the burst of the Birmingham Canal.

In Barnett’s day there would not have been the amount of fuss concerning Health and Safety, but this is only a fairly recent concept with this site in any case. There are now such a plethora that they outnumber the few birds that appear to want to cling on to what is left of the “natural” flora on the site.

No shee

On the banks itself, there is alleged to be a badger sett that is going to “be protected throughout the duration of the works.” I would really like to see how.

A visitor spotted today was this squirrel on the battered North embankment. In amongst the bricks, soil and old broken crockery and bottles it bounded about sniffing the air and looking for cover.

It’s just a shame the wildlife have to adapt to these chemical industry PR stunts. They didn’t create the mess, they just ended up in it

“Where’s me nuts gone?”

Today a cappuccino like covering continues to sweep across the pool. A dirty frothy mixture of soil being spread across the East side embankment and debris from the North embankment. Not the type of beverage that one would like to offer guests given the nature of the waste contained within.

Today also, there appeared to be several more human visitors on site than usual. They do love their boat trips across the mere- though it looked from the crispness of the high-vis vests that they were  not there to do any physical endeavour.

And highlight of the week so far, a flypast yesterday from a Boeing  chinook helicopter. If you’re looing for WMD guys -they’re down below you.

May its passengers have had a safe landing and look forward to better climbs….

A man patrols the mere with his animal. You certainly can’t say that the security of the site hasn’t been beefed up, but is it for human health security or that of the thousands of pounds worth of equipment to envious  eyes outside the fenceline? I’m surprised that he or she hasn’t been kitted out with PPE, but a rottweiller in orange boots and a little rain coat  wouldn’t go with the boxing rapist name would it?

Walkies

The other observation today was another Klaar boat.

Later in the day it was patrolling the smaller lagoon which still awaits to be dredged supposedly due to weed difficulties.

Get the plans to R2D2

More measuring around the edge of the lake

Later on a Dutch delegation appeared to be carrying out more sediment dabbling on Gullit

I have received a reply from The Food Standards Agency regarding the following open letter post.

I don’t really believe it answers my question as to why Jo Payne of the AHVLA did not communicate that white phosphorus systemic exposure had been demonstrated in a bird- on this occassion a canada goose- a predominantly grazing feeder.

“CHaIRS role is as a forum for sharing information in relation to chemical contamination incidents with the objective of improving communication and facilitating risk management.”

With this in mind not reporting this appears to negate the role and purpose of the group.

As far as the HPA study refered to in this letter, we will be looking more closely in the holes in this report in the coming weeks. This report was not an appraisal or promotion of how well Rhodia maintained this site, or the events which led to the report including the proven white phosphorus exposure and poisoning of wildfowl on Rattlechain lagoon. It was a paid for “get out” study for a chemical company exposed by public scrutiny of its practices. It is their choice that they failed to deflect this issue by rebuttle which went on for over a decade when they knew all along what the issue was. The fact that they described  the waste as “safe” now only makes their subsequent claims of site safety less plausible. The missing link for Rhodia/Solvay and their contractors ERM is why it took so long to address this issue with any seriousness, until it presented to them a potential future financial asset. “Protection of wildfowl” is the new catch line, the same birds they allowed to be poisoned between 1999-2012 and for decades before that before we exposed it.

These current works are nothing more than a pitch to sell of this site when their “monitoring” has satisfied the weak regulation that has gone before. Their aim is that people will forget with time. “Play the long game”. The same way in that many people who live on the Temple way estate now were not those who were living there in the 1990’s- they moved away with the lull in operations that were occuring on the adjacent dirt mound that regularly produced complaints to Sandwell council concerning dust over their homes.

Any housing developments on, near to or adjacent to this toxic lake will be vociferously opposed by us at every stage in the future- be in no doubt- there will  be no one who does not know what their potential property is next to and what lies at the bottom of their gardens.  Time will not heal rattlechain lagoon, burying the toxic waste is a time bomb ticking.

With regard to the letter, it is astonishing that the FSA do not routinely test wildfowl DNA in chicken products- especially considering the recent  horse meat fraud. YES YOU READ IT HERE FIRST FOLKS AND NOT IN THAT PAPER THAT TALKS ABOUT STATINS ALL THE WHILE ON ITS FRONT PAGE.

All I can say is that as someone who deals with lead poisoned birds, birds with various ailments and diseases or potential diseases, birds that swim in toxic lakes and lakes that contain human shit, the thought of these ending up in some dodgy foreign restaurant makes me glad that I don’t have any taste for eating such “chicken”. Isn’t this exactly the type of issue that CHaIRS should be investigating- forgetting for a minute the potentially white phosphorus poisoned farm animals near MOD land, or the potentially poisoned fish or marine  life exposed by naval flares?

If the regulator can’t confirm what bird’s on yer plate, God help you chicken stuffers when bird flu gets here. But don’t forget, it will be the farmer that gets compensated, not the consumer. BON APETITE RHODIA- FANCY A “CHICKEN CURRY” IN OLDBURY?

PHEW! What a scorcher. Quite a change in the weather in the last week. At the lagoon, several new views have opened up as a result of the North embankment desecration.

Looking towards the housing development in Callaghan Drive and The Steel works- note the slick of embankment soil junk that has collected alongside the flocculation contraption.

Wot no trees

Looking East, you can see where this is going.

More spoil into the water from the contaminated North embankment

The 3 amigos on the North embankment

Napoleon and Bonaparte continue to excavate and load up the little guy for tipping.

Wee Willy dumps his load

Of course this is all for future “site investigation” purposes. Will they find any white phosphorus now that this lot has been churned up to the extent it now has been- especially if it is conveniently shovelled under the surface and some new soil added over the top. Then the so called “samples” of these future investigations will sample shallow ground- not finding anything.

Over the weekend, the newly constructed causeway path was covered over with plastic blowing in the wind- perhaps to stop the handful of birds nesting? Now it’s removed, it forms the bridge over troubled water for the excavation crew to continue their work.

I recognised it straight away when I saw it this afternoon. To the untrained eye, just another piece of metal in the distance, but not to the Rattlechain lagoon stalker like myself. This was a piece of history.

All is revealed below in this picture of the lagoon entrance from The Albright and Wilson era. Note the large island mounds in the centre of the pool (A CLEAR LICENSE BREACH!) which the EA warned them of many times. But look at the Danger Keep out sign to the bottom right.

Yes that is what this was high up on the North Embankment this afternoon uncovered by Bonaparte and his chums. But how truely ironic that the name of “Albright and Wilson” is obscurred by mud- erased from history and now a piece of scrap metal not even fit for tat or even an E-BAY job.

The long arm of Bonaparte

WEE WILLY WINKIE

No matter how much they try, the associations with Albright and Wilson will remain, whatever name appears on the front gates, or whatever fate awaits the site ultimately. As long as the waste remains- so will the toxic legacy of this Oldbury company.

As the great man said

“You can stick lipstick on a pig- but it’s still a pig.”