We can explain the story to you about the contamination issue and the response from the Senior Environmental Protection Officer at Cheshire West and Chester Council.
 

The contamination originated from the old scrap boat graveyard. In the water, four to five foot deep, lay a cocktail of contaminants. This cocktail had been there for many years and it was held in the silt itself, but as time went on and boats went along pushing the silt over the top of the contaminated area, this itself was a good thing because it kept the contamination buried.
 

A developer came along and decided to dig out this contamination, he broke through the protective skin of the contaminants. These materials are poisonous to fish and animals in a way that it will kill them slowly because of the quantity of arsenic and other nasties in it that makes up into a soup of poison.
 

The contamination that was dug out was carted and dumped into a hole onto land that was originally clean and contamination free. This means there are now two areas of contamination, the original one and the big hole that it’s been dumped into.
 

We told the council the full story and was very disappointed, in many ways, of their response. They left the responsibility to the Environment Agency to check on the site to see if things are done correctly, but really, nothing has been done. The contamination is going to stay in the hole, not treated, probably for many more years. The area in question, according to the councils own words, is a conservation area, so if that is the case, you can basically do these things with no comeback. I think the developer should be made to clean up the site properly, only if people like yourself can get together and persuade the council to take action against him, but the point is, he’s a parish councillor and only with your words of disgust and horror would make the council do what is right.
 

Explanation on the facts: When this site was originally granted, the councillors were given certain information, one bit of information was that there was nothing on the site with any underlying contamination issues. This is the reason that the planning permission was passed. The members were later contacted, they admitted that no underlying issues were present, so when they were told of the contamination, they said that they would not have passed it because of the environmental impact. The contamination report was taken to the Winsford Council office, delivered by two people and passed to a member of staff, but this information disappeared and was deliberately not presented to the committee, so that proves that somebody in the office hid the information on behalf of the developer.
 

Contents of contaminated waste:

      Arsenic      14-34

      Boron        2.8-8.3

      Cadnium      3.6-19

      Copper       65-173

      Lead         64-208

      Mercury      18.4-123

      Nickel       26-69

      Zinc         146-313