A SECTION of the construction site of the new £100 million incinerator at La Collette was closed off at the weekend after contractors punctured the membrane of a pit holding toxic ash.
Pollution prevention experts are investigating after potentially contaminated water escaped into a trench being dug at the time. Samples have been sent for analysis to determine any potential danger.
It was the sharp eyes of site project manager Steven Gouldburn that probably prevented a more serious pollution incident taking place. He spotted what had happened, got the contractors to stem the flow and called in a tanker to pump the water away.
Workers from engineering company Geomarine clipped the edge of one of the ash pit membranes at about 3 pm on Friday while digging a trench along the north side of the site to install a temporary power cable.
As a result, potentially contaminated water leaked into the cable trench.
• Picture: Transport Minister Mike Jackson looking at the damage caused to the material that surrounds an ash mound. Picture by Tony Pike (00646031)
Article posted on 17th March, 2009 - 2.58pm
9 Article Comments
can someone remind me why we have a constuction site on top of toxic ash?
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What a Joke!
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So, already a toxic ash pit has been ruptured and the critical importance of this outright negligence is of course being played down by TTS.
One would have thought that the first job for TTS to do before any excavation or ancillary work would be to map and and mark out with chequered tape the position of the ash pits? Apparently not. But I bet it is now.
And where do TTS think water above high water seal levels goes when it escapes? Uphill?
This ‘incident’ does not bode well for the project’s safety or TTS’ promised respect for the adjacent Ramsar site.
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so they can hide it
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this is only work done in the first days it still has 2 years to go what is next????????????????
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time people woke up and see what this toxic ash will do to our health,they go on about smoking,drinking and other health issues,but this is by far much more toxic to our health.they carry on regardless of what the public think.
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Yet another incident that they are playing down. Toxic ash means contaminated water which means damage – where will they start dumping next, on our doorsteps under our thresholds?
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ok so they build an incinerator on top of a toxic ash site!
How does that work!!!!?????!!!!!
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Maybe they could burn the toxic waste in the incinerator as it doesn’t cause any pollution does it? Problem solved.
The waste should never have been there in the first place. However it is and no one has been charged yet with causing ecological damage. The incinerator shouldn’t be there but it will be. I believe it will cause ecological damage to the ramsar site and affect peoples’ health, howover will anyone be accountable, if and when, it does, or will this be another case of no one being accountable for the island’s self inflicted problems?
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