Ramsgate, Margate and Broadstairs photos historic and 2013

 I was off around the area buying books for Michael's Bookshop in Ramsgate which is where I work today. A round trip up the north Kent coast and coming back via Canterbury. Most of what I buy is what I would loosely call bookshop fiction. A lot of it falls into either being literary or genre fiction and on the whole it is easier to understand what I mean by looking at a few pictures. We put a lot out yesterday and here is the link to the pictures of it    should you need to turn some of your paperbacks into cash, then this type of stuff.

The other type which I would roughly classify as fairly recent bestsellers, the type of book that mostly has a life in supermarkets followed by charity shops, for the most part doesn't get as far as our main fiction alphabet but goes out at 50p mostly on the shelving in one of our shop windows.

On the way back we followed the number 9 Canterbury to Ramsgate bus and the fumes from it were so bad we had to drop back and adjust the ventilation in the car so it wasn't taking in air from outside. 

Not good when one considers using public transport to reduce pollution and to be honest I don't really know what to do about it.

With the following eclectic batch of archive photos I think the most striking thing is what a benefit the heritage pontoons were in Ramsgate and what a pity the council removed them.

Will the Manston DCO make men stupid?

For me, while I quite like the idea of a small regional airport at Manston I am not keen on an airfreight hub there because of the amount of freight aircraft movements that are needed to trigger a DCO combined with the amount of unfiltered fuel that needs to be burnt on or near the ground for each movement.

However you look at it, each movement, one landing or takeoff would burn about enough fuel here in Thanet to take a family car all the way around the equator, with the fewest number of movements being in the 10,000 a year bracket, the people up wind of this burn up, will be breathing it in. Particularly in our coastal towns to the north and east of Manston and the takeoff flight path, with the onshore breeze holding it in and added to the existing pollution, it isn’t looking good for men of a certain age.    

What is it that the BBC are trying to say here https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-45326598

“Researchers believe that the negative impact increases with age, and affects men with less education the worst.”

In these days of political correctness, what the BBC mean by “men with less education” is another one of those wosisnames.

Have they singled out those educated in The University of Life? Who are they?

Do you err “you know wot I mean” When bruv and geez turn up wiv a form from the government, do you say “I’ve lost my reading glasses.” “The misses does forms.” Well that type of fing?? How is your differential calculus this morning, “I’ve lost slide rule” quadratic equations, “definitely to do with four” squares init.

gov data gis mapping at http://naei.beis.gov.uk/data/gis-mapping is looking pretty bad on the old arsenic front this morning.

So is this turkeys voting for wosisname? What about women, is this a case of discriminatory pollution, will women who are wot? Intellectually challenged be like the youf. I just asked some and here is what they have to say. “you is like well old init, so you is like well fick init.”

This could of course be a conspiracy theory put out by the Chinese with an, er cell at Yale University in the US, have they been got at? Is it something to do with Trump?

With me it’s the academic papers I’ve been reading over the past few years, now as it were, coming into the public domain it seems breathing in all that arsenic may be compensating for other aspects of, what was it? Mi old alma mater and er universities where every naming could be construed as a shaming/shamming, including life.    

I am wondering whether the map has some impact on why the Scots elected to stay in the EU

Thanet bathing water quality figures

As our antipodean cousins would say, “If you don’t pee in our swimming pool, we won’t swim in your toilet.”

2015: excellent Ramsgate Sands Thanet

2015: excellent Ramsgate Western Undercliffe Thanet

2015: excellent Botany Bay, Broadstairs Thanet

2015: excellent Broadstairs, Stone Bay Thanet

2015: sufficient Broadstairs, Viking Bay Thanet

2015: excellent Joss Bay, Broadstairs Thanet

2015: good Margate Fulsam Rock Thanet

2015: good Margate The Bay Thanet

2015: excellent Minnis Bay, Birchington Thanet

2015: excellent St Mildred's Bay, Westgate Thanet

2015: poor Walpole Bay, Margate Thanet

2015: excellent West Bay, Westgate Thanet

2015: good Westbrook Bay, Margate Thanet

As I guess we all know the great big Thanet toilet pipe comes out just upwind from Walpole Bay, figures are as expected, here is the link to the whole document.

The picture (paining at the top) is of the beach by the old swimming pool, the place I last bunged a dinghy in. Yea I know it’s supposed to be for jet skies, but they gotta catch you at it. 

We have been a bit busy with the bookshop over the last few days, click on the link to see the incredible amount of books that have gone out on the shelves http://michaelsbookshop.blogspot.co.uk/

Sheila says the last lot of actual annual discharge figures she can find for the big sewage pipe are the 2012 figures, year on year there isn't much to chose between them.

Substance
Release environment Total released Notifiable releases
penta-, octa- and deca- BDE Sea .1kg -
Ammonia Sea 1930kg -
Triclosan Sea 1.56kg -
Clotrimazole Sea .15kg -
Anthracene Sea .14kg -
Total organic carbon (TOC) Sea <50000kg kg--="" nbsp="">

-Phosphorus - as total P Sea 28800kg -
Nitrogen - as total N Sea 181000kg -
Halogenated organic ompounds Sea <1000kg kg--="" nbsp="">
-Diuron Sea 1.05kg -
DEHP Sea 59kg -
Bisphenol-A Sea .55kg -
Dioxins and furans- as WHO TEQ Sea <.0001kg -
Benzyl butyl phthalate (BBP) Sea .12kg -
Propetamphos Sea .02kg -
tert-Butyl methyl ther (MTBE) Sea <1kg kg--="" nbsp="">
-Tributyltin compounds Sea .02kg -
Octylphenols Sea <1kg c="" kg--="">
-Nonylphenol ethoxylates Sea 32.9kg -
Nonylphenols Sea 1.56kg -
Permethrin Sea 4.96g -
Phenols - total as C Sea <20kg kg--="" nbsp="">
-Fluorides - as F Sea <2000kg kg--="" nbsp="">
-Chlorides - as Cl Sea <2000t nbsp="" t--="">
-Cyanides - as CN Sea <50kg c="" kg--="">
-Zinc Sea 212kg -
Nickel Sea <20kg kg--="" nbsp="">
-Methylene chloride Sea <10kg kg--="" nbsp="">
-Mercury Sea .15kg -
Lead Sea <20kg kg--="">
-Copper Sea 141kg -
Chromium Sea <20kg kg--="" nbsp="">
-Chloroform (Trichloromethane) Sea <5kg kg--="" nbsp="">
-Cadmium Sea <1kg kg--="" nbsp="">
-Arsenic Sea 12.3kg -
Aniline (Benzeneamine) Sea <1kg c="" kg--="">
-Asbestos Sea .7kg -

and she will be coming up over to swim in our toilet when our water warms up.

Ed. sorry my knickers line is showing with escaped nbsps I last did a computer course in 1970 and obviously need to go back for a refresher. 

Manston Airport Air Pollution, an admission of failure

I guess looking at the picture of The Red Arrows playing Russian Roulette over Manston in 1968 most people would concede that some things people do with aeroplanes are more likely to reduce your life expectancy than others, but this doesn’t necessarily stop people from doing them.

Now this April the government brought out a report called “Estimating Local Mortality Burdens associated with Particulate Air Pollution” here is the link to the report http://www.hpa.org.uk/webc/HPAwebFile/HPAweb_C/1317141074607

This report has resulted in various newspaper articles, along the lines of memento mori, news articles are often like this, particularly if the journalist has just woken up, the appropriate phrase is something like; sic transit gloria vino.

Anyway I sought to try to work out whether there were particular particulate air pollution issues related to a freight hub at Manston, for this I used Monday’s blog post http://thanetonline.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/manston-airport-closure-issues.html where William Epps acted as a devil’s advocate and helped considerably with my understanding of the situation.

This particulate air pollution is mostly associated with burning fuels like diesel and jet engine fuel, I for instance live by a bus stop and vaguely wonder if the fumes from the busses will knock a few hours off my life. William lives in Broadstairs where one of the main dangers to health is probably the folk festival. The conversation meandered something along the lines of; Michael sic at omnibus William sic in at.     

Airport pollution is no new thing although with Manston it’s mostly been noise pollution. In the 60s the noise pollution lead to the American Airforce trying to introduce a color bar, this particular form of apartheid was supposed to work along the lines of Margate is off limits to our “colored boys” they can use Ramsgate where we are making all the noise with our jet fighters and bombers, and wot, can you speak up a bit? here is the link to some of the newspaper articles about this http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/blogpicts2/id71.htm

Anyway coming back to the air pollution, the report says we have higher levels in Thanet, trawling the internet this seems to be due to a mixture of the prevailing wind direction blowing across southern England where all those nice people are rushing around in 4x4s and lorries, the dispersed emissions are in the air blowing this way, pockets around busy local road junctions can be bad.

On the remember you die bit (I may dream in latin but am waking up now) anyone who has hung around the odd nearly departed will notice that it is often breathing that is the problem. The oxygen bottle being much in evidence and the quacks asking did uncle Fred ever smoke, I guess now they will be asking if he lived near a busy road junction too.

Anyway the Manston questions that seem to be mostly unanswered, that relate to the latest notion of a major cargo hub, rather than a regional airport you can actually fly from, are. 1 How many of the big cargo plane movements that burn about a ton of jet engine fuel in the local area would Manston need to make a profit? I think the answer is around 60 a day; a bit of a heavy smoker. 2 Does Manston have the infrastructure, plane parking and so on, to actually be able to operate the required number of flights so make a profit? 3 Would burning 50 to 100 tons of jet engine fuel a day in the Manston area reduce the life expectancy of people living upwind, which is mostly in Margate, Cliftonville and Broadstairs? 4 How much time would knocked off their lives, if this is the case, would people give up to secure say 200 local jobs, a week, a month, a year or two?

Anyway the admission of failure, the answer is, I just don’t know the answers to any of these questions. The bottom line being that while I support a regional airport, I am still very uncertain if I support a major airfreight hub there.       

The picture above comes from the book Twilight of Pistons that I publish, Red Arrows, Russian Roulette, Manston Summer 1968

This map relates to an answer to one of the comments

Thor Chemical Leak Update

We have been informed that Thor group Ltd, located in Margate (“the Site”), is no longer operational and materials are no longer used for chemical manufacture at the Site. Any work taking place on the Site now is related to testing, remediation and the de-commissioning of the Site.

In recent years the Company has been working with the Environment Agency to establish the extent of its chemical footprint on the environment after 35 years of Site activity. Substances, such at solvents and compounds of mercury, from production activities that were carried out on Site from 1973, have been found to be present in certain areas of soil within the Site boundary. Investigations are on-going at present.

We have endeavoured to answer your questions to the extent we are able pursuant to our responsibility under the Under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and the Environmental Information Regulations 2004 and hopefully the information set out above answers your queries. However, in the event that you require more focused information, to assist us in processing your request, we would be grateful if you could please provide us with clarification of the information you require (e.g. whether you are seeking information about historic activities at the Site by the Company whilst it was still in operation, and/or regarding the current environmental status of the Site) as we do not wish to make assumptions.

Should you have any queries in this regard, please do not hesitate to contact this office.

External Relations OfficerKent & East SussexThe Environment AgencyGuildbourne HouseChatsworth RoadWorthingWest Sussex BN11 1LDDirect Dial 01903 703831Internal Ext 7.23.3831

Ed. Many thanks to Tim for doing the FOIA request.

Another significant chemical pollution incident

Chemical pollution at Thor chemicals in Thanet this time and once again it’s soaked down into the ground water.

It is not my intention to scaremonger here, but to add to my reasons why we should be considering our underground drinking water reservoir much more seriously, when planning future local development and expansion of existing enterprises.

Once again I am stressing that spillages and leaks into the ground are something that happens in industry, I know because I worked in industry.

Our underground drinking water reservoir is an essential local resource with out which we could not supply sufficient water to people’s homes, agriculture and industry.

The chalk under Thanet acts like a huge sponge where our water is collected and stored and bits of this sponge now has areas of poisoned water in it, the cumulate effect of the various poisoned areas will undoubtedly cause expense and problems for generations to come.

The proposed China Gateway development is a huge and very densely designed industrial estate, right in the middle of this reservoir very close to where our drinking water is pumped out of the ground.

Manston airport is also on top of the sensitive part of this reservoir, and if it is expanded so that there are a great many flights of very large planes, then it is probable that sooner or later there will be an air accident involving a large spillage of fuel or chemical cargo on the grassed part of the airport, which will soak into the ground.

Now while I am confident that Thanet District Council’s contaminated land team them are making sterling efforts to discover and cleanup previous and present pollution incidents, I think it is just plain stupid to take unnecessary risks with the water supply by carrying out perilous activities in the middle of the reservoir.

Rick has obtained some details about the Thor pollution click here to read

click here for the main post about the Sericol leak

Click here for the map of pollution locally

Click here for The British Geographical survey’s internal report on the Thanet underground water reservoir.

Local pollution maps and incidents

I am still trying to make a case that having a major industrial development on the most sensitive part of our underground reservoir is just plain stupid.

I am still waiting for replies from TDC and the environment agency related to the Sericol spillage.

My main point is that dense industrial estates have pollution incidents so should be nowhere near the water abstraction boreholes.

Click here for the pollution map of Thanet it’s an edifying experience and shows pretty clearly what I mean.

More pollution

I hadn’t realised how much pollution has occurred in Thanet until I looked at the pollution maps (previous post) and I would like to know about other incidents and people that have been effected.

Obviously I have been discussing local pollution issues with our politicians and Steve Ladyman mentioned one earlier today, he said.

You might want to investigate historic pollution of the site at Westwood were McDonalds is now. I have had reports in the past of chemical tanks on that site associated with old engineering works that were cleaned by workers who suffered chronic health conditions thereafter. I was never able to get proof but you may dig some thing up as when I heard about it many years ago we didn’t have a ‘blogsphere’ that could jog peoples memories and other than the recollections of a couple of workers from the site (one of whom had become very ill with symptoms that could possibly have been caused by chemicals but equally could have been caused by something else) I got no further.

Pollution Maps

I have to admit to still being immersed in trying to properly understand the implications of various local pollution incidents, some of my dealings with both the environment agency and Thanet district council have left me feeling somewhat less confident than I would like to be that we are being properly protected.

In the case of the environment agency, I was particularly concerned when they told me that they hadn’t the resources to read the China Gateway surface drainage report thoroughly. I was also very concerned when they said. “There is thought to be some control over the quality of water used for irrigation and crop washing, although this is not regulated by the Environment Agency.”

With the council I am very concerned that they seem to have a weak attitude to public safety, combined with a desire to conceal matters from us that could effect our safety.

For those of you interested in pollution issues the environment agency have a series of pages where you can enter your postcode to find out the situation near where you live.

Click here to go there