Another Brick in the Wall, a story of Thanet Men and Books and Sheds and a general Thanet Ramble, painting, wosisname

I was only talking to Floyd the other day. “Mornin Floyd ‘ows the sex and drugs and rock and roll?” Says I.

“Not so bad with the Viagra, but I’ve swapped the drugs for time in mi shed you know and been palyin a lot of ruler recently." Says E, I mean F.

“You ‘eard about the one in Broadstairs, they say it’s a big one?” Says I.

“Yes” said Floyd, “they generally did have big ones over Bradstowe.”

I get a lot of this sort of thing now from the men of Kent and the Kentish men, my bookshop here in Ramsgate has become a bit of a centre for shed related books, or to put it another way my craft section is a big one.

Any way off to Faversham and Whitstable today where I mostly painted bricks and bought a few craft books

here they are, the picture should expand, enough to read the titles, if clicked on compulsively.

 Next a few pictures of some of the shed load of shed books on the shelves in my bookshop.

Postscriptum

On to the Ramble

Here is the watercolour painting of Ramsgate I started this Morning from outside The Oak Hotel, Clockhouse on the left Cervia on the right

Ah Just found the photo I took while painting

The blog editor has just gone bonkers and all the text is now in the middle.

Due to the nature of Clown Computing this was post was written using different types of fruit, it may make you more comfortable to know the following:- If the part you are reading makes sense, it was written on my PineApple Device, which has an ordinary keyboard. If it contains random wrong words, it was written on my RaspBerry Device, which has predictive text and a small screen that I can’t always see properly. If it makes no sense whatsoever, it written on my new BaNana Device, with which I develop the persona of a chimpanzee and hit keys randomly hoping it will produce the works of Shakespeare, or at least something coherent.     

Next up has anyone else noticed that they seem to be building another Thanet Earth next to the existing one? I would call it another greenhouse, but this is like calling Mt Everest a hill.

Thanet Earth and the Greenhouse Recount.

After yesterdays post, another tweet from Thanet Earth:

Thanet Earth ‏@thanetearth

@michaelbookshop Hi Michael, can assure you we do have 4 greenhouses now. Number 4 was constructed autumn 2012 and planting is taking place!

So I phoned them up again and spoke to the same person, it seems they have had a recount and yes they have four greenhouses one of which seems to be new.

To me a major local employer increasing their operation by a large factor is a major local news story, so I asked them if they have a press release, their website is a bit vague about the number of greenhouses: “No definite decision has yet been reached on timetable for construction of the remaining greenhouses, or on the crops they will grow.”

They had a bit of an ask around and then sent me around their telephone system until I reached the inevitable machine and gave up.

I think I have worked out what the problem is, bit like the pyramids and sharpening razor blades, what we have is a mixture of a pointy shape and massive size changing the nature of reality and consequentially making the greenhouses very difficult to count.

I have done an explanatory illustration, the phrase is: “Do not adjust your mind, reality is at fault”    

Thanet Earth, Twitter and the Imaginary Greenhouse and a Ramble.

I guess most people know that although Thanet Earth got planning permission for seven greenhouses it has only built three of them so far.

So I was a bit surprised earlier today when they tweeted:

10hThanet Earth ‏@thanetearth

A major milestone in our site's development reached. The new greenhouse build completed and ready for baby plants. http://ow.ly/i/1lTEu 

Expand

and even more surprised when they tweeted again

10hThanet Earth ‏@thanetearth

Tomato plants going into the new greenhouse at the moment.http://ow.ly/i/1lTFd 

 View photo

and again

Tweets

10hThanet Earth ‏@thanetearth

So we now have two tomato g'houses, and one each for peppers and cucumbers. http://ow.ly/i/1lTJW  Congrats to all the team!

 View photo

•  Reply 
•  Retweet 
•  Favorite

Obviously they would know how many greenhouses they have, wouldn't they? so I phoned them up.

I spoke to them and they didn’t seem to think they had an extra greenhouse, I suggested to them that it was possible that their Twitter account had been hacked.

I said to them that I generally check the facts before posting a news item and as I was sure they wouldn’t want me to post inaccurate information about their company would they confirm the position later today before I wrote my blog post.

Big companies and social media is a pretty strange world, anyhow they said they would look into it and email me back.

Well they didn’t email me so I can only assume they are either still counting their greenhouses or trying to track down whoever is responsible for their Twitter account.

It really has to be their Twitter account as they have been posting on it for over three years.

I then went on to Ramsgate’s newest art gallery, The Updown gallery at Satis House. 

they have a new exhibition and being interested in art I went and took some photos, I will ramble on here I am just off to check the copyright wording for the gallery. 

Here we are All pictures copyright and produced with permission of the gallery, their website is http://www.updowngallery.co.uk/

I will do a comprehensive post about the new exhibition during the next few days.

I took a few photos on my way back from the gallery, here they are

The Thanet news of the day is that the council have announced there will be no council tax rise this year.

Business expansion in Thanet

Thanet Earth have announced that they have made a profit for the first time and that demand for their produce is exceeding supply, as they have only built three of the planned seven huge greenhouses I would think we can expect the construction of another one soon. To put this in context, the made a loss of £5m the previous year, however in the trading year to April 2011 they made a profit of about a quarter of a million.

It does seem to me to be a great shame that this food factory that doesn’t use soil, takes its water from the water mains (apart from the rain collected from the roof) and produces liquid waste that has to go into the main sewer – in other words it could be built on a brownfield site – is built and will expand on prime agricultural land. It is however very fortunate that they were not allowed to pump water from the Thanet aquifer or drain their liquid waste into the ground or Pegwell Bay.

It is difficult to say how much Thanet Earth benefits the local economy or the environment, but at least it is now making a profit.

The other main business expansion in Thanet recently is the Marks and Spencer at Westwood Cross, what they have done here is to double the size of the shop by adding a second floor. This creates 70 jobs, which as far as I can see are part time and full time for local people and reduce local unemployment.

Once again though we have M&S at WC at a terrible cost to our town centres what the difference in the number of jobs would be between one big shop at WC and two smaller ones in Ramsgate and Margate I don’t really know.

There is of course a fine balance between what large companies are allowed to do in terms of damage to the local community and damage to the environment, and how they benefit the local community.

Whatever the answer to this one there is no doubt that for us as a family, buying a pair of trousers from M&S involves a motorised journey that is harmful to the environment.

I think another big problem here is how much money stays in the area, by this I mean if the higher paid, executive staff are living and spending their money outside Thanet and the majority of the company profit is going out of the area, we need to be careful in weighing the balances.

I know that this is partly down to the nasty modern world and it is not so very long ago that most people working in provincial towns lived in them too. I do wonder if the higher paid local government paid staff lived in the towns they are supposed to serve how much better things would be.          

What are you drinking, the water or the wave? A review of drinking water pollution in Thanet

First, DON’T PANIC, make sure you are carrying your towel, engineering hat on for a mo. Before you read any of this stuff be assured that apart from swimming in the sea in Thanet after heavy rain, you aren’t likely to be drinking high concentrations of raw sewage, weedkiller and other nasties.

The environment Agency started to produce a leaflet groundwater quality in Thanet, if this is available on their website then I can’t find it, but I have managed to get hold of the first three of these leaflets covering the period from October 2009 to June 2010.

Thanet sits on its own drinking water reservoir, the chalk under Thanet acts like a big sponge and anything liquid that falls on the ground is soaked up and since pre history there have been wells dug into this chalk sponge, water drawn from these wells has been drunk by the people of Thanet.

The chalk filters some of the nasties out, some get through with the water and some parts of this underground reservoir have been so badly damaged by toxic chemical spills that the only thing to do is to keep pumping contaminated water from wells around the spill, so that it doesn’t spread to other parts of the chalk.

If you look at the rather splodgy map above you will see it has red bits on it, the red circles show the area around the drinking water pumping stations, and wiggly sausage like lines extending from these are “adits” underground tunnels for water leading to the pumping stations.

There are quite tight controls about what you can pour into the ground over the red bits, hence all the fuss over China Gateway, where the firm involved intended to let out lots of industrial units with their own septic tanks, draining into the red bit.

The green bits are not so sensitive, if you get caught short in the country, but not really a good place to throw away the contents of the bottle at the back of the shed with the skull and crossbones on it.

The blue bits are even less sensitive, but what goes in there will probably eventually come out.

Issue one says that the EA have helped get £30m to mend our Victorian sewers and redirect sewage pipes that lead directly to the chalk and lots over other reassuring things see http://www.thanetonline.com/gwqn/

I am assuming that having boiled your water or whatever you are now ready for issue two, this tells us among other things that the environmentally conscious Thanet Earth wanted to pour their effluent into the drinking water, but that after discussions with the EA has now got permission to build a sewage pipe. It’s a bit vague about where the effluent is going at the moment, perhaps they are crossing their legs, see http://www.thanetonline.com/gwqn/id3.htm

Issue three interestingly enough doesn’t contain the interesting page 4 “Site Specific Updates” that I read with interest in issues one and two, possibly nothing of note occurred at specific sites in Thanet during that period. Here is the link to issue three http://www.thanetonline.com/gwqn/id4.htm

Thanet Earth, Success or Disaster

Looking on the local blogs and news sites this morning for something that is both local and controversial, something that isn’t that easy these days, I came across the following article on the Your Thanet website, http://www.yourthanet.co.uk/p_148/Article/a_10306/So_what_did_Thanet_Earth_do_for_Thanet

I have had considerable reservations about Thanet Earth since construction work first started there and have been posting about it for some time, this is an example, http://thanetonline.blogspot.com/2008/08/thanet-earth.html

My reservations are mainly environmental ones, a major concern being that there was no need to build it on prime farmland when we already have so many spoilt industrial sites. You have to appreciate that Thanet Earth doesn’t use Thanet’s earth at all, the plants there are grown in chemical cocktail mixed up in water. Science hat on for a moment, to be fair all living things are growing in the chemical cocktail of this planets environment, and although you may go out an buy an “organic vegetable” you would be pretty hard pushed to find an inorganic vegetable.

However the truth is that any old bit of spoiled industrial land would have done for Thanet Earth and bulldozing off prime farmland wasn’t such a good idea. Some of the arguments for Thanet Earth literally don’t hold water. An example of this is that a large proportion of water is saved by collecting rainwater from its roofs, the flaw in this argument is that the water landing on the roofs was previously soaking into the ground and replenishing our natural underground water reservoir.

Here are the rest of my posts about Thanet Earth http://thanetonline.blogspot.com/search/label/Thanet%20Earth for those of you who want a bit more detail.

Sunday Ramble 1 China Gateway, Manston Airport and Thanet Earth

I see that China Gateway and various plans for Manston Business Park seem to be back in circulation

‘Property Week’ magazine reports (30 July) see http://www.propertyweek.com/manston-plans-to-open-gateway/5003607.article

I have lifted this from Acol Newsletter; “a major change of direction for China Gateway: The 106-acre site achieved con-sent for a 1.5m sq ft first phase in October 2008. However, the £200m scheme was dealt a severe blow when it failed to find development funding, despite having a 1m sq ft pre-let agreement with Chinamex, an investment company backed by the Chinese government.

The developer had expected to build out the first phase in one go with the prelet secured, but its plans have now changed. Ken Wills, chief executive at China Gateway says that Instead it will build six “globalisation centres” in its first phase of around 120,000 sq ft each. Each building could contain between 200 and 300 small and medium sized enterprises which China Gateway hopes will be Chinese. It is in talks with the Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China about establishing a base, and electronics giant Aigo. It hopes to be able to start construction on the revised phase before the end of the year. Another Ken Wills business, Summit Aviation, is to let out 40,000 sq feet of its new jet engine service facility at Manston.”

This is all a bit odd, as I can’t find any planning application for the changes, the previous planning application has as far as I understand gone into one of those odd states that our crazy planning laws produce.

By this I mean that when the council agreed it would pass the application if certain conditions were met, so the clock stops that determines when the application will expire, until the developer comes up with details of how they will comply, and until this has been thrashed out with the council and a planning agreement produced, the thing stays open in perpetuity.

My main gripe over Manston is the water one, I will try to set this out as simply as I can.

The situation at the moment is that a lot of the aquifer (the underground drinking water reservoir under Thanet, made of porous chalk) has been contaminated and the usable bit that is essential for our water is mostly under Manston. Setting aside the pollution risk issues that relate to the various activities there, the main constraint on developing Manston is the amount of undeveloped land needed for water replenishment (the bit where the rain soaks in).

The trouble is that the county and district council have both been involved with and passed various schemes there, Thanet Earth, the new road, airport expansion, China Gateway, buying land for development and so on.

Thanet Earth story picked up by the Daily Express.

The story by Tom Betts about Thanet Earth see http://www.yourthanet.co.uk/kent-news/Thanet-Earth_s-league-of-nations-revealed-newsinkent33865.aspx has been picked up by the Daily Express see http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/163806/25-of-workers-at-jobs-blackspot-come-from-abroad

The subject of Thanet Earth and other major initiatives that government support to create employment is an interesting one and one with no easy answers here in Thanet.

Put in simple terms we have several different types of migrant here the most problematic being those who are long term unemployed, often rehoused here by London boroughs, because it is a cheap solution.

We also have, at the other end of the spectrum, those who work in London but have moved here and commute, this is particularly so in Ramsgate at the moment, due to the fast rail link.

I suppose those who migrate to Thanet for work probably represent a fairly small proportion of our migrants and the effect they have on the local job situation difficult to assess.

I would say from my own experience that a fairly large proportion of the long-term local residents, of working age, are employed and much of our unemployment problem is an imported one, albeit part of that problem a long-term one.

The man from the ministry, Pamplona bull run and other thoughts for Sunday.

An old friend of mine who I hadn’t seen for some time dropped in for a chat today, he now works in what we once would have called the ministry of education but is now probably made up of a great many government departments, at local, national and European level.

We had quite a considerable chat about the coming of the end of the public service gravy train, partly as the government department he works in is one that David Cameron says he will close if he gets elected.

My notion that the whole UK education system could be improved for nothing, just by ensuring that the teachers took the examinations with their students and that as long as the same examiner marked all of each classes and their teachers exam papers, many of the problems in our education system would be resolved, went down quite well with him.

Interestingly he considered that many civil servants including him were grossly over paid, he considered that pay in the public sector was now markedly better than in the private sector, for similar jobs.

Catching up on this week’s news, “Man gored to death by bull in Pamplona run,” was one I had missed click here for story and video footage, it seems hardly credible that this should still be going on in modern Europe.

Having read the article and watched the video I am trying to get my head round how I feel about this, I suppose this is probably the most dangerous legal public event still in existence.

From the point of view of the young chap who got killed, I don’t suppose he really thought of the danger or the awful consequences for his family. I would like to say that when I was in my late teens or early twenties, especially if goaded on by my friends, I would have been too sensible to what he did, but am not so sure.

From the bulls point of view as the bulls that are bred for Spanish bullfighting are just that and wouldn’t exist without the sport, this is more difficult for me than just saying it’s barbaric and has no place in a modern world.

If I had been born a bull in the UK, castration, intensive farming and the slaughterhouse would have been my lot.

The bulls bred for Spanish bullfighting however pretty much range freely, as close to the bovine natural habitat as one is likely to find in Europe today, I think reaching maturity intact and dieing relatively quickly has more appeal for me.

Anyway moving away from the Hemmingwayesk to the more mundane, I have just put last weeks planning applications on http://thanetpress.blogspot.com/ and am once again pondering the bizarre nature of TDC planning online.

The most ridiculous aspect of the plans as they appear online is that pretty much all of them are scans of scale drawings, the only way one can work out any of the dimensions on them is to use a scale ruler against the paper sheet.

This means that when viewing the planning drawings online it is impossible to tell how long any of the lines are i.e. the height, width or depth of any of the proposed buildings, rendering most of the documents published on the site next to useless.

I have been asking TDC to get linier scales added to the drawings before they are scanned for some time, this wouldn’t be difficult, it could be done as simply as having a rubber stamp of each scale made and applying it to the plan.

I know that TDC are working on a new planning site, which should be working by now, however they tell me that this has been beset with technical problems. Not having got as far as putting liner scales on the sheets yet suggests there will be quite a long wait before we get anything really useful.

Pondering our local water contamination a question that occasionally flits through my mind is, would the combination of government agencies that appear to be incapable of insisting in basic safety measures, like a flood risk assessment for Pleasurama, combine through incompetence or design to supply contaminated tap water in a first world country click here to read.

Still on the water issue, some of you may be interested to see how Thanet Earth have addressed some of the problems that China Gateway will have to solve click here to view, as you can see it will a mammoth and expensive task. I believe something like this sort of solution will have to be used for the car and lorry park runoff, looking at the size of these parking areas the tanks will have to be massive

I will endeavour to add more as I get time today.

Duty and disobedience when questioning the council

There has been some debate on this blog this week about the ethics of my questioning the council and other government organisations particularly with regards to technical issues, see http://thanetonline.blogspot.com/2009/04/budget-and-blogs.html which I found particularly interesting.

For me a major issue here is the way in which my representatives, in this case councillors function and although this may seem strange my feelings are that too many of them have had too much experience of being councillors.

One way or another with the huge amount of legislation, regulatory bodies and being heavily guided by council officers a situation has developed where councillors appear to be trained to conform with council officers wishes, rather than represent the electorate which is supposed to be their primary function.

For me then I find the only course of action open to me is to question the officers directly, for example having acquired the water quality tables my main concern is the private boreholes that may not be properly regulated. For instance this week I will ask what treatment if any is used for the water pumped out of the ground for irrigation at Thanet Earth.

This is not because I have any expert knowledge of water contamination but is based on the premise that if the public water supply needs to be purified and diluted to be safe for consumption, it probably needs to be purified and diluted for the intensive growing of cucumbers and tomatoes that are by their very nature er watery.

A couple of things that I am unhappy about is that all the pesticides are grouped together in one table and my rather dated scientific knowledge leads me to believe that DDT bonds with the fatty acids in plants, I also believe that mercury would accumulate in the growing process.

When I asked about water draining into the ground at Thanet Earth I was told that it wouldn’t so presumably the water must go round and round in the growing process until it evaporates leaving most of the chemicals behind.

One of the great problems with contamination of the aquifer is that many people who would be likely to contaminate the aquifer, engineers and lorry drivers for instance would be unaware of its existence.

To this end I have asked if the council would consider signposting in appropriate areas and I am told that they are considering it.

Another thing that interested me this week was the complaint that I made that didn’t appear on the councils list of complaints, the council officer I asked assumed that I had emailed it to someone randomly and they had forgotten to record it.

In fact I used the online complaints form the essence of the complaint was to try and get TDC to post the dvds, of council meetings that they already make, to Kent TV so they could be available online in a way that would cost the council virtually nothing.

I eventually got a response that a committee was to be set up to find a more expensive way of doing this and at that point I just gave up on the issue.

Trading in the real world in this recession is not easy and that sort of thing makes one annoyed.

Anyway this complaint should have registered automatically so either the council have a serious IT failure here or they are adjusting the figures for some reason or another.

In terms of official complaints and freedom of information requests I am very reluctant to use them as I assume they cost the council a lot to resolve, for instance I believe I have only ever made 3 complaints 2 of which relate to Pleasurama.

With Pleasurama I am going to pursue its problems much more vigorously to ensure that we don’t get another 5 years of deserted building site, 3 years of delay was caused by the council sitting on the survey of the cliff façade and not taking any action.

It was only when I discovered the existence of the survey that action was taken, it may have been coincidental but the timing suggested otherwise.

Now I have suggested the access road is dangerous see http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/tdc/id50.htm and the answers I got from the council suggest that this may be the case, I would imagine that this has instigated some sort of survey, but just don’t know, if it says the road can’t support busses I am determined that they don’t sit on it for 3 years this time.

This is important because if it can’t support busses for the expected life of the new development, it will either have to be made so it can and I would expect the expense of doing this would be tremendous, or it will have to be closed to heavy vehicles.

If it is to be closed to heavy vehicles then the new development will have to be completely redesigned which would mean that it would have to be environment agency compliant.

Another problem I find with the various government agencies is it is very difficult to get them to view big problems as a whole, with the water issue there is now no doubt in my mind that Thanet Earth, China Gateway and airport expansion can’t all be allowed to happen on the aquifer.

Certainly there doesn’t appear to be any way that China Gateway can expand beyond phase 1 as we just wont have enough water if it does and with phase 1 being built it would seem highly unlikely that any airport expansion that involves more hard standing can occur.

Now regardless of your views on other aspects of these developments they involve businesses that are prepared to invest in this area and without Southern Water, the environment agency and the council setting some definite guidelines as to the amount of development on the aquifer that can be allowed it is not possible for these businesses to function properly.

I would say that the tremendous fluctuations in Commercial Group Properties share price is partly symptomatic of there being no realistic understanding both of how much they can expand and how they are going to manage the drainage for phase 1.

The fact that there was consultation with the council before the drainage plans that the council would have known would be totally unacceptable were drawn up shows just how much time and money can be wasted by the councils unrealistic explanation of environmental constraints.

The question I would like to ask those of you who feel I shouldn’t be using the methods I use to get the council to act in a more decisive way over issues that effect our safety and economy is; what methods do they think is should use?

Thanet Earth. Aquam an undam? What are you drinking, the water or the wave?

I have been discussing the hard standing drainage for Thanet earth with TDC and the EA, normally I am inclined to modify these communications into short posts for you all, but I am putting up my communications between TDC and me, pretty much in full, my emails in black and TDCs in red. For once it looks like a satisfactory outcome and a job properly done!

The reason that I am doing this is that it serves to emphasise how important interceptors are and why I feel that Manston Airport shouldn’t be operating without one on the main runway, positioned as it is on our essential drinking water aquifer and currently discharging into an internationally acclaimed wetland:

Could you kindly look into this one for me, or tell me who can, could you also tell me how big the interceptors are if any are installed?

A mixture of factors has come together making an aspect of Thanet Earth potentially very dangerous indeed.

When the planning application for Thanet Earth was approved there was no environmental impact study done, I don’t know if this was because it counted as an agricultural development or if it just slipped under the radar.

This means that the surface drainage of the car, lorry parks and loading areas have drains that run into soakaways not only are these on the aquifer, but they are very close to where Thanet Earth is pumping out water from a borehole for its irrigation and crop washing.

The recent disparity between diesel prices in different countries mean that lorries are being fitted with larger fuel tanks 1,000 litres is not uncommon.

I doubt that the driver would even notice if while he was manoeuvring his lorry a bollard or something caught and ruptured his fuel tank and as lorries often have two of these tanks it could be a considerable time before he noticed.

There is also a new crime spreading across Europe which is pertinent to lorry parks on the aquifer, below an extract from a news article.

On the 24th of June when the workmen arrived for a new day they found 3 lorries that have been filled up the last night with their tanks completely empty, having been pierced with a pickaxe. They didn't even take half of the diesel, with the remainder spilled on the ground. The company lost more than 4000 € that day from fuel theft in addition to the cost of repairing 3 fuel tanks.

One month later the smell of spilt diesel still engulfs the facility. Now the lorries are guarded during the night by a man with a licence to carry and use firearms. On the fence a sign warns: be wary of pitbull dogs.

Apologies for the delayed response, I have just returned from annual leave. The original consultation on this app predates my arrival, but I am chasing up the relevant info on this site and will get back to you once I am in possession of the facts. In the meantime, the Environment Agency may be a useful source of information regarding the history of this one.

I have from the EA, Lorry and loading areas do drain to soakaway but via Class 1 full retention interceptors with oil detector alarms and with pen-stop values up and down stream of the interceptor that can be used to stop any contaminated discharge to the interceptor or from the interceptor.

So the question I would like the answer to is; is the interceptor and surface containment area able to contain the spillage from these newly enlarged lorry tanks?

Chatting to a few lorry drivers that buy transport books from the shop I gather 2,000 litres isn’t an fuel unusual capacity.

I have now received a response from the RPS Principal Engineer working on the Thanet Earth project (vide infra) and visited the site to inspect progress of these works.

In answer to your question regarding a spill from a large tank on a lorry, the worst case scenario options have been calculated for the principal parking areas of the site as follows. I should add, that the site is also designed to restrict access to the buildings to designated areas, thus deterring lorries from parking anywhere else on the site (e.g. on the side of a roadway, where a spill could directly enter ground).

'The interceptors installed are Conder 'full retention' separators, are fitted with automatic closure devices that comprise a floating disc or ball and plate in a cylindrical shaft over the outlet duct. In major spillages, or when the maximum oil retention capacity is retained the
closure device is forced down over the aperture to prevent discharge.
Audio and visual alarms will action when the oil level is at 90% capacity.

With regard storage of accidental spills, I have calculated the storage volumes available at each of the separators based on a worst case of having 89.9% of the oil storage capacity full before the spillages i.e. just prior to alarm for emptying:

- Separator 1 (Pack house) = remaining capacity within the interceptor
of 400l + drainage system and above ground containment of 75,000l =
75,400l.

- Separator 2 (GH2/3)= remaining capacity within the interceptor of 80l
+ drainage system and above ground containment of 10,000l = 10,080l.

- Separator 3 (GH4) = remaining capacity within the interceptor of 40l +
drainage system and above ground containment of 4,000l = 4,040l.'

As you can see, the absolute worst case scenario would be for a lorry tank to be punctured in the vicinity of drainage running to separator 3, but this would still be able to offer protection commensurate with losing two entire large HGV tank loads of fuel, although the primary concern, should this ever occur, would obviously be the fire risk in the first instance

I will reply more coherently when I have discussed this with a friend who specialises in this area, sorry I can’t do it manu propria, initial thoughts have me wondering what happens with a fuel spillage in a rain storm round number 3, I will do some sums.

Manston Airport expansion limitations and considerations

Accidents fuel and oil spillages do happen at airports, in the last week one airliner slid off the runway and there was an hydraulic oil spillage yesterday.

So if we have 747s at Manston what would a spillage or accident be likely to involve?

The fuel used for jet engines like those in a 747 isn’t aviation gasoline which is a sort of hi octane version of the petrol used in cars.

Jet engine fuel is much more like paraffin that people used in paraffin heaters and oil lamps before something cleaner and less smelly came along, it is a sooty smelly burner.

Also the chemicals used in the foam to put out a fire in an air accident would be harmful to the aquifer (underground drinking and agricultural water reservoir in the porous chalk under Thanet)

How big could a spillage be and how big could an accident be?

I will stick with the 747s as an example, 747s can carry up to about 500 passengers and have a maximum fuel capacity of 57,285gallons (216,840 litres).

From this point on one can’t consider Manston expansion in isolation, because the other big developments on the aquifer put strain on water resources and pollution problems.

The problem with the airport, Thanet Earth and China Gateway is that they are all very close to water abstraction points. Thanet Earth had no environmental impact study, China Gateway’s 106 agreement looks impossible to comply to in terms of surface drainage and the airport isn’t complying to its discharge consent.

It is the cumulative effect of all of these cranking up the level of risk that worries me, rather like driving a car brakes, tyres and suspension all of which just managed to pass the MOT.

There also appears to have been a pollution incident at their bulk storage installation with the cleanup soon to start. I have published documentation to support this on a series of linked internet pages at http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/drink/ including letters from the EA to the airport operator expressing their concerns.

The airports contingency plan to dig out a fuel spillage caused by a major air accident on the grass part of the airport was based on the ludicrous assumption that, the police and air accident authority would allow a digger to operate amongst the evidence, injured and dead bodies.

Now they appear to have accepted that this plan wasn’t viable, leaving them with plan at all.

A large fuel spillage in this part of the underground reservoir could permanently damage it meaning, no more agriculture in Thanet, no Thanet Earth, hosepipe bans every summer. The other approach of concreting it over doesn’t work because we need the rainfall on it to replenish the water.

I think it likely that the unrealistic approach to the restrictions imposed by the water source protection zones, was partly responsible for the collapse of the share price of the China Gateway developers. We certainly shouldn’t be treating people who wish to invest in Thanet in this way and need to be able to produce a clear cut understanding of what can and can’t be allowed to take place on the source protection zones, before these companies spend large amounts of money on planning for pipedreams.

The two large developments I have looked into where construction has started Pleasurama where the access road has been built without a flood risk assessment, despite a strong recommendation from the EA for one and Thanet Earth built without an environmental impact assessment both look dangerous.

With Manston business park, in the initial consultation stage TDC planning must have known that CGP would have had to conform to the same standards mandatory for the other developments on the site. Southern Water and the EA between them stipulate that the surface runoff can’t go into soakaways or Pegwell bay, it can’t go into the mains drainage as it would have to be pumped uphill (a power cut in a thunderstorm would make this unworkable, apart from the large volume of water involved making this solution unlikely to be viable) that leaves gravity fed balancing ponds. There are two problems with the balancing pond solution one is that CGP don’t own enough land lower than their site and higher than the part of the water source protection zone that they would be allowed to discharge into and the airport operator, acting as a statutory consultee has stipulated against them because of problems with waterfowl.

I suggested to TDC that some land was acquired away from the flight path towards Pegwell bay so the balancing ponds could discharge into Pegwell bay.

I then came across the issue that KCC Highways don’t need to obtain discharge consent, but obviously are nor stupid enough to discharge water from the main roads into soakaways on the aquifer, (because of lorry crashes) so they have tapped into the airport drainage system that discharges into Pegwell bay.

We now have a situation where too much fresh water is being discharged into Pegwell bay, reducing the salt water content to the point where a lot of the marine life in the bay is dieing.

No one I have asked can answer the simple question where does the surface runoff water go from the china gateway development, although the 106 has been thrashed out there are still no surface drainage plans, CGPs shares the were trading at £1.70 a year ago, last traded, last month at 10p.

All the time I come back to the problem of poor consultation between the parties involved in the three big developments on the aquifer, the most ludicrous being that in the airport expansion master plan the airport access road is shown going through some of the buildings that CGP show on their plans for China Gateway.

A problem with the water supply in the southeast is the goal posts are continually moving, the EA and other experts I consult, say that the latest concerns with development on the aquifer are those of replenishment, more water demand combined with less land to rain on.

I am sorry that some of this repetition of things I have sad before, but what we seem to be getting involved in here is considerable airport expansion before the expansion masterplan has been discussed and a safe infrastructure is in place.

Also like the China Gateway project they are going to be tied when it comes to concreting over more land, because there is nowhere for more surface runoff to go.

The picture is of the Red Arrows at Manston from the book I publish, Twilight of Pistons.

Thanet Earth Environmental Time Bomb

A mixture of factors has come together making an aspect of Thanet Earth very dangerous indeed.

When the planning application for Thanet Earth was approved there was no environmental study done, I don’t know if this was because it counted as an agricultural development or if it just slipped under the radar.

This means that the statuary consultation of the organisations to ensure that was environmentally ok just weren’t done, in fact the consultations to make sure it was safe environmentally weren’t even considered.

This means that the surface drainage of the car, lorry parks and loading areas have drains that run into soakaways not only are these on top of our underground water reservoir, but they are very close to where Thanet Earth is pumping out water from a borehole for its irrigation and crop washing.

The recent disparity between diesel prices in different countries mean that lorries are being fitted with larger fuel tanks 1,000 litres is not uncommon.

I doubt that the driver would even notice if while he was manoeuvring his lorry a bollard or something caught and ruptured his fuel tank.

Diesel fuel is a very complex substance and very harmful to underground water reservoirs, especially those made of porous chalk like ours is in Thanet the damaged caused by it can be irreversible.

Because this fuel is lighter than water it floats on top and rapidly spreads out and you can click here to read about another problem, do you think these guys care about us?

Sunday morning reflections

I notice all three local papers (links on sidebar) have reported the road accident on Ramsgate’s westcliff, three vehicles were involved and an elderly drivers car went over the cliff, he is now seriously ill in hospital. Does anyone have any more information about what happened?

There is an amazing aerial photo of Thanet Earth on Thanet Life http://birchington.blogspot.com/ it really shows the enormous scale of the thing.

It is a pity that it involved the desecration of so much prime farmland, I have expressed concerns before about matters relating to surface drainage and pumping so much water adjacent to Monkton Nature Reserve, which I think will dry it out.

What occurred to me looking at the pictures is that the large manmade lakes will attract a lot of waterfowl and that this is probably not such a good idea right at the end of Manston Airport runway.

The planning application number is F/TH/05/0237 because of the cranky way the government planning site is written I can’t link to the plans, so you have to go to the site www.ukplanning.com/thanet and put the application number in the search box to view it.

I have been looking at the plans this morning and I can’t find anything there about the effects of all the open water on Manston airport, have I missed it, can anyone put me right here?

While looking for the application number I stumbled across plans and instructions for assembling a dragon on one of the main Thanet roundabouts see application number F/TH/08/1297 I have to admit to being quite captivated by these. Something that particularly amused me is that it is to be small enough not to distract drivers while large enough to be significant. You couldn’t make it up could you?

Oh yes and the following information from TDCs new knowledge hub website http://www.thanet.gov.uk/council__democracy/thanet_knowledge_hub.aspx

Did you know? Thanet's population was estimated to be 129,200 in 2007. 52.3% of Thanet's population are female, 47.7% are male. Average life expectancy in Thanet is 77. Average life expectancy for females is 80 and males 75. Thanet's population is becoming more diverse. Between 2001 -2005 its black and minority ethnic population has doubled.