Groundwater levels continue to rise at Straitgate

This week, the groundwater level at PZ2017/02 – a borehole that sits on the eastern boundary of the proposed extraction area – was 30cm higher than reported here last week.

It now sits just 0.90m below ground level – a new maximum. 

As previously posted, the sand and gravel that Aggregate Industries wants at Straitgate Farm starts on average 2.3m below ground level. 

The company’s permission only permits quarrying above the maximum water table. 

AI looks for new quarry manager to take on Straitgate can-of-worms

Is there anybody left working at Aggregate Industries who has played a meaningful part in putting together the plans to quarry Straitgate Farm? 

Of course, the company took so long to secure its permission – the best part of a decade, with site investigations, two applications, one refusal and a planning appeal – it’s not surprising that most of the actors behind the company’s scheme have exited stage left. 

Aggregate Industries is now advertising for a new Quarry Manager for Hillhead Quarry. It is this person who would be responsible operationally for mineral working at Straitgate. 

And what a responsibility, knowing what a convoluted, half-baked scheme this whole thing has become. 

The advert says: 

With an annual extraction of 350,000 tonnes and large projects in the planning phase, this position will offer you excellent growth in your career. 

Let’s hope so for their sake – because what person would want to take on the Straitgate can-of-worms? 

It was already clear last year, from the Council’s monitoring report, that the previous quarry manager for Hillhead, and before that for Blackhill, had chosen to hang up his boots. Given his fervent support for the Straitgate dream, including at the DMC meeting that refused the application, you might have thought he’d be tempted to see his plans in action – to see the first HVO-filled HGVs pull off site, the first crossing of displaced cows across Ottery’s main road, the first use of livestock tracks across the working site, the first archaeological digs of Iron Age and Roman remains, the first daily groundwater interpolations, the first resulting revisions of the MWWT, the first ancient hedgerows grubbed up, the first veteran oaks felled, the first earth movers ripping up precious bmv farmland, the first birds on newly created water bodies – but perhaps he realised more than most just how difficult the whole thing would be to pull off. 

Anyway, the cogs at Aggregate Industries have slowly turned and the position is now being advertised, for those mineral-minded readers who fancy a challenge. 

Someone else will now be landed with the job of trying to make sense of it all at Straitgate, trying to get all the disparate parts to somehow hang together, trying to satisfy the profusion of constraints and conditions. 

It won’t be an easy task. Remember, Aggregate Industries said whatever it needed to say to reach each stage of the planning process. It’s not clear that anyone ever stopped to think whether the whole thing was actually feasible.

Govt announces partial reversal of EA cuts

East Devon Watch reminds us that between 2013 and 2018, the Environment Agency shed the equivalent of more than 2,500 full time jobs – 20% of its workforce. 

No doubt spooked by the public’s response to the sewage scandal, the Government has now announced that 500 additional staff for inspections, enforcement and stronger regulation will be recruited over the over the next three years. 

Environment Agency Chair, Alan Lovell, said:   

Last year we set out measures to transform the way we regulate the water industry to uncover non-compliance and drive better performance. Today’s announcement builds on that. Campaign groups and the public want to see the Environment Agency better resourced to do what it does best, regulate for a better environment. 

Another borehole showing ZERO depth of available resource

The sand and gravel that Aggregate Industries wants at Straitgate Farm starts on average 2.3m below ground level.

The company’s permission only permits quarrying above the maximum water table. 

Clearly, therefore, in areas where the maximum groundwater level is closer than 2.3m below the ground surface, there is likely to be no sand and gravel available for the company to recover. 

In practice, to make it at all worthwhile – bearing in mind the costs, ecologically or otherwise, involved in stripping, storing, restoring more than 2.3m of 'best and most versatile' topsoil, subsoils and overburden – the maximum groundwater would need to be no nearer than 3.3m below ground level to be able to extract even 1 metre’s worth of sand and gravel. 

Earlier this month we posted how the water level at borehole PZ2017/03 has risen to ground level, and how Aggregate Industries has been pulling the wool over everybody’s eyes – planning inspectors included. 

Obviously, there is no resource available to the company for an indeterminate area around this borehole on the eastern boundary of the extraction area. It's now the same for the area around another borehole. 

Last week, the groundwater level at borehole PZ2017/02 was just 1.19m below ground level. This is again on the eastern boundary - as shown below:

   

This groundwater level is higher, by our estimation, than the borehole’s previously recorded maximum on 18/02/2020. It is notable that levels in this location have only been monitored between 2017 and 2022, and not, like a number of the other locations, during the wet winter of 2013-2014. 

It’s not altogether surprising that the previous maximum has been exceeded, given the recent rainfall:

Last February was one of the driest on record for England & Wales with many locations seeing less than 10% of normal rain.

This February will be one of the wettest, many places will record more than 200%.

Extremes driven by climate change and things will get more extreme. pic.twitter.com/3xPTqh8soj

— Dave Throup (@DaveThroup) February 18, 2024

This all ties in with what we said in 2021, when we posted Depth of available resource at Straitgate is in places ZERO. 

Borehole PZ2017/02 is where Aggregate Industries plans to locate infiltration trenches to stop downslope flooding. Clearly, with water levels this high, those trenches can't work as intended. Again, as we posted in 2021, Infiltration areas to stop flooding couldn't be 3m deep – without breaching MWWT and in 2018, AI’s infiltration plans can’t work either – with groundwater this close to the surface. 

Ordinarily, if Aggregate Industries were monitoring the site, another calculation of the extrapolated maximum winter water table, the MWWT, would now be triggered, the company’s permitted base of extraction would have to be moved upwards and the available tonnage moved downwards. 

For reasons we can all guess, the company is not currently monitoring groundwater levels across the site.

Planning conditions mean AI must drill more water monitoring boreholes

In order to protect surrounding private water supplies, Condition 30 of Aggregate Industries’ permission to quarry Straitgate Farm stipulates: 

Piezometer coverage across the site shall be, at any time, no less than the proposed one piezometer at each corner of each working sub-phase. Piezometers which are lost through quarry working shall be replaced within seven days. Continuous monitoring of all site piezometers (and interpolation between them) shall be used to ensure, during working, that the base level to which the quarry is worked is no closer to the measured groundwater level than 1 metre. 

Our emphasis.

Three working phases have been proposed, with two sub-phases in each.

Even as things currently stand, there is no piezometer on the SE corner of Phase 1. 

Furthermore, it is patently clear – and has been for years – that there are large areas on the eastern boundary that cannot be quarried without breaching the MWWT, given that groundwater has now been recorded just 1.19m, 0m, 1.26m and 1.59m below the surface at PZ2017/02, PZ2017/03, SG1990/021 and SG1990/012 respectively. 

The eastern boundary of Phase 1 and Phase 2 will therefore need to be redrawn.

Piezometer PZ2017/03, at the NE corner of Phase 1 and SE corner of Phase 2, is obviously unable to provide any meaningful information on how far to the west of this point the maximum groundwater levels would allow sufficient depth for mineral extraction, given water levels here have reached ground level. 

Clearly, therefore, there need to be further boreholes drilled at the redrawn eastern boundary of the extraction area – to fulfil Condition 30, ie. so that there are piezometers at "each corner of each working sub-phase". 

At least 12 months of groundwater monitoring in these new boreholes would then be required to provide any meaningful baseline. 

Without new piezometers in these locations there can be no way "to ensure, during working, that the base level to which the quarry is worked is no closer to the measured groundwater level than 1 metre."

What exactly is a water body?

Although the creation of temporary water bodies – for surface water management and restoration – is shown on Aggregate Industries’ plans to quarry Straitgate Farm, Planning Inspectors conditioned that the site can only be quarried if: 

25. No water body shall be created within the site other than the approved weigh bridge lagoon. 

The reason for this was set out in the condition in its draft form (20):

To prevent the site becoming attractive to flocks of birds that may lead to an aviation hazard in the interests of public safety and in accordance with Policy M20 (Sustainable Design) of the Devon Minerals Plan.

Straitgate Farm sits directly below the landing approach for Exeter Airport.

 

Condition 25 is unequivocal. 

It is not weakened by an unless otherwise agreed tailpiece. The Inspectors strengthened the draft condition by removing "without the prior written approval of the Council...".

It is not limited by size. The Inspectors did not specify any minimum. 

It is not limited by duration. The Inspectors removed the qualifier permanent from the draft condition after hearing how temporary water bodies can attract seasonal birds. 

What exactly is a water body? Lawinsider says: 

Waterbody means any accumulation of water, surface or underground, natural or artificial, including rivers, streams, creeks, ditches, swales, lakes, ponds, marshes, wetlands, and ground water. 

Wikipedia says:

The term most often refers to oceans, seas, and lakes, but it includes smaller pools of water such as ponds, wetlands, or more rarely, puddles.

Puddles? Apparently so. In 47 Types Of Bodies Of Water: Pictures And More, Puddle sits at No. 31. 

In fact, in Puddle Britain: 11 amazing facts about tiny bodies of water, Prof Jeremy Biggs, the CEO of the Freshwater Habitats Trust, author of the book Ponds, Pools and Puddles, explains when a puddle becomes a pond, or, for that matter, a lake:

In the UK, we call everything up to 2 hectares [about 5 acres] a pond, but a lake that’s 2.1 hectares is really no different from a pond that’s 1.9 hectares. Down the bottom end, we call things down to 1 sq metre a pond, so then it’s below that we have puddles.

🔵 What is a puddle?

🟡 When does a puddle become a pond? Or, for that matter, a lake?

🔵 Can anything live in a puddle?

🟡 Can animals survive in puddles?

Discover 11 facts about these bodies of water with @guardian ⬇️https://t.co/MODLYxySaZ

— ipbes (@IPBES) November 30, 2023

What hope does Aggregate Industries have of controlling puddles – if it can’t even control this? 

Indeed, what hope does Aggregate Industries have of not creating any new bodies of water, when Google Earth images confirm they were introduced at all of the company's other BSPB quarries? 

As we've said before, the company's plans for Straitgate are incompatible with Condition 25.

But perhaps Aggregate Industries has a cunning plan. 

Why does all this matter? Aggregate Industries left water bodies at nearby Blackhill Quarry – and these were some of the visitors that arrived.

It was Canada geese that brought down US Airways Flight 1549.

Another accident today on the B3174 Exeter Road by Straitgate Farm

Today – just days after two similar incidents – another car crashed into the ditch near where the new cattle crossing is required for Aggregate Industries' scheme to quarry Straitgate Farm, a scheme that will put another 200 HGV movements a day onto this road. 

Water level at borehole PZ2017/03 rises to GROUND LEVEL

Following the post AI has been pulling the wool over everybody’s eyes – planning inspectors included, the water level in PZ2017/03 was last week found sitting at ground level. 

The water level has no doubt reached ground level in this location before – but is not something that has been disclosed by Aggregate Industries.

Remember, the sand and gravel that Aggregate Industries wants starts about 2.3m on average below this level. 

What are groundwater levels doing in other boreholes across the site? Have maximum levels been exceeded again, given all the recent rainfall? 

No one has any idea because Aggregate Industries is not monitoring them. 

This matters, because the maximum water table across the site – the MWWT, guesstimated using previously recorded levels from this borehole and others – will not only form the base of the permitted excavation, to protect the groundwater supplying nearby private water supplies, but will also determine how surface water is managed, to avoid flooding and maintain stream flows.

Last month, Aggregate Industries made clear that it only intended to monitor the boreholes across the excavation site once a month using manual dipping. 

Groundwater levels can rise quickly at Straitgate Farm. Borehole readings show that even from a low base they can reach maximum levels in just 4 weeks. Continuous data loggers, as Aggregate Industries and its consultants have used in the past, are therefore essential for capturing these movements. Clearly, the company doesn’t want to do any more than the barest minimum. It certainly doesn’t want to discover that the MWWT has been exceeded again.

MPA: ‘Housing-led construction slump hits mineral product sales hard’

CONSTRUCTION SLUMP: #Housing-led construction slump hits mineral product sales hard - the latest MPA industry sales survey reveals a 2nd consecutive annual drop in volumes of heavy-side #buildingmaterials.

Read the full story: https://t.co/Rfpsto6MN7@BuildingNews @biztradegovuk pic.twitter.com/k8C6GhSTGE

— Mineral Products Association (@MineralProduct) February 5, 2024

Judge quashes Cornwall planning condition sign off

Aggregate Industries’ permission to quarry Straitgate Farm is subject to a plethora of conditions, a number of which will need to be discharged before any soils can be stripped. 

How should councils grapple with the discharge of planning conditions? 

A judgement, handed down last month by the High Court (Barbara Laing, R (on the application of) v The Cornwall Council [2024] EWHC 120 (Admin)), in relation to the replacement of a length of Cornish hedgerow, gives an insight into the interpretation and discharge of planning conditions. 

Judge Jarman KC summarised the legal principles involved, writing: 

There are no special rules for the interpretation of planning conditions. The test is what a reasonable reader would understand the words to mean in the context of the other conditions and of the consent as a whole. This is an objective exercise in which the court will have regard to the natural and ordinary meaning of the relevant words, the overall purpose of the consent, any other conditions which cast light on the purpose of the relevant words, and common sense: DB Symmetry Ltd v Swindon Borough Council [2022] UKSC 33 at [66]. 

In the particular case he was presiding over, linked to a permission for a nine-home development, the judge quashed Cornwall Council’s decision to discharge a planning condition linked to an ecological plan. That plan had stipulated that double the length of hedgerow to be lost must be constructed elsewhere on-site. The developer applied to discharge the condition, submitting that 23m of lost hedgerow would be replaced by 25m of new. A principal planning officer for the Council considered this acceptable, reporting: 

The condition can therefore be discharged as the [ecological plan] is deemed to be acceptable and in accordance with the general requirements set out in the originally submitted [ecological appraisal]. 

The claimant, who lives next door to the site, challenged the Council’s decision. The Judge ruled: 

The authority interpreted condition 6 too narrowly, and consequently did not grapple with the noncompliance of the ecological plan in two important respects, namely the length of new hedge and direct connectivity with retained hedge... The decision on the application must be quashed and resubmitted to the authority for redetermination.

Judge quashes planning condition sign off over council’s failure to meet environmental appraisal requirements #planning #environment #development https://t.co/PVtbOZjlma.

— Planning Magazine (@PlanningMag) February 5, 2024

Tungsten West receives Draft Permit for Mineral Processing Facility

A "major step-forward" has been taken towards resuming operations at Hemerdon Mine near Plymouth: 

Tungsten West, the owner and operator of the Hemerdon tungsten and tin mine (the "Project" or "Hemerdon") in Southwest England, is pleased to announce that it has received a draft permit from the Environment Agency for the operation of the Mineral Processing Facility ("MPF") at Hemerdon. The draft permit is currently undergoing internal review to ensure all aspects are aligned with the operational requirements of the MPF. Following this review by the Company and the finalisation of the documentation, a public consultation will be held where the Environment Agency will identify that they are 'minded to' grant this permit. This is the final step before the Environment Agency can issue the permit.  Throughout the consultation period, Tungsten West will remain committed to engaging with the Environment Agency and relevant stakeholders. The receipt of the draft permit represents a significant step in securing further financing for the Project and is the gateway for commencement of the updated Feasibility Study, which the Company anticipates will then lead into the main financing round.   

Neil Gawthorpe, CEO of Tungsten West, commented: "I am delighted to confirm receipt of the draft permit for the MPF, which represents a major step-forward in our goal of bringing Hemerdon back into production by the end of 2025, providing an ethical and sustainable domestic supply of critical minerals. I would like to thank the team at the Environment Agency for working closely with the Company and its consultants throughout 2023 to deliver this draft, and we look forward to progressing this process timeously through to a permit." 

It was the Mineral Processing Facility at Hemerdon that was previously the source of complaints by local people last time the mine was operational, as we posted about here and here.

‘New Holcim boss faces long road to decarbonisation’

Miljan Gutovic, the new CEO at Holcim, parent of Aggregate Industries, speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, claimed: 

We are working on decarbonising Holcim, the construction industry, making our cities more sustainable and we are also driving circular construction.

New CEO. Same old story. 

New Holcim boss faces long road to decarbonisation https://t.co/o5ZaU0KOTo

— Financial Times (@FT) February 2, 2024

Some industry executives question Holcim’s commitment to decarbonising the “whole construction industry” when its M&A activity has not solved the notoriously “hard-to-abate” carbon footprint problem facing cement. 

Despite Gutovic’s efforts to refocus Holcim’s business, the negative impacts of the legacy business will be hard to avoid. In an ongoing legal case filed last year against Holcim in the Swiss canton of Zug, where it is headquartered, residents of the Indonesian island of Pulau Pari affected by rising flood waters demanded Holcim pay compensation for the costs of their water damage and flood protection measures. 

Holcim is responsible for 0.42 per cent of global fossil fuel and cement emissions in the atmosphere since the mid 18th century, according to a study by the Climate Accountability Institute research group.

AI has been pulling the wool over everybody’s eyes – planning inspectors included

Nowhere in the mountain of documentation – either for the planning application to quarry Straitgate Farm, or the subsequent 2-week public inquiry – did Aggregate Industries make known that groundwater on the east of the proposed extraction area – an area designated a soakaway for flood mitigation – can at times sit just 16 cm or less? below the surface. 

Fancy omitting such a crucial piece of information. 

Aggregate Industries has not monitored groundwater at Straitgate Farm since March 2022. A curious lack of inquisitiveness, you might think, given how wet the last few months have been. 

But Aggregate Industries doesn’t want to know about any elevated water levels that might reduce the amount of recoverable material. 

However, curiosity can get the better of some people. 

At borehole PZ2017/03 – shown on this map, on this hydrograph, and below – groundwater was found this week to be sitting just 16 cm below the ground surface. 

16 cm.

We have been warning about this issue on multiple occasions – including here, here, here, here, etc – but even we didn't realise just how close the groundwater actually sits below the ground surface*. 

Aggregate Industries’ consultants, on the other hand – who, in addition to relying on an automatic data logger, have been manually dipping this borehole quarterly since 2017 – would have known. They would have seen with their own eyes how close the water sat below the ground surface, but chose not to share the information more widely – not with Devon County Council, not with the Environment Agency, not with the Planning Inspectors at the Public Inquiry. 

Having been alerted to the elevated groundwater levels in this location, Devon County Council raised the issue with the company back in 2018, when PZ2017/03 recorded its maximum height of water of 138.68 mAOD on 27/04/2018. In a now superseded document, Aggregate Industries wrote:

Results from routine quarterly monitoring in April 2018 identified groundwater levels in localised piezometers on the eastern extraction area boundary higher than those depicted by the existing MWWT contour plot. Consequently, Devon County Council has determined this to be a material matter in that it has requested that the effects of these results be assessed to determine the effects on the quantity of mineral resource. Its position is defined in the following extract from an email dated 1st August 2018 (S Penaluna, Devon CC) as a: “......need to know exactly which areas might be excluded for reasons of groundwater protection and these would need to be indicated on a plan.” 

But the Council was misled, fobbed off, or lied to, when the company claimed: 

1. The extraction area, as shown on the Wood E&IS plan, remains unchanged... 

4. The change [in mineral resource], moreover, results in no area being “excluded for reasons of groundwater protection” but merely a localised effect on the depth of working in a localised (eastern) part of the site. 

What’s the big deal? Condition 28 of the permission allows the design of the base of the quarry to be changed to reflect revised estimations of the maximum water table: 

Prior to the commencement of any soil stripping on any phase of the development, a review of the Maximum Winter Water Table (MWWT) grid (being the hydrogeologically modelled surface of the maximum winter water table based on the highest recorded winter groundwater levels) shall be submitted to the Mineral Planning Authority for its approval in writing.

In Aggregate Industries' latest resource assessment for the site: 

The MWWT will ultimately form the base of the workable deposit, and any variation will impact the potential resource. 

But what’s most concerning is that borehole PZ2017/03 is in an area designated for flood mitigation, an area where it is intended to dig a trench, with a 1m buffer above the maximum groundwater level, to hold back surface water runoff and allow it to soak away.

   

Surface water will not soak away as designed with groundwater sitting just 16 cm below the surface. 

Why is it important to get the management of surface water right? You only have to look at the ponding problems at Aggregate Industries' Houndaller site for the answer.

There can therefore be no confidence that the planned trenches to stop downslope flooding will act as intended, and every confidence a water body will be created. 

As we have already posted, quarrying at Straitgate can only be permitted if: 

25. No water body shall be created within the site other than the approved weigh bridge lagoon.   

Without drilling another borehole further into the site, and implementing another period of monitoring, no one has any idea where the maximum groundwater levels are in the area surrounding PZ2017/03 – Aggregate Industries’ MWWT is at best a guesstimate. 

What should be done? 

In 1967 they knew exactly what to do – they left this area alone. Aggregate Industries should be forced to do the same.

*The exact depth to water from the ground surface could not previously be calculated using piezometer groundwater level data in mAOD, because a precise surface elevation figure for the borehole had not been supplied by Aggregate Industries.

Two accidents today on the B3174 Exeter Road by Straitgate Farm

Aggregate Industries’ permitted plans to quarry Straitgate Farm will put another 200 HGV movements a day on this road. The incidents occurred in the same location as the cattle crossing, required as part of the scheme.

Aggregate Industries’ Straitgate update for January

Aggregate Industries provided the following update this week in relation to implementing its permission to quarry Straitgate Farm: 

We have now completed our initial visits to the owners of the private water supplies who are part of the monitoring scheme and confirm that it is our intention to start the 12 month of pre-commencement baseline monitoring in April this year. To confirm numbers we will be monitoring at 20 properties (note as previously this does not include Straitgate farm but we will be monitoring there). The reduction in number from that which I gave you previously is due to some properties not actually having a private water supply and also some that share the same supply. 

Regarding the boreholes on the Straitgate site itself there are 17 of those and please note that this number does not include PZ10 as that is included in the private water supply number given above.

You would think Aggregate Industries would know by now, but there are in fact 15 boreholes on the Straitgate site itself – PZ07, PZ08 and PZ10 are on third party land.

EDIT 8.2.24 

In answer to a subsequent request to confirm which springs and streams will also be included in the monitoring scheme, Aggregate Industries replied: 

I can confirm that this is something we are looking at as part of the monitoring scheme and I will be able to confirm locations in due course.