AI’s water monitoring at Straitgate being undertaken incorrectly at several properties

To win permission to quarry Straitgate Farm, Aggregate Industries entered into a legal agreement to monitor the private water supplies of surrounding properties for the lifetime of the development. 

Part of this agreement also stipulates that 12 months of chemical analysis of water supplies be performed before any quarrying starts, to produce a baseline so that any potential changes in groundwater quality from future mineral workings can be detected. 

Aggregate Industries’ water consultants BCL Hydro are now nine months into this monitoring period. 

In an email to us last month, the consultants confirmed that all the samples taken for analysis are "untreated groundwater". 

It stands to reason. Chemical analysis is meant to provide an accurate baseline of the natural quality of the groundwater, not a baseline that is masked or altered by treatment systems. 

It now transpires, however, that "untreated groundwater" is not what’s being sampled from at least three of the 19 or so properties being monitored. 

It looks like Aggregate Industries and its consultants have fallen at the first hurdle, before any quarrying has even started. 

The nine months of data collected from these properties is invalid. The owners do not have the protection afforded to them by an accurate 12-month baseline of untreated groundwater data, independent of their treatment process, to evidence any potential future claim for "derogation, contamination or interference" to their supply. 

Devon County Council has been informed.

Another quarry accused of disrupting water supplies

In 2016, we posted Look what happens when a quarry company is accused of polluting a couple's drinking water supply: 

...everything changed and it was clear the spring had been contaminated because the water was coming out brown and dirty...[which] coincided with the operators of the quarry near our home being served with statutory notices for quarrying outside their permitted area

Now, it looks as though it’s happened again elsewhere, allegedly caused this time by Dareduff Hill Quarry in East Ayrshire to a home in East Renfrewshire. 

According to GlasgowLive: 

Ali says part of the planning agreement carried conditions that her private water supply would be protected - but already, she says, it has been affected. 

She said: "It's basically an ancient spring out of the ground, where you won't get any planning that says where it comes from, because nobody knows - but it's been here for as long as this building has been up, for hundreds of years. 

"The water goes naturally into a tank that's in the ground. This farm used to be a dairy farm, so it supplied this whole place with water. And it's never been a drama. I only ran out of water once years ago when we had a big drought. It all works fine, it's dead old-fashioned but I've never wanted to or had to change it. 

"So while this proposal was going on, I had contacted MPs. I contacted Planning and everyone has ignored me, nobody's done anything. On the back of that, both East Renfrewshire Council and East Ayrshire Council are going to get 7p a ton from the aggregate that's taken out of this quarry, so there's money involved for the councils too." 

She added: "They've now started the digging. I wasn't informed about it at all. 

"Part of the concessions that were approved in the planning stage was that the water at this farm [West Carswell Farm] had to be sorted, and that West Carswell was either to be connected to the mains or some other solution. But nothing's happened."

Ali said plumbing experts believe disturbance to the ground from the launch of the quarry works may have put “muck” in the water with the silt clogging old pipes. She added: "There's water in the tank... but there's no water getting to my property."

As we said back in 2016: 

At Straitgate, water supplies for 100 people, 3 farms and Grade I Cadhay would be in the hands of one digger driver. What could possibly go wrong? And - with an extensive catalogue of ignored warnings from local residents going back years - how many nationals would cover the story if it did?

 

Renfrewshire woman devastated as quarry works begin near dream countryside home.https://t.co/zWOHLHnXz1

— Glasgow Live (@Glasgow_Live) December 3, 2024

AI joint venture blames economic slowdown for quarry restoration delay

Wight Building Materials is a joint venture between Eurovia and Aggregate Industries. 

Last week, onthewight reported: 

Restoration work at an Isle of Wight quarry with tens of thousands of tonnes of fill material will continue for two more years following a council decision. 

In justifying its decision for Wight Building Materials’ Hale Manor Quarry, an officer wrote: 

The submitted information states that the downturn in the economy caused by rising interest rates and the cost of living over 2022/23 has caused the slowing rate of restoration for the quarry. Therefore, the restoration scheme cannot be completed by the 2024 deadline. 

Of course, it wouldn’t be the first time that a deadline linked to Aggregate Industries has come and gone. 

In the past, the word deadline meant something: 

a line drawn within or around a prison that a prisoner passes at the risk of being shot 

a line that does not move 

To Aggregate Industries et al., a deadline seems to mean nothing more than a guideline. 

But we mustn’t be too harsh. Aggregate Industries and other mineral companies are clearly feeling the economic pain – as was made perfectly clear to us earlier in the year, when a representative from Aggregate Industries explained why the company intends to mothball Straitgate Farm immediately following implementation of the planning permission.