AS FULLY EXPECTED, SHALLOW SOILS ARE STILL HEAVILY CONTAMINATED ON THE UNIROYAL/LANXESS SITE

 The first excuse was oh no there has been a full, serious and public debate at TAG in regards to the large decreases in shallow groundwater pumping in the Upper Aquifer on the south-west corner of the Lanxess site. To date and we are heading towards the four week mark since I advised Woolwich Council, there has been exactly zero evidence either publicly produced by Lanxess, MECP, GHD, Woolwich Council or discovered by my own looking in TAG Minutes.

A potential second excuse may emerge blithely suggesting that well after 25 years of pump and treat the south-west corner has been flushed and many of the contaminants removed via the treatment system.  This of course contradicts what citizens were told back in the 1990s to the effect that permanent on-site pump & treat was required forever in order to hydraulically contain the contaminants and prevent them from migrating off-site dissolved in groundwater. 

Here are a few numbers indicating current groundwater contaminant levels on-site from the July 2023 Progress Report:

Table A.4   Upper Aquifer 

UA500I 

Chlorobenzene 780 ppb.

Toluene             908  "

m/p xylenes      111   "

Aniline           1030   "

Carboxin        1570    "

Another location (UA560I) has the following concentrations of dissolved contaminants:

Chlorobenzene    1110   ppb.

Toluene               4270     "

 m/p xylenes         175     "

Aniline               1560      "

Carboxin            1579      "

2-MBT                904       "

These are but a few of the dissolved contaminants still on site. There are probably still undissolved (free phase) DNAPL and LNAPL on site as well. Any reductions in shallow aquifer pumping are self-serving, counter productive and plainly disgusting. Doing it surrepticiuosly, under the radar, is just that much worse.