What Lies Beneath Rattlechain Lagoon?

It isn’t often that you get the answers you are looking for, but with this request I think I have. 😡

So let’s break this down.

In the last post we were in the dark somewhat concerning the change of permit number that was added last year to the gates down John’s Lane.

“The Environmental Permitting (England & Wales) Regulations 2016. Please confirm if this permit number EPR/LB3306US is a transfer of permit EPR/JB3909LT issued to Solvay Solutions UK limited on 10/3/21.

Please provide a copy of the new permit and its transfer history and the current site operator.”

The EA responded with a zip file, and in order of chronology, we start with the useless SL31 licence with its 33 conditions originally passed in January 1978. This of course was in the Albright and Wilson era, and for the vast majority of its existence, the lagoon served that company and its white phosphorus contaminated waste. Though redacted in this version, the county waste disposal officer was the useless cretin Ken Harvey. 

permit issue – Licence to dispose of waste 1978_Redacted

Nothing new about this, and I have broken down the licence conditions HERE a long time ago. Note conditions 10 and 13 however with regards to the current permit breach and flooded causeway path, as I pointed out in the last post. Hopefully, someone in the EA may remember that this permit is actually still in force. Ahem. 😳

Another PDF shows another historic document , the discharge consent to the Birmingham Mainline Canal, transferred several times, again nothing new here, and I have looked at this document before in another FOI request HERE.

03 Mod to consent 6.5.93 (8) with metals and outlet map_Redacted

PERMIT COMPANY TRANSFER HISTORY. 

This is where it gets interesting with some new information. The Environmental Permitting Regulations number changed only in 2013, several years after Rhodia had taken over from Albright and Wilson. I find this remiss of the EA in that I believe legally, they or Rhodia should have transferred the licence to Rhodia from day one, especially given that Rhodia were still actually disposing of waste under this very permit! Why the need to transfer the discharge consent to the canal to Rhodia many years before this?

Permit number EPR/AB3003XX
issued to:
Rhodia UK Limited (“the operator”)

The tie up for the EA may be convenient for them, but it shows poor regulation, arriving at the 2013 cover up works.

NB NONE OF THE CONDITIONS IN THE ORIGINAL LICENCE SL31 WERE DELETED AND THE CONDITION 10 AND 13 WERE NOT AMMENDED EITHER BY THIS NEW PERMIT NUMBER. 

The EA missed the transfer PDF as to what happened next, but they previously provided me with that which can be viewed below.

Permit transfer[563]

I looked at this in 2021 after seeing the change in site notice HERE.

NB, “The number of the new permit granted to Solvay Solutions UK Limited is
EPR/JB3909LT “

And so to the first missing link and the changes noted to the EPR numbers that subsequently appeared after this time.

Note that the operator “Rhodia UK limited” became “Solvay Solutions UK limited”

Transfer 4.9.24_Redacted

Unbeknownst to me, as no updated ID board ever materialised, I believe in another breach of permit regards the site ID board, the permit was transferred again to “Oldbury Energy Solutions (UK) Ltd” in August 2022. This company is a joke non entity of convenience. It cropped up in The Sandwell Local Plan and I had never heard of them, and those who mentioned this name including Sandwell Council were wrong. 

This explains the change of EPR number to EPR/LB3306US), but does not explain why this number was not changed when the switch occurred yet again in September 2024 back to “Rhodia Limited”. 

THUS WE HAVE GONE BACK IN TIME TO 2014 AGAIN JUST DROPPING THE “UK”. 

Permit number EPR/LB3306US
to
Rhodia Limited (“the operator”)

So just who the fuck have been in control of Rattlechain Lagoon over the last 12 years really? I will look at this in an up coming post. It is a series of holdings company jokers.

The EA also provided the separate permit transfer of the discharge to the canal, and we see the same company bullshit change with this permit also.

Permit Transfer Notice Issued 25072024 – permit to discharge water from Rattlechain_Redacted

Permit number
T/08/22375/T

A series of transfer deceptions

Further missing links are provided by the following.

“Please state how often environment agency officers visit or monitor this site and a copy of the most recent visit observations from June 2025-February 2026.”

40803_0566718_Redacted

There is much to break down here, as well as the too frankly lazy and relaxed “regulation” of this hazardous waste site, which reads very much like that at WH keys before that went tits up!

From this we learn the EA last visited the site- “most recent” on 23/6/2025 and were there for 1 hour and 12 minutes- so now 7 months ago. Of course at this time the water levels were nowhere at the height they are now. 

What is revealed here by the monitoring sheet is a simple tick box exercise which does not really add up to much at all, and certainly not a very good understanding of the historic permit/licence or interrogation of the conditions of said document.

The assessment of each box is pathetic, with most of the fields not assessed at all.

Of course no breaches when they are hardly even assessing anything

We then get an action point which appears to suggest that they had previously visited the site in 2024 over one year ago. They had requested monitoring results for 2023!

“Action on previous CAR reference 40803/0505513 dated 16.05.2024

Action: Provide full set of laboratory validated data and report for April and October 2023 monitoring data. Due date: 14.06.2024.

This was fully completed and discussed at meetings with site managers
23.07.2024

The site had last been inspected on 16/05/2024 (EPR Compliance assessment report ID: 40803/0505513) as part of a routine inspection.”

The causal nature of this, the lack of recent up to date real time monitoring lead me to conclude that the EA are not regulating this site at all, but are just letting things unravel as the site operators see fit. Is it good enough they turn up once a year and fail to do any of their own tests to validate results which could be made up?  HOW DO THEY EXPECT MEMBERS OF THE PUBLIC TO FEEL CONFIDENT IN THIS REGULATION ON THE SOFT?

“We walked the perimeter of the lagoon and the causeway accompanied by the TCM of Oldbury Energy Solutions Ltd. The Director told us that a security guard patrols the site on Saturdays and Sundays. Site inspections are carried out monthly and monitoring visits are carried out every six months (in April and October). If the water in either of the lagoons gets too high then it is pumped to the canal in accordance with discharge consent.”

Ah this answers who the geezer I encountered in the car was, but as for “security guard”, I would state that I saw no formal SIA badge or anything at all to identify this man as such in a formal sense.

The EA then provide a killer mention of the permit, though are unable to actually quote that this is regulation 10 and 13 themselves as they should. Obviously, something has gone very wrong with pumping high water to the canal of late eh?

Other than advising them to add an EA display notice, which they then did, there is little here to fill anyone with confidence that the Environment Agency are monitoring or regulating this site in a good way, and that is I am afraid the way it has always been since their creation in 1997. 

Historically, as I have pointed out with irrefutable evidence of pictures held in official archives, Albright and Wilson discharged toxic waste into ONE single pit- the former original Rattlechain brickworks from where Etruria marl was extracted.

It was only in the early 1960’s, and again irrefutable evidence, that a secondary lagoon was formed with a kidney shape nearest to John’s Lane by basically creating a cut off causeway path. This, as again evidenced by historic correspondence was for the   purpose of discharging excess water to The Birmingham Canal so that AW could continue to raise the solid waste and keep it under water. THIS SHOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN ALLOWED, but was because of course this company as well as the treacherous British Waterways were quite happy with this arrangement- pumping contaminated water back to a canal that had been contaminated by the traffic from Trinity Street with the BWB happy to offload their own dredged waste into the void.

We do not have records of how that operation was undertaken, but it was BEFORE any licensing took place, and after this it appears that the authorities wanted to forget that any toxic white phosphorus had ever been dumped into the new smaller lagoon. OF COURSE, WE KNOW THAT TO BE A LIE.

Subsequently when road haulage replaced canal boat, a long pipe was ran along the causeway path and shortly before waste licensing, the site boundary changed from this to this and the new border defines the site we know today- two pools separated by a causeway path.

Over time, and with the useless environment agency supposedly regulating this site under the shite SL31 licence passed in 1978, Condition 10 of the licence required AW and later Rhodia to not allow water to rise above the so called “clean side” lagoon, this is specifically mentioned, as well as Condition 13 requiring the lagoons to be operated to the satisfaction of the regulator.

Black and white

THE SMALER LAGOON WAS NEVER “CLEAN” HOWEVER BEFORE THIS LICENCE, AS I HAVE PROVEN ABOVE. This was an Albright and Wilson invention, and the waste that had already gone in here was still there. These idiots never set levels of p4 being able to be discharged back into the canal, and had no test method to test samples of canal water for same chemical as proven by an FOI request

No samples of the fake “clean side” lagoon were taken by the Cremer and Warner report in 1991, with AW able to bluff their way with the lie of the “clean side”. NO ONE QUESTIONED THIS LIE. 

Only with the dodgy “human health risk assessment” hastily arranged by Rhodia as a pr exercise following confirmed systemic exposure to birds being poisoned by P4 did they test sediment from the fake “clean side”, confirming the presence of P4 as you would expect-at levels higher than the so called “dirty side”. You would also expect this given that the historic production of p4 at the site contained higher concentrations of white phosphorus.

The scandal of this is that the EA were happy to believe a lie that had been operating for decades because no one questioned historic operations sanctioned by the useless licence.

When it came to the phoney “cover up works” of 2013, Rhodia claimed that they had sucked out the silt from the fake “clean side” that was never clean, and discharged it into the larger “dirty side” lagoon, placing a cap above this supposed now solidified waste.  We take this with a pinch of salt. This magicians trick does not wash however given that excess water was not pumped from the fake “clean side” smaller lagoon any more, and not by the new pier they installed at the end of this pool when they removed the pump pipe that ran along the causeway path. Instead, their operatives set up a pump from the larger lagoon, using a piece of the pontoon they had removed that was used to discharge the waste. THIS MAKES NO SENSE, but it does when you consider that the so called “clean side” has basically been operating as an attenuation pond since capping, discharging phosphine gas into this side from the capped larger lagoon.

The hidden pump is connected by hosepipe from the larger lagoon

Connected to the pump on the pier on the smaller lagoon. Thus water is no longer pumped from the uncapped lagoon.

As seen in 2016

In 2016, I specifically asked an FOI request of the EA about this operation, following the fact that contractors had also been witnessed dumping aluminium sulphate, (acidic substance) into the smaller lagoon to lower the PH. The consent to canal limits specify ph between 5 and 9. 

“Why are Rhodia/Solvay pumping water from the large lagoon instead of the smaller one? “

The EA stated

“They are pumping from the larger lagoon as the ammonia levels are lower in the larger lagoon than the smaller lagoon according to testing conducted by the operator. ”

What explanation there is for this given the claim they removed all the waste material from the phoney “clean side” smaller lagoon is of course a valid question which somehow fucks up the claim of waste removal really happened at all. 

Given that water has now flowed over from one side into another, how convenient that when it came to turning on the pump again, was this water tested BEFORE they started to pump water again, and also from the canal?

There have been many historic breaches of the causeway path, even when waste was still being discharged by AW and Rhodia, as formal records show from an FOI request as well as our direct observations over 30 years.

2007 Causeway path is clearly flooded breeching condition 10.

What has happened in the last few weeks following heavy rain is a clear breach of the path, and possibly the worst I have seen yet, with no current explanation as to why it has been allowed to happen, and why no water is being discharged to the canal.

Wot no causeway?

Video of this can be viewed at the link below.

Facebook

The permit of this site underwent a transfer number in 2021 when Solvay officially took over Rhodia, as I looked at HERE.

This new permit under the Environmental Permitting Regulations 2016 was numbered EPR/JB3909LT.

And who are the unnamed site operators?

The EA provided me with that new permit transfer as can be seen below.

Permit transfer[563]

It was only recently that I noticed that another new permit number on a replaced board was now numbered EPR/LB3306US. Sneaky sneaky. 👿 

This was obviously done by ERM, when I noted them replacing signs at the site in Summer 2025. 

I queried this with the EA in a new FOI request and I have also reported the breach of the permit to their incident hotline, three times.

As part of the request, I also asked how often they had visited the site since last year. I will look at the response to this and break it down in the next post. 

On one Saturday, I saw an individual driving up the lane in a private car as I was on the phone to them to report the issue. He asked if I was a member of the public, which I found a bit strange. He also said he would report the breach to the company when he got back, in the third person, and I was left wondering if he is actually an employee at Trinity Street at all and what exactly is his role in driving into the site, yet not apparently capable of turning on a pump? 😡

I have raised this alongside what company are actually in control of this site with the EA, and if it is really sufficient that they are supposedly “monitoring” this site from Kent via Robowatch yet cannot even see when the water levels are excessively high- IN BREACH OF AN EPR PERMIT.

The pump was turned back on briefly after I reported the matter to the EA, but only after this and was discharging to the canal again, but now isn’t with the causeway path still totally flooded, and  what ph levels now exist on the breached lagoons is open to question. I will report back when I have answers.

It is becoming increasingly clear to me that the most dangerous people to handle this deadly chemical- “The Devil’s element” after morons working for Albright and Wilson and their waste contractors are military muppets- at least in the UK.

The home guard, the fire guard, bomb disposal that dispersed the spray rather than contain it; I have written about all of these. As the article below attests from 19th March 1960 Newark Herald, we now have the R.E.M.E to add to that list. I had to look up that acronym I must admit. The Corps of Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers (REME) are supposedly the British Armies professional engineers. 😆

Obviously, all was not well in Nottingham at this time when kids had been pinching stocks of abandoned P4- here interestingly named as “yellow phosphorus” in this article which is the preferred bullshit name for it in industry. One kid had been seriously burnt by the mobile “chalk”. He would of course be lucky to survive given the systemic effects of this poison on the body. Not the first time that “peril to children” had been mentioned in connection with this substance.

When one reads articles such as this it underlines the sheer incompetence of those in power to deal with such artefacts and the likely reason that Albright and Wilson were probably the ones who had supplied it to imbeciles in uniforms to start with. They would also be likely to get it back to conveniently dispose of- such was their connections with said military outlets. All too often the casualties of phoney war were civilians and wildlife, the only aggressors, those supposed tasked with protecting the UK from none existent real threats, except the ones they made themselves.

I had to smile at the comment made by a science teacher “Anyone who would dump this stuff is a fool and – well it’s a criminal action”. But a certain UK company were allowed to do that with impunity by all of those in authority. 

PUT THAT LIGHT OUT!

The familiar battle cry of the ARP from Dad’s Army. The formation of the civil defence of Britain during WW2 including the fire guard, were responsible for a designated area/building and required to monitor the fall of incendiary bombs , particularly those containing white phosphorus and pass on news of any fires that had broken out to the regular fire service.

As we have seen from the stupidity of the home guard and their misuse of AW bombs and later off loading them, it does appear that there was a real risk of self inflicted injury as an aside to anything the Germans dropped from above.

One example below from the 7th August 1942 Norwood Press and Dulwich Advertiser shows how one hapless lecture resulted in burns injury to an instructor after throwing burning phosphorus into a fire! With fools like this it is a wonder as to how Britain kept going and managed to fan the flames from self inflicted defeat.

One of the key revelations in the Sandwell Local Plan which was only revealed by the authority at the 11th hour is that SMBC had entered a formal protocol, a “memorandum of understanding” with Rattlechain Redevelopments Limited as well as the “charity” known as the CRT- once again an apparent reboot homage to the corrupt cabal goings on of the late 1980’s and the Black Country Development Corporation. This was unsigned it is stated, and I made an FOI request in relation to that matter, which SMBC have once again refused as they did the bogus “environmental survey” that it was claimed had been undertaken before the massacre of trees this time last year.

This desperate attempt to make it look like something had evolved 14 years after the previous examination in 2011, (when nothing has), is underpinned by the fact that the council state they had not even signed it- a farcical home goal that hopefully the inspector at the examination will have seen through like everyone else.

The refusal came after the examination, and I predicted they would refuse it as they had the previous request. An internal review has now delivered the same, so I have complained to the ICO about this insidious backroom dealings of planning policy and who and in what role these dealings are conducted.

It is concerning that there is job swap between individuals working at Sandwell council in this department and private developers, and vice versa, as if they are being planted to gain knowledge by the latter industry. This sham of job swap between public and private sector should be outlawed in my opinion, and we have seen it before with those involved in regulation at the Environment Agency and other public sector bodies.

It is not the first time I have challenged public sector bodies and won with the ICO, such as the landmark request where the CHaIRS group minutes revealed discussion about rattlechain lagoon, and how several bodies had collaborated to cover up the genuine concerns about birds being poisoned by an industry these useless fucking bastards had failed to bring into line. It only showed their incompetence for what it was and “expert” I am afraid is a phrase which does not equate with public sector quangos.

Another challenged FOI to The Food and Environment Research Agency, (FERA), showed how one VLA, (now APHA), individual actually fucking named me in trying to stop me finding out phosphorus levels in a poisoned bird! So much for their neutrality and protection of corrupt industrial polluters. Economic interest is what these parasites are about, as are their political backers.

No, the civil service don’t want the public to find out the truth about private company poisoners do they?

I am not the only one concerned about Sandwell Council and their FOI responses and attempting to hide behind exemptions like the one used in this case. Community activist Darryl Magher has written a piece about financial matters which is of interest. Environmental campaigner The Reverend Paul Cawthorne has also submitted FOIS to SMBC about rattlechain and got the run around revelation.

We shall see what develops if you’ll excuse the pun and hopefully the ICO will agree with me that the public interest test of this outweighs the crap that the council are using about future intent, THEY HAVE HAD 14 YEARS TO DO SOMETHING, FROZEN IN STONE LIKE A STATUE- AT SOME POINT THERE HAS TO BE AN END. 

Scenes in and around rattlechain lagoon during the recent freeze

I usually produce an annual calendar highlighting the manmade damage that the local chemical industry inflicted (and still does) on the Oldbury/Tipton area, but this year I’ve decided to champion something that they will never destroy- NATURE. 

For all the poisonous crap that Albright and Wilson and Rhodia dumped into the lagoon, for all the shite of industry that the Hurst Family and others dumped around and on top of that to make profit on the adjoining land, for all the “crap sites for residential” that Barratt Homes built, THEY FAILED. THEY FAILED because their plans failed to stop nature, its unpredictable resilience, tenacity and agents guided to protect it against their unscrupulous plans.

Despite the toxic crap, plants have grown back, wildlife has returned in the most unlikely places and the flap of a tiny butterflies wings have heralded the turn of the tide.

The small blue butterfly, and established colony off Temple Way

So the area despoiled by the chemical industry and polluted by conmen “regenerators” has had other ideas, much more simple but infinitely more powerful than any pathetic politician fronting a quango talking about “growth”. NATURE will always fight back, it will silence liars who claim to be “environmental consultants” but are just developer cocksuckers, it will foil policy planners who are the same, and it will outlast any toxic nuggets that man dumped in folly, to be a place where things can live.

Below are some examples of flora and fauna of the area in question, some of them now on the red list making a complete mockery of the nonsense about this area being of low conservation value as those who only are interested in house building avarice or their agents try to portray.

Sheepwashrattlechaintempleway calendar 2026

It’s not just the chemicals that these scumbags made that was toxic in the community- some of their staff were outright wrong-uns and convicted criminals.

We have seen lags like The seaman saboteur  James Pinel and metal thief Ernest Sulley   disgracing Trinity Street Towers, and of course AW had a long line of environmental convictions as a company.

But in an apparent homage to the withering of Mrs Gunns’s bush from The Oldbury smell fame, one chemical engineer in question in 1986 nicked some unnamed acid- most likely phosphoric, from the Trinity Street stores.

The 21st January 1987 Sandwell Evening Mail reveals that Mr Telebak had ‘alf inched some acid from his employers and pursued a neighbourly feud against a man proud of his raspberry plants, no doubt turning them yellow after a tipple.

He was fined £50 and discharged if you’ll excuse the pun also being “reprimanded” by his employers allegedly. AW liked to pride themselves as being “good neighbours” with its pathetic sycophantic  “residents committee” consisting of those well connected to the company or even employed by them FFS! Obviously some employees at least like this one were representative of their real demeanour in the community.

As we take a break for a while with matters relating to current events in the area, it is worth a reminder of the different types of waste that Albright and Wilson, as well as other polluting chemical industrial outlets in the Oldbury vicinity pumped out via their manufacturing folly. Much of this was dutifully removed by “people of the road” and often “people of the boat” in Rattlechain lagoon waste tipping terms.

Chemical waste was everywhere, but “scrap machinery” and pipework was another waste material that was lanced from Trinity Street when it had outlived its purpose. That contaminated material also had significant consequences in how it was dealt with, or not as this case from the 15th November 1962 Birmingham Daily Post reveals.

AW had flogged off scrap to local tatters, but is was contaminated with their deadly chemical phosphorus waste. Mr Mole had been disposing of said steel pipework when it exploded in his face causing burns and injuries.

AW contested the claim against them and were not found liable by the judge, and yet the question remains as to how and why they should get away with disposing of material such as this with such gay abandon and the lack of regulations in them being able to do this without censure. Mr Mole received his cut, but AW found dumps like Rattlechain and the Gower Tip easier avenues to dump “scrap material” instead. Lying beneath the water and soil are large amounts of barrels, pipework and scrap machinery all contaminated with the same material that caused the burns here.

Rattlechain ESID report (Conceptual model Environmental setting and installation design report) URS

At page 3 paragraph 1 1.2 Introduction “Installation Details.”

“Historically a variety of waste types were deposited, including chemical drums containing phosphatic muds. It is thought that some drums containing wastes with up to 1% phosphorus, may have been dumped annually until 1995. The historical disposal of solid material such as chemical waste and scrap machinery has also been reported. URS 2002.”

This is a guest blog post by local campaigner Darryl, active in the community in relation to environmental concerns and issues surrounding “reclamation” of contaminated land, in particular the so called “Friar Park Urban Village”, much lorded by the WMCA mayors and politicians of all major parties whose support of this is highly questionable. I have said my piece about this site which can be read HERE. 

It emerged in The Sandwell local Plan, that this site as well as land off and including Rattlechain lagoon had been given the status of “strategic sites” by Sandwell Council, and an attempt no doubt to extort tax payers money out of cleaning up private land the polluter did not pay to do- in this case the disgusting polluter Severn Trent Water. The Matter 9 site allocations council statement about Friar Park can be read between pages  9-13 of the document below.

Sandwell_Council_Matter_9_statement

This is not the first time I have thrown the doors open to guest blogs about damaging sites in the community and “remediation” gone wrong stories. If you would like to tell your story of similar issues and it concerns contaminated land, landfill sites and the effect on communities, YOUR COMMUNITY, then please get in touch via our facebook page. If you disagree with his opinion, why, and what evidence can you offer? 

OPINION BY DARRYL MAGHER

How FPUV, Rattlechain, the A4031/M6 corridor and a blinkered MP are steering Sandwell into a perfect storm.