A Contamination Peak in Hillhouse's 'Low-Risk' Ground
Before any soil was tested, the WSP Phase 3 investigation had sorted the ground around the Hillhouse site into higher- and lower-risk directions. Its own measured data then put one of only two contamination peaks inside the 'lower risk' arc, to the west-north-west. The report never reconciles the two.
From the Environment Agency’s Phase 3 soil investigation of the Hillhouse site.
The public WSP Phase 3 report on soil around the AGC (formerly ICI) plant at Hillhouse, Thornton-Cleveleys. Page numbers are the public PDF at wyre.gov.uk/downloads/file/2452, so you can check each one.
Before any soil was tested, the investigation had sorted the ground around the site into higher-risk and lower-risk directions. Then the measurements came back, and one landed in the wrong box.
The sorting is in the report’s own Scope of Work: sampling focused on “high deposition areas, lower deposition areas and poultry owners” within 1km (p.12). Figure 1 shows the result, a dense grid to the south-east marked “higher risk,” the whole sweep south, west and north-west marked “GR04 - lower risk” (p.49).
Then the report plots its soil data by compass bearing. Its own words: “the highest concentrations are c. 120° (south-east) and 280° (west-north-west)” (p.32). 280° is west-north-west. It sits inside the “lower risk” arc, and it holds one of only two peaks the report finds anywhere, level with the south-east.
Nothing reconciles the two. The pages after the chart move on to isomer speciation; the label stays on the map. A second scheme, the Appendix C desk map, draws the same line, marking that direction “Area 1 - Low Deposition” (p.57).
We are not saying the label was wrong when drawn. We are saying the report’s own peak sits inside it, and the report never squares the two. That is what we are asking the Environment Agency.
Sources, all public: the sorting (p.12), the map (Fig 1, Appendix A, p.49), the peaks (Insert 4-2, p.32-33), the second scheme (Appendix C, p.57).