Deadly fire foam in the reservoir: inquiry begins
Thursday 17th September 2009, 2:30PM BST.
THE States watchdog has launched an investigation into the pollution of Guernsey’s water by toxic airport firefighting foam.
Scrutiny chairman Barry Brehaut yesterday announced that the committee considered the contamination by PFOS of sufficient public concern to investigate.
‘It is a particularly aggressive pollutant and the public need to be assured,’ he said.
Scrutiny had already written to the Public Services and the Health and Social Services departments to obtain details of how they identified the pollution at the Lover’s Leap outfall – near the airport/Bruce Russell’s boundary – and the Beau Vallee.
‘The committee has asked questions of the relevant departments to obtain a clearer picture of the events leading up to this pollution, and the action taken to remedy the situation,’ said Deputy Brehaut (pictured).
‘Once this information has been received, the committee will assess the situation to decide on the appropriate course of action.’
He said the committee might hold a public hearing to question those involved.
The pollution was caused by incidents at the airfield stretching back years, including a major spill when a fire tender overturned in 2002.
Deputy Brehaut said it would be looking into the fact that some people with private water supplies had been transferred onto mains, which had been paid for by Public Services.
- To read Guernsey Press stories in full click here for subscription details. Individual editions are now available online.
Island Life
All about Guernsey
Ambassador of the Year 2011
History & Heritage
Visitor Information
Guernsey's government
Campaigns
Voice For Victims
Voice for Victims is a campaign aimed at promoting the rights of those affected by child sexual abuse.
This is Guernsey
Guernsey Press
Useful Links
Has it really taken 7 years for the States to realise that the water supply was going to get contaminated by the spill of the firefighting foam?
Report abuse
No, it’s just taken them that long to tell us about it and make sure there was no harm before they did!
Report abuse
They do say the truth is hard to swallow.
Sales of bottled water set to rocket !
Report abuse
This will achieve nothing, the damage has been done, why waste time and effort on enquiries and public hearings?
Why not make sure it can’t happen again and move on?
All the time and money wasted on enquiries,reports and investigations could be part of the reason our government is being constantly slated, the public want the States to actually get on and run the island properly, after all this is what they are paid to do!
Report abuse
Some good principles there Kevin although I do think an enquiry is necessary both to:
- maintain accountability between public service providers and the public
- make sure that measures are taken to minimise the risk of similar events in future
As you rightly point out though, any enquiry should primarily focus on identifying where improvements can be made and not just a forum for making scapegoats, passing the buck and playing the political blame game.
Report abuse
Many people, especially in the North of the Island. have for sometime now have been complaining of feeling unwell with no apparent causes.As water bourne elements seem to settle at the lowest point ie the North of the Island,would it not be a bad idea to test some of the sick people to find out if there is any possiblity that the may have picked up some of the contamination of the Airprt Foam !! over the last few years.It would certainly calm a lot of the present worries as to whether our water is safe or not.
Report abuse