Thanet Cancer

Clearly the water in Thanet has been mismanaged by TDC, the Environment Agency and KCC over a number of years.

1. Manston airport built on the East Kent drinking water reservoir – under the runway. Plus – supposedly banned - overflights of the towns
2. Thor mercury on Margate Road: supposedly banned and closed in 1988 but remained open – and still does?
3. Manston Fire station: a leftover from RAF days - again on the drinking water supply - and setting fires to be put out with the drinking water
4. Manston runway drainage tapped into the road system - and the whole lot draining into Pegwell Bay – a UNESCO site
5. Tivoli Brook – discharge concerns: possibly Thor mercury
6. Viking Bay – discharge concerns: possibly Thor mercury
7. The siteing of petrol stations on the water supply and near the shoreline
8. Richboro: a derelict power station of the 1950’s crumbling into the sea for 20 years
9. Oil tankers and cargo ships berthed off Cliftonville and the Blue Flag beaches
10. No full and detailed sampling results form the beaches and Port – published for council and public review

And the result.

Cancer.

Dirty water.

Damaged environment.

The blame game and bickering and buckpassing, coverup, whitewash and memo circulating and mere talking shops or silence.

Anything rather than action.

It’s perhaps no surprise that Pfizer are helping students conduct research into lung disease, bowel and kidney cancer. So far, Thanet’s citizens would make ideal guinea pigs.

Pull the shroud back and it may be an aunt or an uncle. A father or mother.

Biomarkers such as defective cells wouldn’t be needed. Maybe the smell of rotting meat. A shrivelled kidney.

An airport built on the drinking water supply.

And a lower water quality – and reduced – water reservoir than anywhere else in the South East.

The Environment Agency may be right that the water is safe to drink – and that the pollution cannot continue.

An airport built over the whole drinking water supply.

Perhaps we need some working parties, a committee, a liaison committee, a masterclass, a review mechanism, a memo, a report an appropriate range of indicative indicators.

Perhaps a seminar: “My child’s shit a kidney. Why is that?”

A biopsy. A tissue sample. A leukaemia ward. A body bag.

Southern Water may be sponsoring events and more frequently cleaning the pumphouse near the new Vattenfall office block at the port.

But we have been failed by our MP’s, councillors and civil servants.

The horror of Thor mercury – banned but still operating as a factory until an explosion.

The idiocy of an airport built on the water reservoir.

And the incompetence of failing to clean our water and environment – with Blue Flag beaches, and SSSI coast and UNESCO bays.

Every year Thanet tumbles down the governance league tables. Still rubbish. Yes, still rubbish.

And Britain follows it.

All these sites should be closed and cleared - and with Manston returned to meadow to clean and replenish the water supply.

The Stour is polluted from factories in Ashford: the Environment Agency clearing the river banks merely dumps any pollution faster into Pegwell and the sea.

Our waters need to be fit to drink and bathe for ourselves, our guests and future generations.

As the men and women of the 1970’s cough and splutter their way to an early grave their legacy is death, disease and destruction.

They have failed us.

An airport built on the drinking water supply.

Maybe Thanet does need Belgian support.

An airlift of bottled water. Onto the runway. Polluting the drinking water. Requiring another airlift. Of bottled water. Polluting the drinking water.

After a while wouldn’t the Belgians think that this “Britain” isn’t really worth it?

Perhaps Cleckheaton Parish Council could advise on building an airport on your drinking water supply.

Perhaps a UN mandate is required.