It’s still serious, but not as serious as we thought, on the asbestos front – more on this soon – and not OK on the ash deposits.
Ash deposits on the Esplanade site
Figures received from SoJDC show that, in essence, our estimate of 20% ash content is correct, though SoJDC maintains this can be reduced to 13% after the surface levels are taken away.
This is still five times more than the predicted and erroneously information given to the States by Treasury Minister Alan Maclean on 15th July.
We would assume that at these levels, the whole of the excavation would need to be buried in pits at extra cost, and we will discuss this with TTS soon.
Asbestos on the Esplanade site
The returned data show asbestos in some samples, but at lower levels than previously estimated by WEB (the Waterfront Enterprise Board, SoJDC’s predecessors) and, according to JDC CEO Lee Henry, acceptable at La Collette.
NOTE: We have had reports of a load being returned at La Collette and other reports of asbestos but as yet have not been able to have these corroborated. We will be following this up.
What we would like to see
i) The asbestos levels are less than feared; the ash levels are much higher than predicted; we would like to see all current and future data being made freely available
ii) We are concerned at the high ash content.
iii) We would also like to see the dust monitoring extended quickly to public areas.
Two SOSJ representatives will be meeting Lee Henry tomorrow and he will be going through the soil/ground sample data with us.