Transcript of Facebook Live event 29/06/2022 

PRES: Presenter 

ML: Marc Lidderth 

PRES: Hello there, I’m Neil I’m a Communications manager here in the Midlands for the Environment Agency. Welcome if this is your first time watching one of our Facebook videos. Slightly different this month due to illness we’ve recorded and uploaded a series of videos aimed at answering questions you’ve submitted to us at the beginning of June. Now with me on this particular edition is Marc Lidderth, Marc is a Project Executive for the Environment Agency with responsibility for Walley’s Quarry landfill. We will come to Marc shortly just a quick mention and a reminder in fact there may be some questions that we have not been able to answer due to legal reasons some we might grouped together because they are on a theme or there may be some that aren’t applicable for the Environment Agency. 

PRES: We with further ado enough from me and we will go to our first question and it’s on the subject of monitoring. This first question is from Steven and Steven asks us going forward how will the gas and leachates be monitored, and will this monitoring be constant? 

PRES: Let’s go to Marc Lidderth 

ML: Thanks Neil, and thanks Steven for your question. So, with regards to will landfill gas and the leachate be constantly monitored the answer is yes it will. The operator is required to monitor both of those through the permit conditions that we set. These are reported to us quarterly so the data they have to gather for both the landfill gas and for leachate comes to us quarterly and they also have to produce an annual report. So, on the back of that we obviously then look at the information that they have provided to us and if there is anything that causes any concerns, we will obviously be directly in contact with the operator to understand more and look and what they need to do to rectify any issues we may find in the data provided. As set out in our regulatory plans as well as the kind of the quarterly submissions, we are actually also set the operator to do what we call a bimonthly or twice a month fugitive emissions survey and give us the data from those. Fugitive emission surveys is where the operator that deploys are contractor to walk the surface of the landfill site where they will capture the readings of any landfill gases that is coming from the ground. And again, that gives information of and the operator information where there are any potential issues across the ground that might be emitting landfill gases and for them to identify where those issues are and to rectify them as quickly as possible. We also get from the landfill gas management contractor the weekly gas filled balancing data and this data also tells us about how much landfill gases is being extracted. Many of you would have seen our Citizen Space page we report on this fairly frequently and this is where we tell you how much gas is being captured at cubic metre per hour rate. And the recent data we have submitted has shown there is round about 3000 cubic metre per hour rate gas being captured. 

PRES: Ok, Marc thank you very much indeed. 

PRES: Staying on the subject on gas now we have received lots of questions this month on Hydrogen Sulphide we look to answer some of these now or one in particular now but there will be a further video on its way which will hope to tackle some of these other questions. This particular one to get us underway is from Steven and Steven says, do you agree Hydrogen Sulphide is a broad-spectrum toxic poison capable of causing serious health issues? And he says a simple yes or no answer will suffice. 

PRES: Lets go back to Marc. 

ML: Thank you Steven for your question. Now giving the complexity around the levels of exposure of Hydrogen Sulphide it is not appropriate for me to give a simple yes or no answer. Now as we know Hydrogen Sulphide is a chemical and the issues, we find with this type of chemical they can cause serious health issues if you are exposed to these at very high concentrations. So, we are not the health experts around this you would of heard this previously mentioned from us but we do work very closely with health experts throughout this situation, and we continue to work with what is now called the United Kingdom Health Security Agency or UKSHA formally known as Public Health England or PHE. Now they have been working with us throughout this situation and they produce monthly health risk assessments reports which we publish on our Citizen Space page. So, if anyone hasn’t seen these can be found on that page, Citizen Space page if you scroll down, you can find them and UKSHA and formerly PHE have been producing these reports since April 2021. And this will give you information about the health advice and risk that they are getting from the data we provide to them from our Air Quality Monitoring Units. If you have any health questions or concerns, then UKSHA are the appropriate partner to speak to but if you are after more health advice around this situation there is a link on our Citizen Space page that will take you where that health advice can be found which is on Staffordshire County Council website. 

PRES: Ok, thank you Marc Lidderth. 

PRES: Final topic but one which has been particularly prominent on our social media pages over this month that of white fog. Thanks for everyone who reported this and indeed who has sent us and tagged us in pictures and videos. Some of you wondered why we asked you to be specific about the location that they were taken just to explain this really, we have to be really exact when we are reporting this because of the size of the site which we regulate. We couldn’t of just tell our team that was on Cemetery Road we had to give them address or more accurate location as to exactly where it was. But onto the questions though Emma first of all says what is the white gas being pumped out of the landfill on Cemetery Road approximately 4:30 every day? She said she would like to know this because she drove through a thick fog of it the other day near the scrap yard and she said it can be a white powdery mist billowing often into traffic on Cemetery Road. She goes on to say passed it at she 9am and again at around 5:30 the other day. Rebecca says we were on our way to Tesco at half 4 it was horrendous thick white fog, and she says it was so dangerous. Annie says what chemicals are in the deodorant spray. And a final one from Sian, Sian asks does the Environment Agency recommend or approve the use of industrial air fresher or odour neutraliser? She goes on to finish in saying WQ Walley’s Quarry seem to use it and she says in brackets she says it doesn’t work. She is concerned Sian this is yet more chemicals are being pumped into the air. Aware there’s quite a few different elements to that question but listening is Marc Lidderth Project Executive at the Environment Agency who I’m sure will share some light on that. 

ML: Thanks Neil and thank you to Emma and all the others mentioned in this and asked those questions. So, with regards to this kind of fog light condition just to assure as soon as we became aware from this, and I’ve seen it from myself through social media as well we were in contact with the operator to raise this. And Walleys’ Quarry who are the operator came back and have indicated they likely cause of this fog light conditions is from what they call their deodorising system. Now typically deodoriders, deodorisers sorry are industrial vaper-based type systems which are used in these types of sectors of work so where the sectors produced or potentially could produce odours, they are used to help mask those odours. Now the Environment Agency, we do not consider these as what we would call appropriate measures to deal with odour, but it is a technique that would be and can be operated by an operator and could be part of what they call and what we need in place which is an odour management plan. But we do not accept that as an appropriate measure to deal with odours, but it is something that can be deployed by operators and in this case what Walley’s Quarry Limited have decided to deploy on their perimeter of their boundary. Now, again as I have said I have seen the pictures of this going across the road and obviously it has been mentioned on the questions here about the potential dangers of what this cause is. It is not part of the Environment Agency permit conditions and because its on the Highways this would fall to the jurisdiction of those that are responsible for the highways and in this case it will be the local authority, Staffordshire County Council so if you do have concerns around the potential dangers of what this is causing from there then you will need to raise that with the relevant authority in this case Staffordshire County Council. But what I can obviously say is that the operator is obviously looking into this to ensure that the deodoriser is doing what it needs to be doing and should not be causing the issues beyond the site perimeter. PRES: Ok Marc, thank you very much indeed. 

** END OF Q&A, Presenter wraps up asking for feedback and advises Questions Thread open below. **

PRES: You could always have your say in the thread below and let us know what you think about the answers which we have provided for you today. Do keep checking the Facebook Page because we will have another video coming your way very soon indeed but from myself and from Marc Lidderth for now goodbye.