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The precise chemical makeup of the contaminants at the Castle Quay site

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WRITTEN QUESTION TO THE MINISTER FOR PLANNING AND ENVIRONMENT BY DEPUTY A.K.F. GREEN OF ST.HELIER

ANSWER TO BE TABLED ON TUESDAY 17th NOVEMBER 2009

Question

Further to my written question tabled on 21st September 2009, will the Minister confirm when he will be in a position to provide the answer to part 3 of my question namely: the precise chemical makeup of the contaminants in the excavations from the Castle Quays site?

In the Ministers reply he indicated that he would provide a copy of a report showing the heavy metal uptake in marine indicator organisms which have been monitored since the early 1990's, will he advise when that will be made available?

Answer

The Castle Quays site sits within "made ground" and the infill used during the construction of this "made ground" was predominantly inert demolition debris and surplus soils arising from building and civil engineering excavations. This accounts for some 94% of the input on the site. The remaining 6% of fill material comprises combined ash from the Bellozanne incinerator.

A summary of the analysis available for the ash material deposited throughout the area is presented in the table at Appendix 1. This information was taken from "Summary Report of Research on the West of Albert Reclamation Site, St. Helier" which was undertaken by the environmental consultancy WRC in May 2004 and commissioned by WEB.

Appendix 2 provides information relating to chemical analyses of the samples taken from the site during a separate study. This study, entitled "Castle Quay Development, Geotechnical Desk Study, Preliminary Information" was undertaken by the environmental consultancy Amplus Ltd in January 2005. It was commissioned by Dandara.

The report directly referred to by the Deputy in his question is entitled "Investigation of possible contamination of marine biota from a land reclamation site, La Collette, Jersey". The investigation was conducted by the Environment Department in 2009 and looks at heavy metal uptake by marine indicator organisms. The size of the report makes it difficult to provide electronically however a hard copy has been sent to the Deputy and is available on request to all other States Members.