Still Digging

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I wrote the other night about Twll Balast [Pen Y Bryn Slate Quarry in the map shown], as I did last year. I remade my FOI request  to the council as I had no recall of receiving an actual reply, save acknowledgement of receipt of request, at the time. It could be that Mail simply shunted it into outer space, as it has a disturbing habit of doing from time to time, but whatever: the council came straight back with a reply and attached reports. The oldest was a W.S Atkins report [at least the executive summary thereof, commissioned by Arfon Borough Council the late eighties, and the slightly later report I mentioned in rather scathing terms the other night, by Environ, commissioned this century by Gwynedd County Council. It looks like I made too many assumptions about the nature off this later report, as it has more depth [pun unintended] than I had previously assumed.

I have read the nearly fifty pages of it this afternoon, along with the Atkins' executive summary of their report from before. Both make interesting reading in tandem, and throw some startling light on the local councillor's claim from the Daily Post piece of 2013 that I previously quoted into some relief: being economical with the truth springs to mind in his case. The case for Afon Llyfni being a clean river appears - at least at the time of the Environ report - to hold water [pun intended]: however, we're more concerned with the Dorothea diving deaths in this particular instance, as this is what started us off on this quest in the first place. An analysis of the reports in depth and a follow-up of the references contained in the later report is warranted. As indeed is the veracity of the claims that the river holds no pollution to this day. We are on the case and I will post more as things transpire...

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