Dow Chemicals are to be announced as the IOC's new Global Partner?

Chemical discharge into the Old River Lea: July 2009, ©: Martin Slavin
On 25th of February 2010 the Hackney Gazette reported; “More than 500 people in the north-east of [London], ...including many from Hackney, [have complained]..that their water smells of faecal matter.” A week earlier it reported that one resident said, “The water smells like faecal material. If you taste it you want to spit it out.” Another complained of the water having, “an incredibly strong, acrid chemical, sour milk or sewage smell"..

By Paul Charman and Mike Wells

After spending hundreds of millions of tax payers’ money on a high profile ‘clean-up’, it has become clear that the 2012 Olympic Park actually remains classified as a contaminated brownfield site.

In mid 2009 IWW members produced a report on health and safety at Stratford City. Regrettably, it seems their concerns about the nature of working practices on the site have proved well-founded. On 16th December 2009, Shaun Scurry, an employee of Firesafe Installations, died after suffering serious injuries in a lift accident on 9th December 2009 at the Westfield Stratford City shopping centre site. Shaun from Kirkby, Liverpool, was 39, the father of two sons and engaged to be married. He was reportedly trapped between a steel beam and an industrial lift when he was installing lagging to ductwork. The accident is being investigated by the Health and Safety Executive. In January 2010, the IWW members updated their report, which is attached.

Olympic contractor tests a soil sample for radiation with a Geiger counter. Photo © Mike Wells

A document obtained from an undisclosed source reveals that hazardous radioactive waste was excavated and moved within the London Olympic Park before official permission was granted.

Further to my earlier article about contamination at the former Eastway cycle track the HSE responded after nine weeks (see email below). I remain astonished that it took nine weeks for the HSE to be able to summarise the monitoring being undertaken at the Eastway site. I would have thought the information would be readily to hand but apparently not.

Tessa Jowell was recently asked in the House of Commons about the rehousing of those displaced by the Olympics. Her written response can be seen below. It is followed by a response from a resident who was evicted.

It was the statement, in the various bits of evidence produced to justify the Compulsory Purchase Order, that the ‘socio-economic impact would be negligible’(on the residents of Clays Lane) that should have set off alarm bells. It did with me, anyway, and with others engaging with the process of objecting to the Order.