Residents of Nenthead, England's 'highest village', are fighting plans to install groundbreaking water treatment ponds to clean up toxic mining waste
Residents of England’s highest village fear they will be rebranded as the UK’s ‘smelliest settlement’ if Coal Authority plans to build a water treatment plant in the area are given the green light.
“Anyone coming into the area, visitors and tourists, will smell it,” complains Millie Rudd, who has lived in the village for 35 years. “It will just be the death of a special community.”Nenthead was once a major centre for lead and silver mining in the North of England, at its peak boasting a population of more than 2,000 people. But the mines closed in 1961 and like many post-Industrial settlements, the village fell into decline.
Minewater pollution is a problem across the country. Discharges from abandoned metal mines pollute over 1,500km – around three per cent – of rivers in England. They are the taxpayer’s problem; before the year 2000 mineowners were allowed to walk away from their mines without any responsibility for dealing with contaminated water.
The catch? The smell. The reaction can produce hydrogen sulphide as a by-product. When the water is churned, this hydrogen sulphide – also known as “swamp gas” – releases the stink of rotten eggs into the air. The hydrogen peroxide will react with hydrogen sulphide, oxidising it and stopping the smell. Modelling indicates the ‘odour dosing’ system, which will treat the water emerging from the ponds, will eliminate almost all the pong if everything works as planned.
Kim Holden is worried about the smell impacting her nearby property, and the fate of the village’s red squirrel colony It has learned the hard way to expect little in the way of outside help. The local primary school has been threatened with closure, and. Against this backdrop, residents feel the ponds are being imposed on them.
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