Corporate Cat and Mouse

Whilst Angus Fire continue to play the "we didn't know game"  the firms CEOs lies are starting to become so obviously that. Lies.
Yet people seem to keep falling for them.
Maybe its easier to believe that since 1976 people who worked at Angus Fire up until the 1990s were blissfully unaware of the posion they were spilling into the streets, in the air, the toxic chemicals posioning the friends, families and neighbours, but was the management and owners? Why in 2025 are people still ok with a corporation that pays people less then they are worth, pollutting and poisoning people for a pittance.
Cleaner Bentham knows that in 2001 (link) the owners of Angus fire, National Foam and other subsiduries knew about the dangers of AFFF foam, there were plans to move from this foam.... ....yet they didn't. Angus Fire even refused to participate in an Environment Agency project looking into the dangers of AFFF quoting "our foam is proprietry" in 2003.  (link)

The lies from Angus Fire keep coming, it's like second nature to the groups CEO Paul Williams. Their latest update on their www.derbs.co.uk website is full of them.

The corporate drivel and ommissions start immediately in the latest updates first paragargraph.

The issue is in the word remidiate. I am sure you think remediate means to clean, or make better. but is any PFAS pollution in our rivers really better?

It's not.
So lets define remediate, Remediate means to correct or improve a deficiency or problem. PFAS pollution in Rock, Soil and water cannot be corrected or improved at this moment in time. The deficiancy or problem is of course PFAS in our rivers.
PFAS can be dermally (through the skin) absorbed. So, willfully putting PFAS into our rivers is not an improvment or a correction- especially as they bio accumilate. This means even if the concentrate is reduced, they will still bio accumumilate and stick in the aquifer.

The latter means that every strand of PFAS, PFOA and PFO that Angus's used in 54 years is in the river, the aquifer, the river bed and everyone and everything which has swum in or drunk from it.
You don't get one string they add up, thats every string that enters your mouth when you swim in it, every string that touches your skin gets in your body and accumilates (accumilates means; to gather or become gathered together in an increasing quantity; amass).
They do not stop accumilating, from any source of PFAS.
Angus Fires suggested solution (geotech report) is to reduce the PFAS, PFOAS and PFOS which are in their lagoons, and send  them into the River Wenning. (Thats reduce, not remove), these still bio accumilate in our bodies.

Paul Williams then goes onto say,

"full compliance with the Environment Agency’s site permit requirements" - Wait wasn't Angus always in full compliance of the Environment Agency’s site permit requirements - hmmmm the breaches say different. link

"This proven technology has been configured over several months" If memory serves they shipment container was delayed until the end of March... Cleaner Bentham, cannot keep up with the changes to Mr Williams stories. He seems to think residents have short memories.
Cleaner Bentham will also remind people reading this that Mr Williams said previously that "we will test the water from, and manage the treatment train" Considering that Angus Fire couldn't manage the PFAS on site, through years of neglate to the systems, the drains, the lagoons, even their pollution monitoring systems. This neglect predates AISGs involvement with the firm back to 2006 but was continued into AISG and LDC Managements ownership in 2013.
UTC and AISG have never had their consultants (Ramboll etc) testing for PFAS (even though they knew they had AFFF in the foams in 2001 (link)) how can anyone trust such under hand mis-management and dishonesty? And it must be dishonesty, at the very least, as in 2017  (7 years before the investigation by Cleaner Bentham) Angus Fire paid for Manchester University to investigate PFAS on their Bentham site link (scroll down to 2017)

To clarify this "Angus has identified PFAS in it's stormwater" (yet this wasn't tested for since 2013, no, 2006, or 2017 when Angus paid 20k for a PFAS analysis and even then the EA demanded it be done in a Regulation 61 notice link).
Forgive me Mr Williams, but looking at your firms track record over the last 12 years your promises of "efficiency' do not fill Cleaner Bentham with hope.  Particularly as a fair amount of the documents from the EA point towards, poor training, poor management of the safety and monitoring equipment in place already, which to Cleaner Bentham, points to poor leadership or purposely misleading leadership or safety has been purposely underfunded. 

As Cleaner Bentham have had interaction with Dr Byrne (the eminent Hydrologist and PFAS expert from John Moores University), this paragraph by Paul Williams worries Cleaner Bentham due to the complete lack of understanding by Mr Williams (and anyone who buys this update from the firm) of how investigations of the aquifer take place. 
We were told by Dr Byrne that these types of investigations need to be done over several seasons and maybe several years. Yet Angus only want one months worth of work? Cleaner Bentham would hope that John Moore University was able to negotiate the right to share the testing results to the public. Otherwise we have a similar situation like 2017's investigation by Dr Megson funded by Angus Fire into PFAS on their site. (and maybe another 8 year gap before doing something).

This is probably the first truthful words Mr Williams has said for a while. "We have received initial feedback from our independent consultants into the claim that Angus Fire’s redundant deep borehole had contaminated, via an aquifer, the deep borehole at the Caravan Park. This claim is factually incorrect." However of course, as always this is mixed with more misleading information (or lack of knowledge).
If you look into all the consultants reports commissioned by Angus Fire - all the way back to 2006, not one consultant has been told to look for PFAS on Angus Fires site. 

Whats more the Aquifer (Mill Grit Aquifer) covers more than 1580 Sq Miles of England from Appleby to Sheffield and east of North Yorkshire (and thats the size i knew of when I stopped researching it)! 
So it's not a seperate aquifer. Aquifers are fully connected by river beds, it also depends on the flow of the water and other Pathways from the pollution Zone. We do however know that the Caravan park is contaminated with (and not only by) PFHxS one of the many PFAS chemicals that Angus used. (link) 

NB - Environment Agency ordered Angus Fire to look specifically for PFAS related to their foam manufacturing activities in  2024 with a regulation 61 notice (you know the report where the samples which were specific to the PFAS investigation ordered by the regulation 61 were "accidently" mishandled and therefore unable to be tested).

He is right though the aquifer on Angus Fires side of the river cannot pollute an aquifer on the other side dependant on the flow of the aquifers either side of the river not fully anyway. (the aquafer is a continuous rock underlying rivers and soil so they are joined hence the need for John Moors University's investigation). However, PFAS laden smoke can pollute any side of a river, such as say... ....Angus Fire test site smoke...  Thats a fact.

Yet the truth doesn't last long, as Mr Williams goes on to say "Lastly, regular water quality sampling by North Yorkshire Council has consistently indicated that groundwater at the Caravan Park is not impacted by PFAS"  incorrect, factually unture and purposely misleading.
The groundwater at the Carvan park and the golf course has evidence of PFAS link just below the(new) "safe' limit. 
In July 2024 the "safe" limit was made higher (by the DWI) so that people didn't worry. Thats sensible right? 
Or of course it seems that Angus's 'Proprietory' chemical formulas were so miraculous that the PFAS could decide which way they went? 

The <0.003ug/l is still pollution.

Cleaner Bentham thinks what Angus Fire is worried about, is not just the pollution they have caused up stream of a polluted water system (Wenning and Lune) but the pollution to the aquifer and local surrounding area after discussions with professionals is that it would pollute the aquifer for miles, but this does need to be tested.
Cleaner Benthams appraisal of this situation is; Mr Williams is lying about pretty much everything, and playing people (the public, Angus workers and ex Angus workers) as fools, pretending he knew nothing about the dangers of the foams, and the damage to the sites infrastructure.
Cleaner Bentham could be wrong or he could be a fool who knew nothing about the poison he was dealing with. 
Cleaner Bentham will be watching DERBS.co.uk to see what he says next and we will absoloutley be pushing for prosecution of people at the company who know what the dangers are and were and do/did nothing to stop the pollution, and this includes pollution to any other aquifers in the UK where the foam was sold.

Knowing the situation in the Vento region of Italy where there are now Criminal trials happening of ex employees (managers and team leaders) who worked at the factory there during a similar situation, people working with Angus or worked with them in the past should be stepping up with the truth and saving their own skin.Veneto Prosecutions.

While discussing Mr Williams lack of transparency and his lies, in a statement his company released in 2024 said;

On 16th May 2023 Angus Fire were told by the EA that they still used products which contained PHFxS that were due to be banned Globally that November (2023).

Wait a second - Produced or tested??? Angus's CEO also claims that Angus Fire  "have never produced PFAS at the Bentham site"...  ...hmmm...

Cleaner Bentham has access to the updated chemical use sheet that Angus Fire submitted to the EA. On that date and they were still using 8 products with FluoroSufactant in them in 2023, this is either a mamouth ommission, lack of knowledge, or failure to understand a product utilsed. 
Any of those answers screams negligence in our book. 

Update: 15th may 2025

Another of the biggest issues with Mr Williams statements is that he brags about this equipment being the biggest investment in the firm "ever".
Why has the firm not invested (allegedly £2,000,000) in this equipment sooner? especially as this equipment was available in 2020. 

These documents are of course available on companies house. 

So, surely these investments could have been to protect the health integrity of the town, the firms workers and our environment at the time... not when you get caught.... The mind boggles. 

You then look at the "covid" years and cash at bank is on the rise. hmmm.

Cleaner Bentham has access to the updated chemical use sheet that Angus Fire submitted to the EA.
On that date and they claimed they were still using 8 products with FluoroSufactant in them at that time, this is either a mamouth ommission or the Fire Fighting Foam manufacturer CEO told workers to lie.

After completing my trawl through the chemical list for MSDS's (Material Safety Data Sheets), Angus has used far more PFAS than the 8 they identified to the EA.
Red is Angus's or the EAs PFAS identifier,
Blue is the identifier for PFAS we discovered in the list
The PFAS marked blue were not highlighted in the list sent to the Environment Agency.  list

In all, around 33 different PFAS have been used over the years with no indication of when they were used and when they stopped.

How insulting is it that this game of 'lets pretend' and buzzwords is going on, when for (at the very least) the last twelve years, Angus Fire and it's CEO has knowingly or at the very least ignorantly allowed the firm to spew it's toxic smoke over and foam run off and under our town down the Rivers poisoning the beautiful countryside that surrounds it, and people who live in the rivers location.

Update 29th may 2025
Eau et Feu (Water and Fire) has been given £10,000,000 for share purchases via Angus Safety Holdings Ltd. does this mean the "French Foam Plant" rumour is true and F3 manufacturing is about to start #chemicalwhackamole