Moral quandry! What would you do??

[FedUp]

Ok, so here's some light entertainment for you on a Friday. For now we will call this a theoretical problem, but i was looking for some advice from all you grey-haired, 'in my day...', shovel monkeys. If you knew that a slightly horrific environmental crime, which may also be potentially illegal, was occurring on a site, what would you do??
Report them and risk being thrown of site and the safety of your job or stay schtum and be silently appalled by both their actions and you own cowardice?

[drpeterwardle]

No quandry.

There is nothing to report - you say "horrific environmental crime, which may also be potentially illegal," if is not illegal there is no crime. If what they are doing is illegal then that is a different matter. So the first thing to do is establish if a crime is actually taking place.

Peter

[FedUp]

Well i would have presumed, although can't find anyone to ask, that mixing large (and i mean very large as in hundreds of tons) amounts of cement and lime straight into a peat bog would have required some kind of permission or licence. It isn't agricultural grade lime either, it's proper melt your flesh type of stuff. Is this bad??

I should add that this is in the area where a stream did/does run. Which presumably counts as polluting a water course?

[Oxbeast]

" So the first thing to do is establish if a crime is actually taking place."

Surely that is what the local authority pays environmental health officers for? The HSE might well be interested as well. I'd tell them, FedUp.

[Steven]

Hi
I'm confused here are they "mixing" cement or dumping it?

[BAJR]

Talk to the HSE... they have a confidential line... they could also tell you if it is illegal... or just not nice, but not illegal.

confidential HSE Infoline : 0845 345 0055

[FedUp]

they are mixing both cement and lime directly into the peat, but the labourers have been told to, if asked, tell people that it is agricultural lime - which it isn't.

[trainedchimp]

Well i would have presumed, although can't find anyone to ask, that mixing large (and i mean very large as in hundreds of tons) amounts of cement and lime straight into a peat bog would have required some kind of permission or licence. It isn't agricultural grade lime either, it's proper melt your flesh type of stuff.

what, like putting in foundations?
Planning permission?

I'm assuming that there's actually a development reason why you're on the site (that someone might have told you at some point), and indeed why the site is where it is (ditto)- that should make it pretty clear whether what's going on is actually part of a development or some random environmental crime...

[FedUp]

Yes, trained chimp, there is a very good reason why i'm on site, i was just trying to be discreet otherwise i would have said who I am, where it is , and who the client is!!!
But thanks for that slightly patronising post.
They're mixing it in in attempt to stabillise the ground not as part of the construction but as a desperate attempt to dry the ground out, but i know they don't have permission for it and the fact that they've been told to lie about it suggests it can't be good!

[Unitof1]

buried far too deeply in the ifa codes is that any archaeologists should seek the permission of anybody who has rights over the land. Do you know who that is in this case?