Battle to dilute lethal acid pool (From Lancashire Telegraph)

Battle to dilute lethal acid pool

2:47pm Thursday 5th January 2012 in Looking Back By Gill Johnson, Features writer

IN the early sixties, there was something far more lethal than the ‘killer’ canal on farmer Joseph Hartley’s land at Barden in Burnley.

It was a pool of blood-red, concentrated acid, which had formed alongside the canal embankment, only a few hundred yards from busy Barden Lane.

And it was described by waterways official W Pemberton as so powerful that several sets of pumping machinery had been burned out during efforts to clear it out.

“It eats through metal in no time and, when it rains heavily, the pool gets quite deep, so we are now having to wait for a new pump lined with a special resistant material before we can make another move,” added the section inspector.

The acid pool was the latest hazard on a section of the Burnley canal which had become notorious as a troublespot among waterways staff.

For the area had been hit by mining subsidence, collapsing bridges, and underground fires in rebuilt embankments, which also caused air pollution.

But this was proving their biggest headache.

The liquid, which flowed from the canal bank every time it rained, destroying every living thing in its path, had been channelled into a pool to prevent further damage, and the plan was to pump it back in to the canal where it would be diluted.

The story of the acid went back to 1957 when subsidence caused a sudden five feet drop along a long stretch of the canal embankment.

Every available canal worker within 50 miles spent 12 months working day and night to build it up again – with 90,000 tons of colliery spoil.

It was the only material available at the time, but nobody realised what was likely to later happen.

Within weeks the embankment was burning internally and fumes turned the money black in workers’ pockets.

After two years spraying, the combustion ceased – but the acid menace started as water seeped through the cooling pit metal.

Mr Hartley farmed the 100-acre Lodge Farm, which flanked the troubled mile of canal and saw the subsidence ruin his hay crops and collapse several bridges on his land, while nothing would grow where the acid touched.

Said Mr Pemberton back in 1962: “We expected the strength of the acid to be diluted in time, but it’s now just as strong as ever.”