Letter from Ann Wills

Still no answers on oil disaster
I am appalled that a year after the Buncefield explosion little has been done to help badly affected residents and little has been revealed about who will have to pay compensation for the errors that led to it.
Residents reported smelling strong petrol vapour in the air before the explosion. This would contain benzene, which is a proven cause of cancer & leukaemia.
There is no word on why Buncefield didn't have vapour monitors to detect a build-up of vapour.
These are similar to gas leak & carbon monoxide detectors which people can buy for their homes. In the USA even petrol pumps have a vapour recovery system to stop customers breathing fumes & to prevent explosions.
Water was contaminated with perfluorooctane sulfonate (POFAs) from foam used to fight the fire. This contained harmful fluoride chemicals linked to bladder cancer and birth defects. I understand that unfortunately this stored contaminated water leaked into the river Colne. Just type "POFA's" into Google and read the information it gives.
I hope the future possible risk of residents developing cancer and leukaemia from the benzene will be taken into account in compensation. There should be a full enquiry as I can't believe that in a developed country such as UK so little positive action has been taken after a whole year.

A.Wills
Ruislip