David Lock

My village has quite a large and attractive pond. Trouble is the local council have found a storm water pipe, which leaks raw sewage into pond because a sewer pipe is broken somewhere and contents finds its way into drain. Suspicion is that gas board are responsible for breakage when they laid a new main sometime back. Council have received all sorts of advice and usual buck passing between utility companies and County Council. No one wants to know about broken pipe; they are told that there could be a problem draining the pond because of presence of e-coli and, in any event, could not refill because of current hosepipe ban. They are even talking about tankering in grey water (1 million plus gallons). Now I reckon the water board who also do sewage collection and treatment have a duty to ensure that storm water drains do not act as sewers and may well be breaking the law by allowing untreated sewage to enter pond. Furthermore they can refill pond despite hosepipe ban because pond contains livestock i.e. fish and ducks which is allowed (although obviously sensible to wait until current heat wave is over). Chemicals can be used to take out e-coli without harming fish or wildlife, which would overcome concerns re draining down and general clean-up. Anyone in the know care to comment? Are my assumptions bollox or about right? I don’t want to start a discussion with utilities involved as this might undermine what local council have said/agreed (if anything!). TIA. dl

Brendan Hughes

Environmental correspondent of local newspaper / TV interested?

David Lock

Excellent point Brendan. Wanted to get my facts right and then suggest to parish council that if water board don't play ball then threat of headline "Water Board kills baby ducks" in County Times might encourage them! dl

AllanB

OK does the pond itself have fishing right eg can the public fish there. If so contact the ACA the anglers Conservation Aoosciation. They are a charity that protect the environmental interests of fish and will happilly take on the water baords etc to ensure they do not allow pollution to happen.


AllanB

David Lock

Good point Allan but I don't think it can have fishing rights as there is a sign saying "No Fishing" - a kid's safety thing I expect. Mind you RSPB are just up the road so may be they might want to chip in.

What I really want to know is if Water Board have a legal duty NOT to allow sewage to escape into pond. dl

alcazar

iTrader: (2)

I THINK you may be right, they do have a legal duty to maintain THEIR sewers so that sewage can't escape.

We've had a similar situation here with ST Water, and they have ended up having to build new sewers, and a new pumping station. Local council, Parish council, an action group and local rag forced them into it.

Mind...........it took best part of FIVE YEARS!

Water boards don't want to spend ANY money they could give to shareholders............

Alcazar

David Lock

Encouraging comments Alcazar - aside from timescale Thanks.

I might give Environmental Health a ring on the QT tomorrow (despite what I said about keeping my nose out of it!!) dl

Brendan Hughes

David, not only the threat to the council, but I'm saying that a specialist journo would be interested in doing the digging/research on your behalf, if you're lucky.

David Lock

I'm all for someone else doing the work plus they will know what they are talking about..... Cheers, David

Did your lawn take off btw?

Butty

iTrader: (2)

David,
Its a potential pollution of a watercourse and the Environmental Agency will be the first port of call.

Surface water sewers are not meant to convey sewage unless in major storm conditions, so this problem may well fall foul of the Water Resources Act and could lead to prosecution, especially if the problem has been spotted and no action taken place by those responsible.
If the EA are contacted, they may well take over the clear -up themesleves and bill the water company as part of a prosecution case.
In this weather, the clean up will be a combination of removing water by tanker, adding clean (non tap) water and and oxygenating the pond. They will also get the water company to trace locate the leak pronto using CCTV cameras.
The council may be involved as they are usually act as agents of water companies for maintaining sewers.

Nick

Brendan Hughes

Funny you should mention that, I was about to post! I have a brand new push cylinder mower, and after 2.5 years I've finally worked out how to lower the blades a notch. Seemed odd that they were fixed with Torx screws, but I now think I'm not supposed to undo them, simply pull the flexible plastic arms they attach to and spring them into one hole further up the plate. Up to now it was kept "under control", but today I have literally just come in from giving it a serious haircut.

In short, for a lawn grown in a Portuguese summer, it's bloody fantastic I'm just redoing some little patches, and I've been hand-weeding it for the last two weekends (I kid you not! Tried roundupping indiv offensive plants and just burned all the grass around, even though I kept it off the foliage, so found it was easier to carefully dig each one out with an old paring knife) so the real grass gets a good chance to take hold. Assisted by lack of hosepipe ban and timed watering system which is now on 20 mins a time for four evenings a week, but I might cut that back to 3.

Very, very smug at present and can't wait to show dad, who said it couldn't / shouldn't be done

David Lock

Thanks Nick. I wonder if pond could be classified as a water course as it doesn't feed water into a ditch or anything? Using tankers would be a very expensive option as there is over 1 million gallons (5000 tonnes of water!!). I thought e-coli could be taken out using BDA or LIMO (have I got that right?) and pumping away to field or storm drain. Agree with need for decent oxygenation. David

=====

Thanks for update Brendan

Butty

iTrader: (2)

David,
Isn't there a feeding stream/brook into it and a stream going out?
These may be culverted/piped in.
It should still be classed as a controlled water under the Water Resources Act.
The EA will spend what it thinks necessary to prevent further pollution and return the habitat back to normal and it claw the money back from the polluters.
In sewage spills, I've never known anything other than tankering/ oxygenation and letting mother nature kill off remaing bacteria to return things back to normal.

Nick

Leslie

I am an angler and have a card from the EA telling me positively to report any pollution or danger to the natural environment etc to them. The 'phone number is :- 0800 8070 60. This is their emergency hotline.

You might get support form Health and Safety also.

Good luck

Les

David Lock

Thanks Les. I've just had an intersting 30 mins talking to EA. Life isn't simple these days is it ?

Tried my "local" office first and ended up talking to someone in Yorkshire (I am in Sussex South Downs area). Explained situation but said I really wanted to establish general facts. They told me they didn't have the answers to my questions and said I should phone incident line. Did this and they told me to phone my local area office but couldn't transfer me but gave me another number. Tried this but they wouldn't put me through until they had found out who had been dealing with situation and would get back to me "sometime". I said I just wanted answers to general questions but this got me nowhere!! Watch this space............. dl

Butty

iTrader: (2)

Care to share why the EA can't have the full story?
PM me if I can help as I do have to deal with such problems.
Usually a call to the pollution hotline saying that fish are turning up and water smells like sewage is enough to have them on the scene in hours - especially on a nice sunny day

Nick

David Lock

Hi Nick, I am sure I could have persuaded EA to come and have a look but I know that the Parish Council have been in touch with EA so I don't want to muddy the waters which is why I was/am just trying to get to the facts in general terms. In fact I have just been to have a closer look at the pond which is pretty filthy and very green but, without going into details, no obvious signs of sewage contamination. Probably just what a village pond will look like in the middle of a hot summer. Wouldn't fancy being a witch......

I saw that they had warning notices posted about the presence of blue/green algae but my man who knows about these things says that if that were the case then there would be a lot of dead fish as it is very toxic but I didn't see one.

It did strike me that even if the pond was not a water course as such the water authority have a duty to repair a broken sewer as that will undoubedly be leaching into the ground and into other water courses. BTW the chemical I described as "BDA" above should have read ABA (Advanced Bacterial Aid).

I am now waiting for a call from EA and then I will probably suggest to Parish Council that they, or County Council, go back to water authority and put the squeeze on a bit with thought that local paper might be interested in outcome.

My son told me that local lads and lasses went skinny dipping in pond on New Years Eve. Put me right off my lunch

Thanks for pm offer. May take you up on this. Cheers, David