I received the following update from the council’s chief
executive on the sewage leak situation earlier today, which may help to give
some idea of the council’s take on the situation.
Dear Michael,
The facts are:
* A significant part of the
main sewage system in Thanet operates
mainly under gravity down to the pumping station at Foreness
and then
gets pumped to the Weatherlees sewage treatment plant in
Ramsgate where
it is treated. The treated sewage is then pumped back up a
parallel pipe
to Foreness and through the long outfall pipe into the sea.
* Southern Water had 2 of the 4 pumps fail at Foreness,
which combined
with the rain meant that the facility overflowed untreated
sewage into
the sea. The main incident of this was from the early hours
of Sunday
morning to mid-afternoon which has led to the sewage in the
sea and back
onto the coast. There was also damage to the screening plant
at Foreness
that meant that the pumps had to be turned off regularly to
be cleared,
which compounded the problem.
* There are now 3 pumps operational and in addition they had
5 tankers
for overpumping there yesterday.
* This main incident is not related to the large number of
overflows
that exist around the coast that can on occasions overflow
and can
impact on water quality.
* Overall the water quality last year was excellent across
the season
resulting in 9 blue flags and 1 quality coast award which
put us back at
the top of the chart again.
It is Southern Water's responsibility to put measures in
place to
prevent the system from failing. The Enviroment Agency were
working on
this last year with them and this continues.
The Council has a role in providing advice and guidance and
for posting
notices of failure. However, this can only be timely if we
are alerted
of the failure in good time. We always act promptly on
receiving notice
of failure and sewerage contamination and did so on this
occasion.
We erected signs and used the RNLI staff to try and prevent
access to
the sea as much as possible, which is still carrying on. We
are waiting
for further test results from EA (due today) to see if we
can open the
beaches, but need to be absolutely certain that it is
appropriate to do
so and that we are not going to get a recurrence. The Award
Flags have
been taken down for the time being.
I trust this answers your points,
Regards,
Sue
Sue McGonigal
Chief Executive and Chief Financial Officer
Thanet District Council
Council Offices, Cecil Street, Margate, Thanet CT9 1X
And yet the Southern Water bosses will still get their bonuses.
ReplyDeleteAnd yet the Southern Water bosses will still get their bonuses.
ReplyDeleteI like the bit which says that the Environment Agency was working with them LAST YEAR to try to prevent overspills and that this continues. Just how long does the Environment Agency need to do its job properly and why did they sanction the design of this sewage pumping station if it is fundamentally flawed? The letter states that 5 tankers were there yesterday for overpumping. Perhaps the Environment Agency should insist that 5 tankers are there every day until the defective plant is modified. Then something might get done. Maybe 5 tankers should have been there on the day the pumps failed. In my opinion, the Environment Agency, for which we pay from our taxes, has failed us big time and should be called to account.
ReplyDeleteThings like this happen. There's no point in pointing the finger and playing the blame game. Just learn from the mistakes and make sure they don't happen again.
ReplyDeleteBut it will happen again - the consent says so!
DeleteI have dealt with all parties and i can safely say this "they cannot be trusted, care to say there should be no finger pointing?
The thing is their are a lot of armchair warriors in Thanet but very few go out and do anything about it.
The real Malcolm