Sandbagged!

Sandbagged!
Photograph by Steve Barnett

Tuesday 9 April 2013

Beauty...

...is in the eye of the beholder.


Severn Trent plc thinks it is okay to discharge untreated sewage into this river just a few yards to the left of the camera's viewpoint...

Regular Rod 

8 comments:

  1. A typical expression of the greedy mankind ruining the earth, and water, for money instead of taking good care of this beautiful jewel in the universe.

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  2. Reg Rod: Enjoy your posts and your soothing B&W photos of stream.

    Robert
    troutondryflies.blogspot.com

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  3. We had ST sending plumes of waste during low levels in summer, they don't give a monkeys. Worrying thing is once reported/investigated they just move to another forgotten little stream where nobodys watching.

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  4. Presumably Warren knows about this and the relevant legal position. Is there any way in which he/we can act?
    Pat

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  5. Hang on!

    We are typically making the same assumptions we always seem to make. As far as I understand it STW said they did not have a problem on any CSO's in Bakewell. Yes? Are you saying they are lying? Is the assumption that they did, and they are OK with this? The claim that they did and were OK with it does not have any foundation. What proof have you got? If you are going to resolve these problems, you cannot go off at half cocked.

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    1. If Severn Trent said there was no problem with CSO's in Bakewell, maybe the company would like to explain what it defines as a problem? If sewage is getting into the river Wye via a culvert then it surely is a problem as far as I am concerned and as Severn Trent controls the management of sewage and water services here, then Severn Trent is responsible for that happening. I saw it with my own eyes and have some photographs that show it although I have to admit they are not totally convincing photographs as I did not get close enough to the sewage to get unequivocal evidence. Next time I will find some way to take a sample!

      The fact that Severn Trent uses CSOs is the same as Severn Trent saying it is alright to discharge untreated sewage into water courses because that is what a CSO is designed to do and is what a CSO does. If the company did not believe it was okay to do so then the company would not use any CSOs. I also believe that somewhere in Severn Trent there is someone who knows exactly what is going on. It may not be the CEO or even a senior manager but someone in there must know how the company's CSOs are working.

      Having tried on several occasions to get Severn Trent and the EA to take action to cease these filthy practices and having failed, over and over again, I now don't believe I have any power to resolve the problem anyway so all I can do is grumble about it. This grumble I decided to put in this blog. It's not half cocked because the grumble in itself is complete.

      The only remedies I can think of that I could take to cause some escalation and action would probably lead to my prosecution, conviction and imprisonment...


      RR

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  6. OFWAT are responsible for deciding on how much investment the Water Authorities have to spend to upgrade their infrastructure. The EA and these utilities then negociate on a periodic round of improvements called an assest management plan. AMP 6 begins in 2015. OWAT are driven by how much the public will pay for these improvements. In the consultation for the Water Bill the public said they wouldnt pay for improvements in sewage infrastructure. The villians of the peace are certainly the utilities, because they cry foul everytime they are pushed by the EA, but ultimately we are getting exactly the standard of water quality in our rivers that we, as a community, wants and are willing to pay for.

    If a utility breeches its consent to discharge at anything other then CSO 6x dry weather flow, it must inform the regulator. Your report to the regulator may have done some good, because if there was not heavy, prolonged or cloud busrt, rain, a CSO is the most likely candidate. However that culvert runs under the town and I have been told many times that it is impossible to track the sewage dischares.

    We would be better off planting the whole ditch with reeds and use it as a biological filter.

    Public authorities; Dont believe them, dont fear them, dont ask anything of them.

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    1. Let's plant it with reeds then but someone has recently dredged the culvert out...

      RR

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