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Future of Waterways To Be Debated In Parliament


Tim Lewis

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Michael To Open Debate On The Future Of Britain’s Waterways

Michael Fabricant has initiated a debate in the House of Commons on the future of Britain’s canals and waterways.  He is chairman of the Waterways All Party Parliamentary Group and the debate will be opened by Michael at 9.30am on Tuesday 22nd November.

“The Canal and River Trust are responsible for 2,000 miles of canals and rivers as well as infrastructure including 71 reservoirs and over 2,700 listed buildings.  Much of these are over 200 years old and have to be maintained to preserve their safe operation” says Michael. “Regardless of whether you are a boater or just like walking along canal towpaths and enjoying the wildlife, our canal system is the envy of the world. Nine million people live within a 10-15 minute walk from an inland waterway and 83 per cent of them agree that these waterways are important to their area.

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“But funding for these waterways is under threat.  The Trust’s fifteen year grant expires in March 2027 and the grant is overdue for renewal.  I shall be asking ministers to confirm the future of our waterways and towpaths.  We cannot allow them to fall into disrepair.”

 

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7 hours ago, Arthur Marshall said:

A debate just means an MP reading a script to an empty room so he gets his name in his local paper. And that's all. Especially if it's Michael Fabricant, who no-one has taken seriously for years.

Better than doing nothing

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2 hours ago, Alan de Enfield said:

I'd think that Sewage discharge will get a lot more attention from MPs being driven by their constituents, that the loss of a "muddy ditch" will.

 

No doubt we will see in the fullness of time.

 

1 minute ago, ditchcrawler said:

Better than doing nothing

Absolutely right - both of you. CRT's exhibition and the APPWG meeting were a complete shambles as far as getting MP's on board was concerned. Whilst I feel that Fabricant might be talking to himself for 90 minutes, full marks to the man for trying again.

 

... and congratulations to Anne Husar for putting him up to it and getting some national press.

 

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On 16/11/2022 at 18:46, Allan(nb Albert) said:

 

Absolutely right - both of you. CRT's exhibition and the APPWG meeting were a complete shambles as far as getting MP's on board was concerned. Whilst I feel that Fabricant might be talking to himself for 90 minutes, full marks to the man for trying again.

 

... and congratulations to Anne Husar for putting him up to it and getting some national press.

 

This might be the only time I agree with one of your posts! 

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On 16/11/2022 at 16:09, Alan de Enfield said:

I'd think that Sewage discharge will get a lot more attention from MPs being driven by their constituents, that the loss of a "muddy ditch" will.

 

No doubt we will see in the fullness of time.

How about combining the two issues with raw sewage discharges in to canals? Any places where this happens?

Edited by Jen-in-Wellies
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28 minutes ago, Jen-in-Wellies said:

How about combining the two issues with raw sewage discharges in to canals? Any places where this happens?

Am not aware of anywhere where this happens on canals deliberately., I am only aware of this happening on tidal waters such as the River Thames in Central London, the reason why £4bn is being spent on a new interceptor sewer.
The River Lea in East London used to, and may still do, suffer from misconnected sewers on it's tributaries

33 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

Yes - but only when it rains.


where?

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49 minutes ago, Tim Lewis said:

Am not aware of anywhere where this happens on canals deliberately., I am only aware of this happening on tidal waters such as the River Thames in Central London, the reason why £4bn is being spent on a new interceptor sewer.
The River Lea in East London used to, and may still do, suffer from misconnected sewers on it's tributaries


where?

 

There are several sewage works  that discharge treated 'water' directly into the canals - they have been discussed on here several times in the past - in times of heavy rains when the storm drain are used (all / many) sewage works cannot cope and the overflow is discharged directly into the waterways, this is because "storm drains" and sewage often (always ?) use the same drains and are not separated.

 

 

Why is sewage ever pumped into the sea and rivers?

Most of the UK has a combined sewerage system, meaning that both rainwater and wastewater - from toilets, bathrooms and kitchens - are carried in the same pipes.

Usually, all the waste is carried to a sewage treatment works.

But the Environment Agency (EA), which covers England, says capacity can sometimes be exceeded during heavy rainfall, especially when dry ground is unable to quickly absorb water.

This could lead to inundation of sewage works and potential flooding of homes, roads and open spaces.

For this reason, the system is designed to overflow occasionally and discharge excess wastewater into the sea and rivers.

This practice is known as combined sewer overflows (CSOs) and is permitted.

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7 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

There are several sewage works  that discharge treated 'water' directly into the canals - they have been discussed on here several times in the past - in times of heavy rains when the storm drain are used (all / many) sewage works cannot cope and the overflow is discharged directly into the waterways, this is because "storm drains" and sewage often (always ?) use the same drains and are not separated.

 

<Snip>

I am still no wiser as to where sewage is deliberately allowed to flow into canals

 

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51 minutes ago, Tim Lewis said:

I am still no wiser as to where sewage is deliberately allowed to flow into canals

 

 

Well, it is allowed to flow into the Thames tributaries and also, I read/hear, the Hampshire Avon to name two water courses. Sewerage works are allowed by law to discharge dilute (so raw) and partially treated sewerage into water courses under "exceptional" (my word) conditions, but what the majority understand by that and what the water companies understand are two totally different things. The EA is underfunded so they don't have the resources to check, many water companies are happy, it seems, to have their monitors remaining faulty so seeing what goes into the Thames regularly means it is a fair assumption any sewerage works that discharges into a canal or water course feeding a canal is likely to be regularly polluted. So as Witney sewerage works regularly pollutes the Windrush (Thames tributary) some will find its way onto the Carsington Cut and Dukes Cut when the Thames is higher than the canal. It seems very likely to me that the Shroppie gets regularly polluted during storms. I suspect the same for the river section of the GU and South Oxford.

 

A lot of the pollution incidents are being monitored by unofficial civilian volunteer groups and they are showing just how bad it is.

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1 hour ago, Tim Lewis said:

I am still no wiser as to where sewage is deliberately allowed to flow into canals

 

 

I cannot remember the locations but they have been discussed previously with some posters saying "at XYZ you can smell the sewage in the water" and other saying "we were at ABC swimming and went around the bend and there was the sewage floating"

 

I guess it depends on how you define 'deliberately' if you mean someone is actually diverting sewage and opening valves then that is very different to what happens 'automatically' when the system overflows (due to the volume of water) and diverts to the Canal / River / Sea.

 

Found one example from Ditchcrawler "Doesnt the sewage get into the canal at Wendover and near Berco"

 

And from Peter Scott :

 

Posted April 2On this day in 2021

spacer.png

 

Springwell Farm Basin  GUsouth by Maple Lodge Sewage Treatment Works. Picture ©Mark Percy  via Geograph  Compare 3Feb2008

On a 24-acre site it serves 500,000 people with up to 300,000 cubic metres of wastewater per day. Sludge settled from the incoming sewage is treated by retention in enclosed heated anaerobic digestion tanks. A by-product of this process is methane gas which is burned to generate electricity. Cleaned effluent is discharged into the adjacent Grand Union Canal. In the shadow of the sewage works is the marina where one of the channels of the River Colne joins the canal.

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9 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

I cannot remember the locations but they have been discussed previously with some posters saying "at XYZ you can smell the sewage in the water" and other saying "we were at ABC swimming and went around the bend and there was the sewage floating"

 

I guess it depends on how you define 'deliberately' if you mean someone is actually diverting sewage and opening valves then that is very different to what happens 'automatically' when the system overflows (due to the volume of water) and diverts to the Canal / River / Sea.

 

Found one example from Ditchcrawler "Doesnt the sewage get into the canal at Wendover and near Berco"

 

And from Peter Scott :

Posted April 2On this day in 2021

spacer.png

 

Springwell Farm Basin  GUsouth by Maple Lodge Sewage Treatment Works. Picture ©Mark Percy  via Geograph  Compare 3Feb2008

On a 24-acre site it serves 500,000 people with up to 300,000 cubic metres of wastewater per day. Sludge settled from the incoming sewage is treated by retention in enclosed heated anaerobic digestion tanks. A by-product of this process is methane gas which is burned to generate electricity. Cleaned effluent is discharged into the adjacent Grand Union Canal. In the shadow of the sewage works is the marina where one of the channels of the River Colne joins the canal.

 

You have still failed to provide an example of where a sewage system is designed to 'automatically' discharge into canals. The examples you give on the GU are where treated clean water from sewage works enter the canal, at Berkhamstead at the appropriately named Sewer Lock, and at Maple Lodge into the River Colne. If the water at Maple Lodge was polluted I think we would have noticed it during the twenty plus years we were moored where the blue boat in Peters picture is.

 

 

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2 minutes ago, Tim Lewis said:

You have still failed to provide an example of where a sewage system is designed to 'automatically' discharge into canals.

 

 

I have tried but have failed to make you understand.

 

The system is 'automatic' as identified in the BBC article I posted.

 

I can do no more.

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1 hour ago, Tim Lewis said:

I am still no wiser as to where sewage is deliberately allowed to flow into canals

 

Bourne End just below lock 58 on the GU.

Almost every year there is discharge of untreated liquid that deoxegenates the water and kills the fish.

It used to be quite rare but it's getting more and more common.

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45 minutes ago, Tim Lewis said:

 

You have still failed to provide an example of where a sewage system is designed to 'automatically' discharge into canals. The examples you give on the GU are where treated clean water from sewage works enter the canal, at Berkhamstead at the appropriately named Sewer Lock, and at Maple Lodge into the River Colne. If the water at Maple Lodge was polluted I think we would have noticed it during the twenty plus years we were moored where the blue boat in Peters picture is.

 

 

 

As far as I can tell the vast majority, if not all, sewerage works are designed to automatically discharge diluted or partially treated sewerage into their outfalls and thus local water courses. The "automatic" bit is, as I understand, done by a weir, just like a lock by wash. The sewerage will only overtop the weir in periods of heavy rain or if the plant develops a fault that stops it processing sewerage.

 

From what I can see the majority of incidents are caused by heavy rain when there will be lots of other storm water discharged into the canal so the flow will increase and tend to flush the pollution away.  Some plants will be better able to cope than others because they were built or upgraded with more capacity or pre-privatisation the local authority ensured storm water drains did not have sewerage inputs.

 

Just because one plant does not appear to discharger sewerage into a canal does not mean that it never does, and you certainly should not extrapolate that to say no plants do. There have been enough publicised cases to suggest many do

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4 hours ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

There are several sewage works  that discharge treated 'water' directly into the canals - they have been discussed on here several times in the past - in times of heavy rains when the storm drain are used (all / many) sewage works cannot cope and the overflow is discharged directly into the waterways, this is because "storm drains" and sewage often (always ?) use the same drains and are not separated.

 

 

Why is sewage ever pumped into the sea and rivers?

Most of the UK has a combined sewerage system, meaning that both rainwater and wastewater - from toilets, bathrooms and kitchens - are carried in the same pipes.

Usually, all the waste is carried to a sewage treatment works.

But the Environment Agency (EA), which covers England, says capacity can sometimes be exceeded during heavy rainfall, especially when dry ground is unable to quickly absorb water.

This could lead to inundation of sewage works and potential flooding of homes, roads and open spaces.

For this reason, the system is designed to overflow occasionally and discharge excess wastewater into the sea and rivers.

This practice is known as combined sewer overflows (CSOs) and is permitted.

One district that doesn't ( or at least they didn't when I worked for the LA ) allow storm ( surface ) water to mix with sewage is Runnymede, in fact heavy fines could be imposed on anyone connecting a  gutter down pipe to a foul water drain. This is because the entire district's sewage is pumped to the works via a series of pumping stations which wouldn't cope with the extra influx from a heavy storm.

No doubt there are similar systems around the country.

 

Keith

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7 hours ago, Jen-in-Wellies said:

How about combining the two issues with raw sewage discharges in to canals? Any places where this happens?

I suspect on the North Oxford, I reported it to CRT last week, about a mile from Ansty on the Braunston side, and again on the Market Harborough Arm between bridges 11 and 12. The water jet black and smelly

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6 hours ago, Tim Lewis said:

I am still no wiser as to where sewage is deliberately allowed to flow into canals

 

And that will continue while CRT don't monitor discharges but rely on the EA and the water companies to do it. A seasonal metaphor about turkeys and Christmas seems apt here.

8 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

I suspect on the North Oxford, I reported it to CRT last week, about a mile from Ansty on the Braunston side, and again on the Market Harborough Arm between bridges 11 and 12. The water jet black and smelly

No point in telling CRT, they're not interested and don't monitor it. The EA or the water company are apparently responsible for checking what goes in to the canal system.

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On 19/11/2022 at 11:39, Tim Lewis said:

I am still no wiser as to where sewage is deliberately allowed to flow into canals

 

The River Calder at Cooper Bridge. After the serious flooding on Boxing Day 2015 I produced a wide-ranging report for the Boat Club including the dangers of members wading down the flooded jetties in their underpants (yes some really did). In discussions with an EA manager at the nearby sewage works he confirmed that raw sewage is discharged into the river when the flood level reaches 6ft and above. Battyeford cut is just a few hundred metres downstream and as the flood gates leak and the gates at Battyeford lock are reversed by a flood of 4.5 metres and above, raw sewage seeps into the canal.

 

 

Edited by Midnight
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