Kennet and Avon is open sewer

[DaveC]

Not an urban myth but was put out by I think the publicc health cannot be bothered to look it up, mainly to try and teach people to be more responsible with waste disposal, but like i said I worked on a farm where rats are for ever present no matter what you do.

Off post quite a bit so I apologise, but I stand by my we should be careful what we put in the cut, bad enough in the weed hatch trying to remove someones disgarded item without it being covered in dog poo, never mind the enviroment.

 

 

Yes, it IS another urban myth that's been around ever since God was a teenager! Of course people should take care with waste disposal (but I don't believe that the Kennet and Avon canal is an open sewer - where is the photo to prove it?).

 

Have a look here http://www.zyra.org.uk/nearrat.htm for an explanation about the rat population / didtribution. I used to work on a turkey farm and it was probabaly true about being no more that 20 feet from a rat and we had a FULL TIME rat catcher / poisoner. Don't forget the danger of Weil's disease, which is carried by approximately 50% of the rat population, and can be fatal.

 

 

 

 

Dave

[Chris Pink]

Weils disease is overplayed and easily avoided by general hygiene (ie washing your hands)

 

"According to the Health Protection Agency there are usually less than 40 cases of leptospirosis throughout England and Wales per year reported in humans."

you might want to glance at this as well;

 

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2271333/pdf/epidinfect00049-0191.pdf

[scrunch]

The weird thing is I really like rats we had a couple as pets when my kids where younger very intelligant would even fetch and bring back a screwed up piece of paper, one of them used to spend the evening perched on my daughters shoulder. (If rats Perch think sit would have been better lol)

I used to know a boater who wee'd in his sink and had a plastic bag in his toilet when full put it in dog waste bin, sold his boat pump out tank very clean.

[ditchcrawler]

So what happened in the "old days" before pump outs or cassettes? I seem to remember that when I used to go on the Norfolk Broads it just went into the river and I can't remember what happened when we hired a canal boat in the seventies - can't remember pumping out?

So did the local sewage works, and they still do, there is a large outlet just below Norwich

[DaveC]

Weils disease is overplayed and easily avoided by general hygiene (ie washing your hands)

 

"According to the Health Protection Agency there are usually less than 40 cases of leptospirosis throughout England and Wales per year reported in humans."

 

you might want to glance at this as well;

 

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2271333/pdf/epidinfect00049-0191.pdf

 

 

Hi Chris

 

I agree with the hygiene thing but I wouldn't agree that Weils is overplayed - it is still a real risk and one of the chaps on the turkey farm died from Weil's back in the 1960s. A few years ago a boater in the marina where I more was taken to hospital with the disease, but he was lucky and survived.

 

I ackowledge the link that you posted and that my figure of 50% may have been too high.

 

 

Dave

[Guest]

So what happened in the "old days" before pump outs or cassettes? I seem to remember that when I used to go on the Norfolk Broads it just went into the river and I can't remember what happened when we hired a canal boat in the seventies - can't remember pumping out?

 

Toilet waste is no longer allowed to be dumped in the Broads and hasn't been for decades - though yes when we holidayed on them as kids it went straight into the rivers.

 

My sister once caught a turd while fishing with a net at Reedham.

[ditchcrawler]

Toilet waste is no longer allowed to be dumped in the Broads and hasn't been for decades - though yes when we holidayed on them as kids it went straight into the rivers.

 

My sister once caught a turd while fishing with a net at Reedham.

May have been from Norwich

[Guest]

May have been from Norwich

 

Possibly - but as it wasn't labeled I couldn't say.

Edited April 21, 2013 by The Dog House

[luctor et emergo]

The truth is out. The K&A canal is an overcrowded open sewer. As I write two hire boats full of drunken lads are fighting with a shack boat which has been moored on the water point next to me for months. There are turds floating past from the continues moorings on eitherside of the bridge. I haven't seen a CRT employee for weeks, the last one was tarred and feathered by the hippies on the unlicenced boats.

Don't come the K&A, you won't like it

[14skipper]

The truth is out. The K&A canal is an overcrowded open sewer. As I write two hire boats full of drunken lads are fighting with a shack boat which has been moored on the water point next to me for months. There are turds floating past from the continues moorings on eitherside of the bridge. I haven't seen a CRT employee for weeks, the last one was tarred and feathered by the hippies on the unlicenced boats.

Don't come the K&A, you won't like it

Many a true word said in jest !

 

14skipper

[flickadancer]

Hi, feeling a bit better today. Sorry if I came over as generalising but I happen to know that a fair number of moored and fully inhabited boats near where I live don't come to the Elsan disposal point nearest to them. Should I suppose then that they go to one that is further away I wonder?

And the person I saw emptying his elsan into the canal was definitely not emptying a bit of wee! You could see the brown solids coming out. Utterly gross.

Sadly there is also a great deal of dog poo all along the towpath. I have dogs myself and always pick their poo up and put it in the provided bins, and it really annoys me to find some people don't as we have a dog that thinks other dogs' shit is an appetising snack and we have to keep her on a short lead to stop her indulging.

Of course cows etc poo in the canals and rivers and all manner of other animals, but that doesn't mean that WE should think it normal to emulate them, particularly when Elsans contain chemicals harmful to the ecosystem.

When I said "dirty boats" please take it to mean those with bad habits rather than in bad condition - those surrounded by junk on the towpath, with roofs covered in junk etc. Although mostly those that are surrounded in junk are also in not such good condition. Oh dear, am I offending another section of boaters with this last couple of sentences? I don't mean all of you, just the ones who actually have dirty habits so if the cap fits, wear it. Don't bury your heads in the sand and say no-one does it, please as I see on here that it isn't just me that has seen people doing revolting things on the canals.

I certainly don't mean to imply that everyone does it! My husband and I don't do it and nor do any of our friends. But I have the photographic evidence that some people do, so I have been forced to put two and two together and conclude that I have ingested something very nasty that perhaps I might have avoided if the canal was a little cleaner.

As a boy (when the canal was not open to boats before its restoration) my husband was able to swim in it frequently and it not only looked clean (but weedy) but also was clean. At least he never got ill from doing so.

This has made me think - doesn't weed in water help clean it? You put it in fish tanks and ponds don't you? And there appears to be none in the canal at the moment. I may be wrong of course as I am not a scientist just a worried canal user. I wonder if more weed would help it to be cleaner? I remember it being very weedy (and you could see the weed clearly) when I was a child as the outboard on our dinghy kept getting clogged up. Another problem.......

Hmmmm

[Jerra]

I would suspect you are unlikely to get much water weed in canals which are popular and have much in the way of boat traffic.

 

Firstly the prop is going to keep breaking the plants up. Secondly the water tends in my experience to get stirred up and cloudy so this will prevent light penetrating making the plants struggle.

 

Clear water in an unused canal will allow good photosynthesis and so good plant growth.

[Doug Scullery]

Hi, feeling a bit better today. Sorry if I came over as generalising but I happen to know that a fair number of moored and fully inhabited boats near where I live don't come to the Elsan disposal point nearest to them. Should I suppose then that they go to one that is further away I wonder?

I'm glad you're on the mend. I do think it's entirely possible that the people on said boats are going somewhere else to empty their toilets, I have a neighbour, for instance, who drives his cassetes to work more often than he uses the boating facilities. Of course it's also possible that they all empty their toilets straight into the cut like the person you witnessed but I kind of doubt it, I can't see more than a very few people being so disgusting, especially right where they live!

 

As for the photo, go on, post it, name and shame, it's totally unacceptable and if C&RT and EA aren't interested I'm sure plenty of boaters (dirty. shiny young and old I would've thought, it's gotta be a fairly unifying issue this one) will be.

[The Ents]

Hi Guys, We have a (potty) dog and collect his poo in biodegradable bags which are placed in walkside bins. the very idea of non biodegradable bags is insane n my opinion.

 

Last Christmas I ate a dead chicken, resulting in my contracting campolybactor enteritis. This was a Very Bad Thing. It is also available on offer if one injests dog poo. HMMM.

 

I am not very old, but after one week my kidneys faailed and th liver was not far behind.

 

It has taken from January 1st until now to feel on te road to recovery.

 

Not a Joking Matter. Have nothing to do with animal faeces.

 

Regards,

 

Mike.

[Teadaemon]

Just to be clear, the situation on the Broads is that the only discharges from land-based sewage are of water that's been through a sewage treatment plant, which basically means that it's not far off being drinkable as-is. Sensible really when drinking water is abstracted for further processing at other locations on the Broads.

 

As far as discharges from vessels go, somewhere (not on this computer), I have a copy of the relevant legislation, sent to me in response to an enquiry I made to the Broads Authority. This states that sewage may not be discharged from any vessel that is principally propelled by mechanical means, or houseboats. There is an exemption for any vessel that ordinarily goes to sea via Great Yarmouth or Lowestoft (although the EA have requested that these vessels do not discharge sewage except when at sea), and the position of the Broads Authority is that a yacht with an auxiliary engine is not a vessel principally propelled by mechanical means.

 

So, there are still a fair number of boats on the Broads that may quite legally discharge sewage directly into the water. The facilities on my boat consist of a posh bucket, and as I have a mast and sails I can quite legally empty said bucket over the side. As I normally only daysail, and my mooring is about 10m from some public toilets, I empty it there.

 

Edited to add:

 

When I worked for a hire boat yard, one of the less pleasant things that happened to me was having the pump out system explode in my face. I got a few moments warning (basically it went "glug, glug, BANG!"), so I had time to shut my eyes and mouth, but I was covered from head to toe. Amazingly, I managed to avoid any illness, despite fully expecting a nasty dose of the squits at the very least. I don't know whether I've got a particularly strong constitution, or whether a pint of blue in the tank after every pump out was enough to sterilise everything that ended up all over me.

Edited April 21, 2013 by Teadaemon

[Timx]

I am in the search for a cruiser boat for a couple of years use, some come with a sea toilet, the last two i have asked is there a holding tank and both have said there is no need''[its all organic after all]''unfortunately there is scum on the canals

[Peter Thornton]

It was in the late sixties that I holidayed on the Broads, when it all went into the river. I don't remember it being especially unpleasant and we had a small sailing dinghy with us which meant getting pretty close to the water. Likewise with the canals in the mid seventies, my memory isn't of them being much different from today.

Thinking hard, I seem to remember that there was talk of hire fleets being fitted with tanks and it was something about stopping uncontrolled growth of vegetation.

I'm certainly not suggesting that we all pump out into the canal but I'm pretty certain that the odd bit of dog mess kicked into the cut isn't going to cause any bother.

I think we're all getting a little sensitive about our natural waste products and, as has been suggested, probably more harm caused by the chemicals in the toilets.

[bizzard]

In the 1970's four of us hired a traditional sail only sailing cruiser on the Norfolk broads. Whilst sailing across Hickling broad one sunny day a slight disaster occurred. I was helming it at the time and one of the party, a highly strung sinewy practical joker of a chap was showing off on the foredeck by leaning right out in the billowing jib-sail, well I couldn't resist it I gave the jib sheet a tweak to give him a little shock, and down between the sail and gunwale and into the broad he plopped. His wife a one time cross channel swimmer ''still with traces of goose grease about her'' with a tremendous instantenious reflex dove in to save her man, whilst me and my girlfriend brought the boat about and fished em out.

Our holiday finished the next day. We all went home. Next day he was taken ill and spent two weeks in an isolation hospital with I can't remember the name of the disease but it kicks off with a stiff neck. I felt ever so guilty about this and visited him every day with bunches of grapes.

 

 

Meningitis

Edited April 22, 2013 by bizzard

[flickadancer]

Thank god I don't have a stiff neck then! Poor bloke. But I still feel like someone kicked me in the stomach, and having had a horse do that to me once resulting in a chipped kidney, I do know what that feels like.

By the way, I fear reprisals for naming and shaming too publicly I am afraid or I would post that photo here. And it is a VERY dirty boat both in habits and appearance.

And to an earlier poster - don't assume someone who says something about "dirty boats" means what you think and automatically must have a brand new hyper expensive one themselves because it may not be true. Or that they are rich which was also suggested.

[Jerra]

Likewise with the canals in the mid seventies, my memory isn't of them being much different from today.

 

I have only done the Llangollen twice, first time in the early 60s second time 5 years ago. Before we set of for the second trip I spent time telling the others about my watching the fish swimming ahead of the boat, imagine my surprise to find the water totally opaque.

 

Incidentally the boat on the first trip pumped the contents of the toilet over the side (well technically I suppose through the side). Something had certainly changed.

[bizzard]

Thank god I don't have a stiff neck then! Poor bloke. But I still feel like someone kicked me in the stomach, and having had a horse do that to me once resulting in a chipped kidney, I do know what that feels like.

By the way, I fear reprisals for naming and shaming too publicly I am afraid or I would post that photo here. And it is a VERY dirty boat both in habits and appearance.

And to an earlier poster - don't assume someone who says something about "dirty boats" means what you think and automatically must have a brand new hyper expensive one themselves because it may not be true. Or that they are rich which was also suggested.

That particular summer 1972 I think it was was hot and dry and the broads waters were becoming scummy. The doctors said it was due to the broads waters bordering on becoming stagnant, though I'd just been to the toilet which might not have helped either.

[johnmck]

That particular summer 1972 I think it was was hot and dry and the broads waters were becoming scummy. The doctors said it was due to the broads waters bordering on becoming stagnant, though I'd just been to the toilet which might not have helped either.

 

Some would say Bizz, that's cos you is full of s**t. Not me of course!

[WJM]

I have fallen into the K&A and many other waterways on a great many occasions - and I have never suffered any illness. Perhaps because I have spent a lifetime on and in rivers I have built up immunity?

[Doug Scullery]

And to an earlier poster - don't assume someone who says something about "dirty boats" means what you think and automatically must have a brand new hyper expensive one themselves because it may not be true. Or that they are rich which was also suggested.

 

You actually said "dirty boaters" and "dirty people" as well as assuming that a) these boats are being lived on and, more importantly, that all of them, as a group, throw their sewage in the canal. How could you possibly know that? Do you watch these people 24 hours a day to ensure they never visit an Elsan disposal point? No, you don't, you see one person doing a bad thing and assume that all the people you percieve to be "like them" must do exactly the same thing, and then state that on a public forum as if it's some kind of fact.

 

I did not suggest that you were rich, I suggested that you are automatically blaming bad things that happen on those with less money than you. An assumption, sure, but nothing compared to your assumption above, when somebody mentions dirty people on poorly maintained permanently and semi-permanently towpath moored boats it is not crazy to assume that these people probably have a lack of money, and that the person labelling and making unfounded accusations against said people is probably more comfortable, financially.

 

At no pont did I suggest you were rich, I suggested you were better off than the people you are pointing a finger at, and at no point did I suggest that you have a brand new hyper shiny boat, but I do assume you have a better maintained boat than the dirty boats you speak of. Are you gonna tell me that either of those assumptions is wrong? (obviously I'm not asking you to means test the "dirty people" you seem so afraid of, but based on your observations of their lifestyle do you really think they might be better off than you?)

 

 

edit: I don't know how to do a b followed by a ) without it showing up as a

Edited April 22, 2013 by Doug Scullery

[Guest]

edit: I don't know how to do a b followed by a ) without it showing up as a

 

Just insert a space like this b )