AS GUERNSEY potentially faces a summer as a tourist and sports destination with its bathing water off limits because of the major sewage incident, questions are inevitably being asked how such an appalling situation developed.
For many, this was a disaster waiting to happen because of Guernsey’s archaic system of sewage ‘treatment’ – simply pumping it into the Little Russel. However, even if the island had a state-of-art plant converting foul water into something that could be bottled and legally sold as spring water, this spill could still have happened since pipes burst, especially those that are 40 years old and underground and under pressure.
Where Public Services, States Works and the fire service have scored is over the commendable way they responded to the crisis and tried to deal with the aftermath of the incident.
That said, untreated sewage will continue to flow into the sea for as long as it takes to repair the burst section of pipe, which could be days, weeks or months. As yet, no one actually knows.
Which makes it surprising that Public Services does not have spares of an imperial measurement pipe that are pretty much guaranteed to be difficult to source in the event of failure.
Guernsey Water, for instance, which also has experience of underground pipes under pressure keeps extensive spares, yet the engineers and risk analysists at Public Services seem historically to have adopted an out-of-sight, out-of-mind approach to something that has the ability fatally to compromise Guernsey as a tourist and leisure venue.
This newspaper asked yesterday what maintenance and inspection programme was in place and why no spares were held. We have yet to receive a response.
The latest works are an attempt to provide resilience and back-up, but it is difficult to see it as other than being very late in the day.
The other aspect is the outpouring of sewage itself. That has compromised Guernsey’s bathing waters on health grounds – but that is simply because the pipe being used to discharge it is not as long as the usual Red Lion outfall.
So this is pollution islanders can see and experience rather than the hidden pollution in the Russel.
The double failure of sewage leak
AS GUERNSEY potentially faces a summer as a tourist and sports destination with its bathing water off limits because of the major sewage incident, questions are inevitably being asked how such an appalling situation developed.
For many, this was a disaster waiting to happen because of Guernsey’s archaic system of sewage ‘treatment’ – simply pumping it into the Little Russel. However, even if the island had a state-of-art plant converting foul water into something that could be bottled and legally sold as spring water, this spill could still have happened since pipes burst, especially those that are 40 years old and underground and under pressure.
Where Public Services, States Works and the fire service have scored is over the commendable way they responded to the crisis and tried to deal with the aftermath of the incident.
That said, untreated sewage will continue to flow into the sea for as long as it takes to repair the burst section of pipe, which could be days, weeks or months. As yet, no one actually knows.
Which makes it surprising that Public Services does not have spares of an imperial measurement pipe that are pretty much guaranteed to be difficult to source in the event of failure.
Guernsey Water, for instance, which also has experience of underground pipes under pressure keeps extensive spares, yet the engineers and risk analysists at Public Services seem historically to have adopted an out-of-sight, out-of-mind approach to something that has the ability fatally to compromise Guernsey as a tourist and leisure venue.
This newspaper asked yesterday what maintenance and inspection programme was in place and why no spares were held. We have yet to receive a response.
The latest works are an attempt to provide resilience and back-up, but it is difficult to see it as other than being very late in the day.
The other aspect is the outpouring of sewage itself. That has compromised Guernsey’s bathing waters on health grounds – but that is simply because the pipe being used to discharge it is not as long as the usual Red Lion outfall.
So this is pollution islanders can see and experience rather than the hidden pollution in the Russel.
Either way, it is wrong.
Article posted on 6th August, 2008 - 2.30pm