Alarm fails as sewage flow switches outfalls
Saturday 23rd July 2011, 2:29PM BST.
Iain Haith puts out warning signs after a pollution incident at Belle Greve yesterday when sewage pumps inexplicably switched to discharging through the short outfall without triggering the alarms. (Picture by Steve Sarre, 1162950)
Guernsey Water director of water services Andrew Redhead said the auxiliary pumping station at Belle Greve took over at around 10am without setting off alarms which should have alerted staff to the change.
It switched output from the long sea outfall, which runs a mile into the Little Russel, to the short outfall pipe, which discharges straight into the bay. Around 4,000 cubic metres of sewage – around 880,000 gallons – would have been released.
‘If the pump fails the auxiliary pump starts up and automatically switches to the shortfall pipe,’ he said. ‘We mobilised staff and got engineers on site in five minutes and were able to switch back to the long sea outfall.’
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That’s why we all have to pay another million pounds to Guernsey Water in ‘waste water charges’
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Because I still think in feet and inches ( and often in pounds,shillings & pence!)I was wondering out loud what 4,000 cubic metres of sewage would look like
My little grandson,who knows about these things,suggested that it would probably look like the Custard Castle
I can’t wait to teach him to type!
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In this day and age it is criminal to pump sewage into the sea. Instead, along with garden waste, agricultural waste, and kitchen waste it should be passed through an anaerobic digester. The output of that is clean organic compost, clean water, and methane (natural) gas for power.
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Ah, or should that be ARRRGH!
The sea gulls were having a real fest out there when we walked by. Closer in than usual. And the stench was even more unpleasant than usual.
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Mr G do you do anything apart from complaining? problems happen, and although they can offten avoided people are bound to make mistakes or things to fail every once in a while, something can be fine for years but when 1 thing goes wrong people go mad, yes it was bad what happened however mistakes happen and you should give more constructive critism, it’s very easy just to complain about something you know nothing about.
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@John
Err (ARGHH)do corect me if I am wrong, but wasn’t there a very nasty problem there a couple of years ago, when raw sewage came across the road and straight into people’s homes?
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Let’s see now…..Belle Greve…..isn’t that where the tenants refused to allow land recovery?
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