States says no need to treat sewage
Thursday 9th February 2012, 9:00AM GMT.
FULL sewage treatment in Guernsey has been rejected by the States after accepting scientific evidence that said it was not needed.
A total of 33 members voted against an amendment placed by Deputy David De Lisle for the States to continue investigating having a sewage treatment plant and to report back as soon as was reasonably practical.
Members backed Public Services’ liquid waste strategy, which stated improving Guernsey’s sewage treatment over and above currently planned works would cost more than £100m. over the next 25 years and would not provide any environmental benefit.
Public Services minister Deputy Bernard Flouquet, said, like some of his board members in the past, he had wanted full sewage treatment but after conducting the report and looking at the scientific evidence he had changed his mind.
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Good.
Now let that be the end of it.
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It is only matter of time until the States have egg on their faeces.
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That’s S!£T!
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Great news – a victory for common sense
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Can someone please confiscate Deputy De Lisle’s PC so that he will stop researching quotes from obscure nonentities in Canada and the US to back up his mind numbing speeches on the environment
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You will remember Ray, the sudden change of point of view over pig swill, the sudden realisation that feeding pig’s with left over’s including perhaps uncooked rotting flesh from the same animal had health issues, not only for the pig’s but also for us as comsumers.BSE and cattle feed ? 1836 saw The States of Guernsey burn drums of tar on street corners to prevent cholera, 99 died, we all look back and think idiots. Dont dismiss Deputy De Lisle’s PC or the man himself for raising these issues,who know’s maybe he’s right..
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Ray,
I agree with Royston Gauno,
Deputy DeLisle always raises issues that should be introduced to provide good argument and believe it or not most have some substance. i’m all for seeing Public Services having to answer questions on these subjects.
In this case he was asking for the States to keep investigating the subject and that certainly would not have done any harm as developments are always moving forward and Public servoces should be on top of them.
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I agree with Royston & Len. Deputy de Lisle frequently raises issues that conservative minds don’t want to have to listen to. But he is often found to be bang on the money, and eventually what he has been saying for years becomes common place. Being annoyed at someone for speaking up for the environment seems archaic to me.
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Your probably right.Perhaps my objection should be aimed more towards the soporific manner in which the man tries to put his views across
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Good man Ray, my mistake was 1836 should of been 1832, but expect The States cocked up a few more times since..
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Absolutely Rosie – as they say, a prophet is without honor in his own land. David de Lisle is often ahead of himself and proved to be right. For example the waste minimisation strategy PSD have finally come up with was proposed 10 years ago by David de Lisle. I expect he is on the money on PFOS as well.
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If we are going to have no treatment other than a Macerator, at least make it ilegal to put anything other than human waste and toilet paper down there. Why should people be allowed to flush condoms, tampons and sanitary towels down the loo? Theyblock drains for a start and I constantly see them on the beach down Belle Greve. I even see quite often, old nappys! Im not sure these can be flushed away but seems odd. Out of the maybe 30 trips a year I make down that beach to collect bait (peeler crab) I see nappys maybe 3 or 4 times and the other stuff I see every single time! In spain, they dont even flush toilet paper! If eveyone had to have a bidet there would be much less paper waste.
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Belle Greve
I think your post demonstrates why yesterday’s decision was the wrong one. Such pollution on any of our beaches was unacceptable in the 20th century, let alone the 21st.
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And I think both your posts demonstrate why the politicians made the right decision not to listen to ill informed public comments.
There is not going to be no other treatment other than macertaors. There will be screens to screen out anything larger than, I think it was, 6mm. Should capture your nappies etc.
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Good thinking.All we need to do now is to work out how to police your idea
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given the expense of the ideal solution (firing the sewage into space), dumping it straight into the sea seems pretty sensible. I don’t know why we haven’t thought of this for the general rubbish on the island, we can take it a mile or two offshore and with the right current we’ll never see it again. Who needs an incinerator?
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what a good idea and who cares where it goes just as long as we can keep dumping it sea all is right with the world
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;-) some people just don’t know a good joke when they see it. I nearly snorted tea through my nose!
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Good the fish need to feed on something.
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Guernsey water may even give me my money back which was used for investigation of treatment.
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The extra waste water charge they introduced last year should now be reviewed as part of this was to fund investigations into improving the Island’s sewage treatment. There should at least now be a reduction made to our ‘poo tax’.
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Forestgump – They will still find some way to justify continuing this extra tax. As you say investigations into improving the islands sewage treatment. They can always “find ways” of improving things so can continue charging this extra tax!
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If Victor Hugo was writing his book today he would have entitled it ‘Toilets of the Sea’
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Does anyone know where the endless stream of $”!+ coming out of the mouths of some of our Deputies ends up ?
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To all those moaning about the waste water tax. The real disgrace is that a large percentage of households (including mine I admit) are not on the main drain.
I say continuing with the tax is perfectly justified -providing it is spent on getting every Guernsey household onto the main drain system and on making the fleet of yellow sewage lorries a thing of the past.
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what’s wrong with having houses not on the main drain?
I understood that the geology of this island means that it is not always possible or cost effective.
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Do you really need to be told what is wrong with having smelly sewage carts doing the rounds and sucking up loads of sewage from open cesspits in residential areas?
There may be a handful of properties that pose real practical and cost difficulties for linking to the main drain system but a PSD engineer has told me that it would be relatively straightforward to get the vast majority of local properties connected.
Also, are you on main drain Terry? I think we really ought to know.
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Hopefully we will now stop seing silly staged pictures of used toileteries!!! funny how they turned up there at a convenient time! Stranger still that I know if I had FLUSHED!! items like that down my Loo I’d still be paying the Plumber!
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Martino
In a previous life I did a lot of work around the Vale on extending the sewer networks,when i drove excavators for a living, it was a contract full of problems on occasions, mostly because of the geology and the problem of driving trenches through granite. Soft brown rock is not too bad and with modern Hydraulic breakers you can get through most of it with some effort.
The problem starts when you hit the blue granite, years ago back in the 70’s and 80’s we would drill and blast it, a long and laborious task and something that had to be repeated on several levels as you worked your way down the trench. These days it is almost impossible to get insurance for blasting along residential streets, as people can claim for damage to properties for the slightest vibration and blasting sends significant shock waves through the ground which makes insurance companies extremely nervous. Even if you could find cover to carry it out it is hugely expensive, tearing out soft rock in those days was £80 a cubic metre, blasting was about £150 per cubic metre then. So I am afraid that there will be areas in Guernsey where it is impossible to extend the Sewage network.
In the future they may perfect laser cutters that can cut out the granite, or some other method I have not thought of but I feel that is some way off.
I hope this helps.
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Thanks for that Dave and I accept what you say about there being some areas where it would be impractical/highly costly/practically impossible to achieve main drain connection.
My understanding from the PSD engineer I spoke to a couple of years ago is that the vast majority of unconnected properties do not, however, fall into the ‘impossible’ category and that it would be relatively easy, given a bigger but not a crazy budget, to achieve connection for all but a few per cent of Guernsey properties.
In terms of my own place and the surrounding properties, he said it would be extremely straightforward and that we had been ‘on the list’ for connection until budgetary restraints put the kybosh on it for us. Now full sewage treatment has been kicked into the long grass, why not use the waste water tax to connect properties like ours and retain a very small fleet of just a few sewage lorries for emptying the cesspits of the tiny percentage of ‘impossible’ properties?
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Page 10 and 11 of the Intertek report highlight that the aim in the UK is to meet class B shellfish waters as a minimum. Houmet Paradis being class B. Class B being defined as shellfish with flesh quality which is not fit for human consumption without further treatment due to levels of E Coli.
Further treatment which would result in waters in which shellfish meet class A (i.e. can be harvested for human consumption without further treatment) would have a clear benefit. There may also be benefit to those participating in offshore water sports in the most affected area which the published diagrams show happen to be the Island’s sailing area used by children and adults.
Throwing rubbish into the sea is not sustainable in a world approaching a population of 10 billion and greater responsibility is required. For one of the wealthiest populations on the planet this decision is nothing short of shameful.
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Pumping the sewage into the sea isn’t the problem, it’s a natural product which is easily recycled by nature. What Guernsey really has a problem with is that many people are now so far removed from the real world that they think everything which has not been sterilised out of existence must be bad for the environment. The vast sea is quite capable of handling the small amount of sewage from our tiny rock and I suspect it’s probably better for the marine environment than any treated liquid would be.
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