Sewage in the brook again

The storm on Sunday morning - 1st October - saw local sewer manholes blowing and more sewage in our local brook (See photo by local resident Heidi Cohen left).

The Ruscombe Brook Action Group were assured by Severn Trent at a meeting in February this year that the problems of sewage getting into the brook were solved following their work along the brook. We were skeptical at the time but things have improved with no major incident in the last 9 months.

Sadly this weekend's storm has proved our fears were founded - once again there is raw sewage in the brook in considerable quantities: it even blew a manhole cover that Severn Trent had bolted down to stop such problems and appears to have undermined the concrete foundations of at least one other manhole.

It is wholly unacceptable that people, cattle and wildlife have to face the very serious health risks of raw sewage in the brook and surrounding land. As independent water experts have told us, the whole sewer system is long past it's sell-by date and being forced to cope with too much water when there are heavy rains.

Storms like the one at the weekend, are forecast to become increasingly common and should be a warning to us that we need to address the problems of our sewage and drainage systems. Infact Sunday morning I was bucketing out water that was lapping at the front door step of my home - the blocked road drains in Bread Street were unable to cope with the quantity of water and poured down my steps. I only just managed to keep all but a large dribble of water from entering the house and the rain fortunately stopped suddenly allowing the waters to soak away.

The good news is that Severn Trent and other local agencies have been willing to work with the Ruscombe Brook Action Group - this storm shows it is even clearer now that we need to see more action to develop long term sustainable solutions to these problems.

For more info see previous Blogs using the search engine.