Post by bodger on Mar 22, 2017 19:28:20 GMT
Mar 22, 2017 15:10:09 GMT @magnetman said:
I wonder if the billions of litres was in fact human waste or if most of it was runoff after heavy rain. News outlets will say "sewage" to sound extreme as most people think "shit" but I think it is basically untreated water which was released. Its not a load of faeces floating about.
Seems the offending sites were the one upstream of Bourne end and one at Didcot.
Not that it makes it ok but it might not have been a particularly noticeable event for boaters.
as I said earlier, such incidents are inevitable when we get flash storms and a lot of run-off, simply because there is nowhere to store it, so it bypasses the process and goes straight to outfall (the river).
if a system is designed to handle a 10 year event it would be a ridiculous investment decision to build for a 100 year event, and would probably cost twice as much.
several sites were affected: Aylesbury, Didcot, Henley and Little Marlow, and a pumping station at Littlemore, plus a lesser discharge from an unmanned sewage treatment plant at Arborfield in Berkshire