Thursday 8 September 2016

Serious Pollution Incident !



As we all know locally, there is an ongoing issue about Pollution of our beaches and poor infrastructure of the sewage system. 


This evening I witnessed first hand exactly why we have polluted beaches even without adverse weather conditions ! 



At approx 8 pm I was feeding our river birds as usual, when I heard a gushing roar behind me, the drain that was installed a couple of years back above Merryton bridge had opened, and sewage was spilling into the river. It was a mild evening and no rain had fallen locally for at least 5 hours. 


The smell was pretty dire, and I ushered all the water birds away to the clean water part of the river. 


 The discharge only lasted about 5 minutes but nevertheless a few hundred gallons had been released in this time. I took a short movie and photos as evidence for SEPA and Scottish water, and have reported it to both of them this evening.
This was an intentional discharge as though someone had flicked a switch, a quick 5 minute burst of filth that no one would have noticed, but for myself being on the spot !



There can be no doubt this drain is a continuous polluter of the river and beaches, and it's time something was done about it. I reported this sewage drain years ago to SEPA, and all that's happened is they have extended the drain into the river !!
See the evidence for yourself . Short movie clip below.



5 comments:

Brian Webster said...

Utterly appalling and totally unacceptable, well done Joe for capturing this on video

jayteescot1 said...

Hi Brian, I notice they had a quick clean up of the drain entrance this morning, sadly the small sundry items and residue are still polluting the riverbed.
Ironically someone said the SEPA sign near the harbour said the water was fine for bathing today !!!...good luck to them.

Morag said...

Hi, I hope you don't mind. I would like to use this photograph on a demonstration version of the site I am working on www.fixourwater.com. Is this okay?

jayteescot1 said...

Hi Morag,

Go ahead it's now in the public domain anyhow. Anything that will improve the environment is welcome.

Morag said...

Thank you :)