Hogsmill Sewage Spill

Dead barbel
Clattern bridge abuttments
Unfortunately,  the same river that  Lucy wrote so lyrically about in a previous post,  was  subject to a serious sewage spill during the early hours of 8.2.16. This was apparent from dead fish floating in the water, including this adult Barbel seen at the Clattern bridge 4 days later.

Due to an electrical failure, pumping equipment failed and subsequent pressure caused a blow - out at the Green Lane Recreation Ground. Many will remember this site has been subject to lengthy closures in the past (2003) due to sewage contamination and remedial works.


Green Lane Recreation Ground will be 'closed until further notice' reads the notice on the gate. The clean-up is a lengthy operation and 2,500 blue bags (to the right of the photo)  containing rag (toilet paper etc.) have been removed so far.



Toilet paper hanging from low-lying vegetation
 But who is going to clean-up the river banks as the tide of sewage flowed for 12 hours encrusting the riparian vegetation as it flowed to the Thames.





The evidence can be seen all along the Hogsmill from Green Lane to the Magnet at Villiers Road. This is the only stretch of the Hogsmill with the occassional water vole sighting. Why is it that Thames Water continue to sell off their own land for development; even though it has been identified as floodplain and forms an important part of the borough's flood defence (see previous posts).

Why are they permitted to use our public spaces such as: Green Lane Recreation Ground; and Surbiton Fishponds for operational reasons,  giving nothing back to the conservation and management of those spaces. Thes events are becoming routine and are causing visible harm.

In other boroughs Thames Water have paid six figure sums to put right the damage caused and we should expect no less for the Hogsmill.





Comments

  1. Unknown28 February 2016 at 09:02

    I did a student report on the Hogsmill sewage works in 1995. Then the sewage works were unmanned, the problems then were leakages, and the movement of I think 8 lorries a week of solids to a site north of the Heathrow airport. What was worrying then was that the manager was not aware of the environmental reporting of sewage incidents that they caught - nor how the Thames river turns from Good to fair around the sewage outfall at Kingston. Since them there have been reeds installed at the charter key site, Theay are floating because they would get destroyed otherwise.

    It has been known that Sewage is let go through the river on Sundays , which is why the state of the river is pretty poor, with flies rather than emerging plants growing. Fish will come up the river but I believe it is worth doing some monitoring of the BOD on the lower section of the Hogs mill regularly. Does anyone have evidence of river improvements? Back then the Thames water manager said the site was not manned, alarms should be set off if it goes wrong and A person can be there fairly soon, er! At that point they were also thinking of capping the sewage basin because there are complaints about the smell. I have lived each side and the smell was pretty poor on at least 5 occasions last summer as I came on the K2 bus down Surbiton hill park. Still Thames water seem to take property to sell off but not reinvest to make our quality of life better. The site is so unpleasant they have not had staff working there and monitoring. Really we expect more care. What will it take for Thames water to cap the smell and take more care about leakages!
    kind regards

    Penn Griffiths BSc.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Benton29 February 2016 at 05:21

    Hi Penn
    Thanks for your comments. I recognise everything you say as I have had a long association with the Hogsmill and we found the worst spills happened on a Sunday. We used to say Sunday was tank cleaning day.

    There is a River Fly project which has been monitoring the river as part of a project undertaken by South East Rivers Trust. I can provide further information if you wish but my evaluation is that any improvements in river quality are purely ephemeral.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Benton12 March 2016 at 03:59

    See also :additional evidence of sewage http://kubiodiversity.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/10-03-2016-battle-of-sexes-lost-in-river.html?m=1#more

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous18 May 2017 at 08:31

    apparently its happened again after yesterdays deluge will post more info when i find out more

    ReplyDelete
  5. Benton18 May 2017 at 11:20

    I don't usually publish anonymous comments. However I haven't seen any evidence of a sewage spill. There is no additional rag along the corridor or at the sewage outfall. Here are the river levels over the last couple of days and I admit, there is a bigger than expected spike at 9.30pm last night, but there has been a lot of rain.
    https://flood-warning-information.service.gov.uk/station/7266

    ReplyDelete
  6. richard31 December 2020 at 23:58

    Decent article, thankful for more information
    sewage cleanup

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Please share your thoughts

Most viewed

Heritage Trees part 2: street trees.

Image
  Oaks and maples Cambridge Gardens 2019   Street trees can often be the most beautiful objects in our streets. They are important to their communities as well as having environmental benefits. They are a living history in our landscape and can have particular connections. They may be fragments of a previous landscape incorporated into a modern street scene, such as the oaks at Cambridge Gardens once  part of the Duke of Cambridge's estate.  A great read with information on how to research street trees is a  History of Street Trees by Dr. M. Johnston.  London plane trees CRE 1976 Beech tree, Chesterton Terrace 1976 Studies show that the difference in local tree cover can reflect the various socio-economic groups. In Victorian times middle class areas were planted with many street trees or had higher quality front gardens than working class districts; now referred to as 'green equity'. It can be demonstrated by looking at old photos of the seven roads that were
Read more

Fishing the Hogsmill

Image
Fly-fishing the Hogsmill   It is interesting to see the river from a different perspective: the Hogsmill is popular with anglers at this time of year; although it is unusual to see someone fly- fishing. A chub has just been caught on bread and it looks a good size. Trout are sometimes seen in the Hogsmill and can sit in the weir notch by the school. Our own Richard Jefferies in his book 'Nature Near London'  remarked on the Hogsmill trout as far up as Tolworth Hall Bridge (now the A240). chub    This fish was carefully unhooked and orientated in the swim where it soon finds it way - probably to the next father and son - sitting further upstream. These anglers have caught the 'ghost' koi within the last two weeks and appear to be the second successful pair to catch the pond-escapee in the last few days. Ghost koi are a British invention. They were produced by accident in the early 80’s when a farmer allowed a mirror carp and a koi to spawn together. The offspring
Read more

Seething Wells: they've done it again

Image
The last day of May, I went to see if I could find the black redstart that had been widely reported, no luck but it will turn up again on one of the old buildings. The lush vegetation was looking beautiful between the Filter Beds at Seething Wells. I made a note of the breeding birds: goldfinches twinkling away, blue tits gathering food, sand martins flying over the FB's (only two this year unfortunately) moorhens and some scruffy little coot chicks entangled in the algal blooms.   Proud parents were showing off their four Canada chicks; they can cover a lot of ground in a short space of time they were soon feeding on water pepper and bistort gleaned from  the ziggerat-sided basins. A song thrush sang from the wharf alongside greenfinches as well as the seasonal chiff chaff; although this year all numbers are down, reflecting not only the topsy-turvy Spring but also the continued tumble in insect numbers (even seed eating birds are dependent on insects to feed their young).
Read more