Wildlife Circus

This is the spring of one of the Hogsmill tributaries aka Green Lanes stream. It rises near West Hill in Epsom on the southern tip of Court Park. Despite some initial gurgling - no water was apparent throughout the park. Longmead Road    The route is along a stand of spectacular oak trees, many >300 years old. Great spotted woodpeckers were enjoying the grubs activated by the warmth of the winter sun. The stream is again lost along Pound Lane and the Primary School until it reaches Longmead Road where it emerges via several outfalls, a mixture of stormwater, road run-off and some misconnected pipework.       A strong ammonia odour becomes apparent once reaching the Thames Water storm tanks opposite Blenheim School, where the pong penetrates the winter air for the remainder of the  Longmead Road stretch. The rag-coated grillage attests to  recent sewage overflow  into the stream- despite the low rainfall- and is indicative of th...

According to blogger stats, one of the most read items of 2016 to date, has been the Hogsmill Sewage Spill (8.2.16). So it follows that it will be the most written about - preferable to  answering  the many enquiries received - individually. It is a good method of retaining a chronological 'memory' as well as informing ward councillors, who are sufficiently exercised with other sewage related issues, such as the smell. Rag at the outfall Operatives from Adler and Allan The previous post, detailed the  amount of 'rag' that appears downstream of the outfall, virtually every week. But a tremendous amount of this: nappy liners, sanitary towels, condoms and wrappers, cotton wool buds and - although we are told it doesn't survive the HSW outfall - toilet paper ended up on Public Open Space (POS) during a flood 25.6.16. Outfall post clean-up So here's what happened last Thursday and Friday 30.6.16.....A professional team from  Adler and Allan of...

Number to ring in the case of pollution Rag or sewage around  trees  The following item will be of most interest to pollution volunteers or PAV's, those who volunteer along the Hogsmill river - either collecting the rubbish, monitoring water quality and the amount of 'rag' at misconnected outfalls - and to some of you that may be considering any of these activities in the future (see previous posts and side tabs on the Hogsmill). During the early hours of 8.2.16, there was a major sewage spill onto Green Lane recreation ground some of which ended up in the Hogsmill river Grid Reference TQ 20062 67989. This was covered during a February posting hogsmill-sewage-spill and in the Surrey Comet.“What appears to have happened is that a power failure at our Hogsmill treatment works, in the early hours of 8th February, put the inlet pumping station out of action. This, combined with a burst of very heavy rain earlier that night, caused incoming flows to back up and di...