Dry Sink sewage

[Joe Duxbury]

To all cavers concerned with the Forest of Dean, I have been asked by Paul Taylor to give the video below 'as much publicity as possible'. I have copied his message, which I received earlier today, to this forum.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4a0Legc_zDI

It was filmed at Dry Sink on December 29th. Not a very nice situation.

The problem was found to be a fractured pipe in the Rising Main out of The Lonk Pumping Station further up the hill which resulted in the lower Joyford  Station not being able to pump fast enough and hence the result is an overflow.

I reported the matter to Welsh Water and had numerous phone calls from them. One was asking me to confirm the location of the pumping stations as they could not find them. [This is madness! Welsh Water staff can?t find one of their own pumping stations!]
I reported the incident to the Environment Agency via their Incident Hotline which resulted in return calls up to
22.00 hrs on the 29th. I have since supplied a copy of the video, a picture and a copy of the survey . I am waiting for the local officer to get back in touch with me.

I will keep everyone [GSS] posted of any developments.

Fortunately we are not caving at the present time so hopefully the underground situation will have improved by the time we can get back into the cave.


It's a good job 'Smello-Vision' didn't take off.

 

[Joe Duxbury]

Paul Taylor, the FoDCCAG chairman, has asked me to let you know the latest developments regarding the Welsh Water sewage release:

There is currently a Bill being raised in Parliament by the Rt Hon Philip Dunne MP. He represents Ludlow and is
Conservative Chair of the Environmental Audit Committee. His bill is getting a second reading on January 22nd and is designed to strengthen the pressure on the Water Companies to do more to reduce the number of Combined Sewer Overflows (CSO's) that take place. Something like 2000 took place in 2019 and that is only the ones that were reported. It is possible that overflows at Dry Sink caused by the rain do not get reported.
The bill is also designed to put pressure on the water companies to reduce their reliance on CSO's. These are exactly what happen at Dry Sink.

If you put Philip Dunne MP into your browser and click on Sewage Bill you will see what is going on.

or use

https://www.sas.org.uk/EndSewagePollution-SewageBill

This will take you to the Surfers Against Sewage site and provide the method for everyone to contact their MP and ask them to support the bill. The problem is country-wide - it is not solely a problem in the Forest of Dean, that's why Surfers Against Sewage are concerned.

Would you to circulate this information around as many people as possible - friends, your caving club members and anyone who you feel would be happy to be involved and ask them all to contact their local MP. The more pressure the more chance we have of making progress.

Mr Dunne has been sent an email outlining the issue and problems that exist in the Forest of Dean, both at Dry Sink and St Arvans.

 

[mrodoc]

My suggestion was next time you had an incident like this you tipped in a good dose of fluorescein with it. That would bring it  to people's attention when the Wye goes green!

 

[Edd]

Are you sure you fully understand what you're supporting? I do work with CSOs for a different water company and the private member's bill and Surfers Against Sewage campaign miss the point: the only thing that matters is water quality; this is looking at any discharge to rivers from a CSO.

I understand why most people would think that any discharge from a sewer is bad news but the majority of CSO discharges are storm overflow events - when there's too much rainwater in the system, so predominantly rainwater and a bit of dilute sewage is discharged. The alternative is for the system to back-up and it will come out of someone's toilet and flood their home. The discharges that do matter are pollution events. They're bad, storm discharges aren't.

So pollution will make caves dirty and make people ill but rainwater won't (it's what makes the caves, after all). This also means that a the frequency of the discharge doesn't matter, only what it discharges.

A blanket ban on CSOs is also likely to be worse for the environment, which I presume is that exact opposite of what people are looking for. This is because if the excess rainwater can't be discharged then it will need to be treated and there will be a lot higher power consumption to move all of the rainwater (pumping), a lot more chemical usage during treatment and also a lot more land-use and concrete poured in order to build more storage tanks. There will also need to be a lot more and large pipes to transport all of this rain water.

Additionally, most of the pollution in our rivers comes off the land and from industry and a small proportion comes from the sewers. So this bill is proposing a measure that misses the significant problems and results in worse environmental impacts.

The video was taken after a very wet period so it's highly likely that it was a genuine storm overflow.

For this particular cave, I would contact Welsh Water (again) and check that they realise that the discharge point flows into an area used by people recreationally. Bathing waters, canoeing spots, etc and SSSIs are among the sites that are treated as a higher priority. You will need to contact their Event Discharge Monitoring (EDM) team. If Welsh Water don't understand that a site is sensitive, you can't blame them for not making it a priority.

So supporting this campaign is actually distracting everyone from dealing with the genuine causes of pollutions (which may be CSOs in some cases) and having an overall worse outcome for the environment.

 

[mrodoc]

Edd makes a good point but in this case there is a failry serious water quality issue. The water goes straight into the River Wye a heavily used recreational site.  The best one can say is that the river wye may naturally clear rapidly after theses sort of events.

 

[Edd]

We need to keep the two issues separate: specific water quality at Dry Sink and CSOs/storm discharges in general.

At any cave (or in the country in general), if people think that there is a pollution, they should report it to the water companies or else the EA or Natural Resources Wales or Scottish EPA. That will mean that is properly investigated and handled and can lead to a prosecution if necessary. Water companies do prefer it if you tell them first because they can respond more quickly (so reduce the impact).

For the Wye, I expect that the main source of pollution is from the fields and industry. There were news stories last year alleging that poultry farms are causing pollution. This re-enforces my point about focusing on water quality: it's the bit that will determine whether you're healthy or sick and finding the source of poor quality water means you can deal with the root cause.

The campaign against CSOs risks throwing the baby out with the bath water. It's like confusing car journeys (all discharges including storm overflows) with car accidents (pollutions). I don't doubt the intentions of the people involved and applaud people campaigning to improve the environment but they're trying to use the wrong instrument and one that will have unintended negative consequences.

 

[Ed]

what Edd says is correct

Then there is the matter of private cross connections to surface water systems.

There is a simple way of reducing the number of CSO discharges - separate the surface water (rain) that is the reason for CSO from the foul. However, the general public aren't going to like what it will cost them to deal with their drainage matters as it wont be part of the "public" sewer infrastructure  & they will be liable for it.

 

[Judi Durber]

Posted by: Edd: Today at 09:50:08 am

At any cave (or in the country in general), if people think that there is a pollution, they should report it to the water companies or else the EA or Natural Resources Wales or Scottish EPA. That will mean that is properly investigated and handled and can lead to a prosecution if necessary. Water companies do prefer it if you tell them first because they can respond more quickly (so reduce the impact).

For the Wye, I expect that the main source of pollution is from the fields and industry. There were news stories last year alleging that poultry farms are causing pollution. This re-enforces my point about focusing on water quality: it's the bit that will determine whether you're healthy or sick and finding the source of poor quality water means you can deal with the root cause.

They have been very aware of the problems that Joyford Pumping station causes as this video proves from 2013 when the monitoring failed after a pump broke.

They are still allowed to pump into the stream over 7 years later


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ThPXaFyl30

 

[Edd]

Judi, the reason that they'll still be allowed to still use the discharge seven years after the 2013 incident because they will have an environmental permit allowing them to. The sewage network is designed with specific storm relief points, which is what this particular discharge will be.

Welsh Water publish their storm overflow data online although the CSO is not known as Joyford Mill so you'd have to search the whole area list until you find something that looks familiar.
https://www.dwrcymru.com/en/our-services/wastewater/combined-sewer-overflows/valleys-and-south-east-wales

I do understand why you don't want the cave to be polluted and the rag and sanitary towels, etc is pollution but this is why companies are already penalised for these. The issue is that banning the use of CSOs to fix the problem is not environmentally sound because i) most river pollution comes from other sources so the proposed bill doesn't do anything about the significant issues and ii) it comes at significant environmental cost in the form of power use, chemical use, concrete use and land use.

This whole issue has not been helped by a lot of news stories last year along the same lines as this one "water firms discharged raw sewage into England's rivers 200,000 times in 2019"*. This isn't incorrect but it is misleading. Those 200,000 times are predominantly storm overflows so '...discharged mainly rainwater into England's rivers...' would be more accurate. It isn't a false statement because it is raw sewage: raw because it has not been processed in a sewage treatment works and sewage because it has been in a sewer. As soon as any rainwater enters a sewer, it becomes raw sewage.

So if people want to sign the petition, first complete the statement: I think it is a good idea to use power and chemicals to process rainwater before returning it to rivers because ...

If there were a campaign to improve water quality or to reduce pollutions, we'd be on the right track.

*https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/01/water-firms-raw-sewage-england-rivers

 

[Speleofish]

Surely part of the answer is to try to mitigate local flooding with leaky dams, beavers etc? Not to mention netter agricultural practices such as underplanting crops like maize to reduce run-off.
You'll never eliminate all floods but you can reduce the impact.

 

[DickW]

All interesting stuff and Edd is quite correct that most pollution is from agriculture or industrial discharges, the former particularly because it is generally ignored as background whereas discharge events are often followed up and action taken (at least they were when the EA had enough staff).

I think thereare several over-arching points. The standard of water quality, around the coast and in our rivers particularly, is pretty dreadful. It has improved significantly but that has been largely due to public pressure from Surfers Against Sewage and others (I remember surfing off the Gower in my youth, an experience spoilt by developing mouth ulcers and infections in cuts) and all 3 contributory causes should be addressed.

If Ministerial statements made about agricultural grants and environmental management etc in our new sovereign environment are to be believed, [a very, very  big if] agricultural and industrial incidents should get a higher focus of attention. In which case that leaves storm overflows. Even if this Bill is not passed and it almost certainly won't, it keeps the issue of water quality in the political eye and the greater the public support for it, as a proxy for all water quality, the greater the chance of Government doing something, at least to maintain current standards and not let them slip.

It's also important to remember that climate warming will result in increased rainfall and increased storm intensity. So without forward planning and action where possible, these incidents will increase in frequency and severity. 

It?s also not a zero-sum game, as Edd implies. Since privatisation, the water utilities have run up a ?50bn debt burden. Some of this goes into infrastucture, much of it goes into payment of executive salaries, bonuses and dividends. Good dividends raise share prices which, in turn, generate good exec bonuses and higher salaries. That cycle does nothing to deal with water quality or the hideous and solvable problem of losses of treated water from the network. If the politicians force action, dividends and bonuses etc will go down (hopefully not debts up) and a greater proportion of money received from rates etc can be spent on infrastructure. And yes, we may have to pay more but for too long people have appear to have considered treated water as something free, with no value, to be wasted at will.

I signed it a while ago, not because I suspect that the Bill will pass but because I want the issue to stay in the public eye.

 

[Judi Durber]

This is an update from Paul Taylor who with several locals & other cavers have achieved the following improvements.

Along with John Hine we met Derek Frew from Welsh Water at the Joyford
Mill Pumping Station at 09.00 hrs on Tuesday March 9th. Derek?s job at WW
is as a Pollution Control Officer.

From the Pumping Station we took a walk over to the Wet Sink / Dry Sink
Area. I took the opportunity to explain the involvement of cavers within
this project and that we were well aware of the reason and function of
CSO's and that we knew that there was not a magic wand that was going to
take this particular one away.

We visited Wet Sink Entrance first and I explained the historical
background to the digging that led to the discovery of the cave and
provided a brief outline of the cave. (I have previously supplied a copy
of the survey, video of the Discharge on December 29th and links to the
various videos that are on my YouTube Channel.)

Derek found this to be very beneficial as it greatly increased his
level of understanding of the system. He was not aware that the water
emerged back into the River Wye such a long distance away.

From Wet Sink we then made our way over to Dry Sink. We explained what
happens at this site and Derek took quite a few photographs.

We then returned to the Joyford Pumping Station where we were joined by
another WW worker who was responsible for the site. We did not go into
the pumping station itself but we did have a look at the new Filter
Screen that has been fitted to the overflow that goes to the discharge
pipework. This is a vast improvement on the previous situation which was
very crude to say the least and by their own admission would stop very
little from going down the CSO. It does require regular checking /
cleaning but this is now all part of the Regular Maintenance Plan for
the site. This will reduce considerably the Material content of any
discharge. Which should be reflected within the cave.

Main Points:

The Holding Tank at the Joyford Pumping Station is approximately 100,000
ltrs

The operating levels of the tank have been adjusted to the following.
(My impression from the conversation was that they were set much higher
previously which reduced the reserve capacity of the tank)

Low level 0.5m  High Level 1.5m. This is the normal operating range of
the system.

A High Level Alarm comes in at 2.5m with a Major Alarm at 3.2m (The tank
is 3.5m deep) This is the level at which the CSO is activated.

The Telemetry at the site has been upgraded to provide more detailed
information. Not only does it indicate what the Levels are doing
including the Alarm Levels but also provides information regarding the
status of the pumps. With the biggest change being that if the Alarm
Levels are reached they now know if the pumps are running or not.
Something it is my belief that they did not know previously.

Currently the telemetry information is passed to the Control Room via a
Sim Card System / mobile signal. WW are well aware that the location of
the Pumping Station is far from ideal for this and does have a habit of
dropping out. A request has been made to upgrade to what was referred too
as a Screen Based System that runs off the Mains Power Supply and this
would be much more reliable.

A request has been submitted for funding to provide a Mechanical Screen
for the CSO.

We now have a much improved understanding of the workings of the system.

There are two gravity feeds that run into the Joyford Mill Pumping
Station and one Gravity Feed that runs into The Lonk Pumping Station.
Once in the tank at Joyford the fluid is pumped up to the last Chamber
that is on The Lonk Gravity Feed. The pump/ pumps at The Lonk then pump
the combined flow up the Rising Main past Craigs house into the Gravity
Feed that then goes to the Newland Treatment Works. Should The Lonk Fail
then the overflow enters a Return Pipe that flows back down to the
Joyford Pumping Station and starts it journey again. This provides for a
reserve capacity until all the pipework and tanks are filled up to
capacity. It was confirmed that there is NO OPEN OVERFLOW from The Lonk
that discharges into any of the streams at that level. This is good
news. The improvements in the telemetry will flag up any issues sooner
than previously. With everything working correctly and normal levels of
inflow of fluids the system functions ok. However, with high levels of
stormwater in the system then the CSO may have to operate and would
operate if either of the pumping stations goes into a Fault Condition.
For example Pump Failure or Powercuts.

A major review has taken place into the "Action Plan" in the event of a
problem at either The Lonk or Joyford Mill. This has involved not only
management discussions but also those who work at the sites so that a
much better understanding of the potential problems has now been
established.

This not only will help the situation on the ground but also make life a
lot easier for those at Welsh Water who have to implement these plans in
the event of a problem. Interestingly this is being rolled out across
the whole of the WW Network as the work at Joyford has shown up
shortcomings within their systems.

So for both locations there are now laid down procedures and
information dealing with such things as the use of Tankers, the maximum
size for each site approach routes and departure routes and where those
tankers have to go to discharge. This was implemented  for the incident
on February 11th / 12th and worked extremely well.

It was confirmed by Derek that the reason Tankers were not used during
the December 29th Discharge was due to the severe ice on the roads
leading down to the Pumping Stations and the fear of causing a problem
by crashing one of the tankers. Mother nature will always have the Upper
Hand..

Derek also confirmed that the raising of the issues relating to these
two sites had shown up shortfalls in the WW Contingency Plans for not
only these sites but across the Network in General and the lessons
learnt and the progress made is being rolled out across all of the sites.

For the February Incident where the Rising Main Fractured just near to
where Craig lives that section of pipework has now seen the old plastic
pipe replaced with a section of Steel Pipe as it was in a very vulnerable
point. Craig thinks it was a Composite Type Pipe rather than full steel.

The size if the pumps at both locations is being evaluated to see if
larger pumps would help the situation. However, just installing larger
pumps is not the answer as this may result in additional pressure on the
Rising Mains and cause more issues.

Derek was particularly interested in our Rainfall Data and the work we
have been able to do from this information which suggests strongly that
one day of Rain producing 10mm is ok but if that is followed by a
successive day producing the same amount then it is likely that the CSO
will activate. They were not aware of this information. I have agreed to
send him the data.

The increased running of the pump / pumps at Joyford may change this so
I am still keen to establish the "Remote Monitoring Station" at the Dry
Sink Discharge Point.

Derek provided us with a quantity of leaflets and cards that contain the
emergency numbers and what to do etc.These can be circulated around key
people. I will start the circulation of these.

New Signs have been installed at the Joyford Mill Pumping Station and on
the Field Gate at the Lonk. The latter is probably the most useful as it
was the lack of information regarding who was responsible for the site
on the 28th December that resulted in the delay in notifying Welsh Water
of the situation. In addition to this a sign is going to be placed on
the wall above the end of the Discharge Pipe at Dry Sink providing WW
Emergency Numbers. This is being actioned by Derek.

We have without a doubt made a vast move forward and the work we have
done and the pressure we have applied to Welsh Water has certainly paid
off. They certainly know we are on the case. We have to give them credit
for the work they have done.

The Joyford Mill Pumping Station CSO will not go away. However, the
improvements that have been made should be reflected in the use of the
CSO and subsequently in the Wet Sink (Slaughter Stream Cave System). I
fully accept that it is not the perfect solution but it is a fantastic
step forward. We need to keep our eye on the ball and if we feel that
standards are dropping report this to WW as a matter of urgency.

Once we can get back into caving I would like to make a trip into the
cave and check out the streamway and report our findings back to WW.

If you have any questions or queries please do not hesitate to contact me.

Best regards
Paul Taylor

 

[sinker]

My suggestion was next time you had an incident like this you tipped in a good dose of fluorescein with it. That would bring it  to people's attention when the Wye goes green!

This is an excellent way of making people sit up and take notice 

A jar of green drain tracing dye goes a hell of a long way and is vegetable based so no further harm done.

I used bright red when I was protesting about an overflow from an abattoir that was running more or less constantly. Why pay to treat or dispose of a problem properly when you can just let it run into a watercourse??! Madness.
Anyway, the blood-red dye did the trick. They got a ?20k fine and a clean-up notice.

 

[mrodoc]

Well done!

 

[tomferry]

Have worked in a lot of drains over the years are saw lots of pollution a lot of the time even today on brand new housing estates,  foul water still accidentally joins storm drains and it takes until the adoption process by the council  to get this fixed so up to 20 years is sadly very common ! Even then when they go for adoption a lot of back handers are given around and  it?s forgotten about  ! Making it well known to the general public is normal the best answer I believe contact the press get it in the news papers they soon get cleaning up then !

 

[Tritim230]

Paul Taylor, the FoDCCAG chairman, has asked me to let you know the latest developments regarding the Welsh Water sewage release:

There is currently a Bill being raised in Parliament by the Rt Hon Philip Dunne MP. He represents Ludlow and is
Conservative Chair of the Environmental Audit Committee. His bill is getting a second reading on January 22nd and is designed to strengthen the pressure on the Water Companies to do more to reduce the number of Combined Sewer Overflows (CSO's) that take place. Something like 2000 took place in 2019 and that is only the ones that were reported. It is possible that overflows at Dry Sink caused by the rain do not get reported.
The bill is also designed to put pressure on the water companies to reduce their reliance on CSO's. These are exactly what happen at Dry Sink.

If you put Philip Dunne MP into your browser and click on Sewage Bill you will see what is going on.

or use

Our sewage pollution campaigns

From unacceptable sewage discharge, to toxic run-off water companies and big businesses are destroying the ocean. Want to put an end to it? Let’s do this.

www.sas.org.uk

This will take you to the Surfers Against Sewage site and provide the method for everyone to contact their MP and ask them to support the bill. The problem is country-wide - it is not solely a problem in the Forest of Dean, that's why Surfers Against Sewage are concerned.

Would you to circulate this information around as many people as possible - friends, your caving club members and anyone who you feel would be happy to be involved and ask them all to contact their local MP. The more pressure the more chance we have of making progress.

Mr Dunne has been sent an email outlining the issue and problems that exist in the Forest of Dean, both at Dry Sink and St Arvans.

Following up on this I visited Wet Sink for an evening trip on 16th February 2022. There has been rain but not excessive. Water was discharging out of the CSO into Dry Sink and when we entered at 4.30pm my colleague noticed a smell but the water was clear at Cross Stream Junction. On our return from the upper series at 8.30pm the water was grey and we could both smell from Zurree aven. On separate trips Mark Tringham, myself and others have cleared all of Kuwait (almost 1km long) of Wet wipes and sanitary towels. The passage is now 'pristine' at present. There is a live

Paul Taylor, the FoDCCAG chairman, has asked me to let you know the latest developments regarding the Welsh Water sewage release:

There is currently a Bill being raised in Parliament by the Rt Hon Philip Dunne MP. He represents Ludlow and is
Conservative Chair of the Environmental Audit Committee. His bill is getting a second reading on January 22nd and is designed to strengthen the pressure on the Water Companies to do more to reduce the number of Combined Sewer Overflows (CSO's) that take place. Something like 2000 took place in 2019 and that is only the ones that were reported. It is possible that overflows at Dry Sink caused by the rain do not get reported.
The bill is also designed to put pressure on the water companies to reduce their reliance on CSO's. These are exactly what happen at Dry Sink.

If you put Philip Dunne MP into your browser and click on Sewage Bill you will see what is going on.

or use

Our sewage pollution campaigns

From unacceptable sewage discharge, to toxic run-off water companies and big businesses are destroying the ocean. Want to put an end to it? Let’s do this.

www.sas.org.uk

This will take you to the Surfers Against Sewage site and provide the method for everyone to contact their MP and ask them to support the bill. The problem is country-wide - it is not solely a problem in the Forest of Dean, that's why Surfers Against Sewage are concerned.

Would you to circulate this information around as many people as possible - friends, your caving club members and anyone who you feel would be happy to be involved and ask them all to contact their local MP. The more pressure the more chance we have of making progress.

Mr Dunne has been sent an email outlining the issue and problems that exist in the Forest of Dean, both at Dry Sink and St Arvans.

Following up on this as both an open water swimmer and an aficionado of Wet Sink the Rivers Trust have published a live map https://theriverstrust.org/key-issues/sewage-in-rivers?mc_cid=c6247f0b70&mc_eid=3a197300fc
This states in 2021 there were 2 discharges into the Joyford CSO lasting 5 hours. We know from FoDCAG monitoring that it discharged for over 850 hours in 2021. So the water companies need to get their data straight.
I was down Wet Sink on 16th February when discharge occurred again (and it wasn't associated with the February storms). On the positive side over two separate trips Mark Tringham, Jann Padley, Tarquin and I have cleared all of Kuwait passage (almost 1km long) of sanitary towels, wet wipes and washed away conservation tape much improving the state of a superb piece of this cave.