13/12/2005
- The Environment Agency is warning all householders who
are served by cesspools to check them regularly following
the recent prosecution of a Chichester man.
A cesspool is a sealed tank designed to collect wastewater
from a household, where it is then removed by a tanker
and transported to a sewage treatment works where it must
be treated.
As no treatment of the sewage takes
place inside a cesspool there must be no discharge of
this untreated sewage from the tank to the environment,
whether through a deliberate overflow pipe or discharge
pipe, or through any cracks or holes in the tank.
Only effluent that has been properly
treated through a Sewage Treatment Plant is allowed to
be discharged to a watercourse or to the ground. The strict
consent system that the Environment Agency uses to regulate
these discharges means that only clean water is allowed
to be discharged to the environment.
Environment Officer Robert Cornell
said: "The discharge of raw untreated sewage to the
environment whether from a private sewage treatment plant
or direct from a drain from the foul sewer is totally
unacceptable. More so in this modern age with the large
quantities of household chemicals found in wastewater
from today’s households.
"The Environment Agency
takes discharges of sewage very seriously and warns that
in such cases enforcement action will be taken. This will
hopefully serve as a warning to the owners of households
served by cesspools to check that their cesspools are
fully watertight, and that they do not have any discharge
pipes or holes or cracks which could discharge untreated
sewage to the environment".
Last month the Environment Agency
prosecuted a Chichester man who caused sewage to enter
a West Sussex watercourse after he breached an enforcement
notice to seal his cesspool. Mr Jonathan Falkner pleaded
guilty to both offences at Chichester Magistrates Court
on Wednesday 23 November 2005. Mr Falkner was fined £500
for each offence and was ordered to pay costs of £1,014. |