the shizzle > get involved: access, environment, BMC

Tideswell Sewage

<< < (2/2)

mark20:
I'd expect the lab isn't permitted to be dumping anything down the public drains ?

Probably the results of coach loads of old biddies full of pharmaceuticals in Tideswell and the knackered old filter bed sewage works

Will Hunt:
It's likely that the lab has a trade effluent consent with Severn Trent and that their liquid waste goes to the Tideswell wastewater treatment works (or it may be tankered away to a different works - it doesn't appear to be discharged directly to the watercourse as the firm doesn't hold a discharge permit). Pharmaceuticals are among what are known as "emerging pollutants". Their impacts on water ecology are not as well understood as traditional sanitary determinands (ammonia, BOD etc). Wastewater treatment processes are not necessarily geared up to treat these chemicals, though there may be some incidental removal as wastewater goes through the treatment process. The Chemicals Investigation Programme that the EA spokesperson mentions is a series of studies looking to determine what harm these chemicals can cause in the environment, and what the solutions might be. For instance, there may not be any known treatment process for removing a particular chemical, in which case if the chemical was harmful you might seek to control it at source.

Without knowing how propranolol levels are affected by wastewater treatment processes it's impossible to say whether the main impact is from the works' final effluent or the works' storm overflow (assuming that the source is the lab and that the lab's effluent goes to Tideswell WwTW).

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[*] Previous page