Barry Gardiner, MP for Brent North, in whose constituency some of the sewage pollution of the Wealdstone Brook, has occurred has taken up the issue with the CEO of Thames Water, Sarah Bentley, and the Environment Agency.
Dear Sarah Bentley
Re: Pollution Event at the Wealdstone Brook
I am concerned that Thames Water claim that the ongoing pollution incident at the Wealdstone Brook is the result of misconnections upstream. You will be aware of the work that your officials have been doing over a number of years with the Brent & Harrow Flooding Working Group which I established with John Timms MBE. Part of this work was to address the problem of misconnections which has blighted the Brook for so long. However, it is clear to us that the current pollution is not the result of domestic or industrial misconnections, but rather of an asset failure on the part of Thames Water. As such it represents a Category 2 Pollution Event and for this reason I am copying Emma Howard Boyd and Sir James Bevan at the Environment Agency to this letter.
In one of your recent speeches you were good enough to refer to my constituent, John Timms, and acknowledged that the company had learned a great deal about the local catchment from the monitoring and graphic representations which he had compiled over almost a quarter of a century. Key to his work is the data on water quality and river levels which can indicate when there is a problem with one or more of your assets such as the Dual Manhole Chambers. It is for this reason that we in the Flooding Working Group have not only insisted on the need for a proper separation programme and the need to track misconnections upstream (which your officers have strenuously resisted on cost grounds), but also on the importance of putting Flow Monitors into the surface water sewer at strategic points.
You will understand that in the Dual Manhole Chambers where an inspection cap is missing from the surface water sewer, it allows the foul water to back up into the surface resulting in precisely the sort of pollution incident that has afflicted the Wealdstone Brook now since February. The same pollution event can arise from a fracture in the surface water chamber which it is Thames Water’s responsibility to maintain. Had you followed the advice of the Flooding Working Group and installed Flow Monitors as suggested, we believe the latest incident could have been instantly identified and remediated. Their lack has meant that Thames Water has not been able to identify the source of pollution and is putting forward what your officials must surely recognise is a highly unlikely claim that it is the result of domestic misconnections.
I am aware that you are seeking to identify the pollution source and work with the riparian Authorities to clear detritus and flush the Brook with clean water to get rid of the toxic smell. I would also ask that you now install the Flow Monitors as requested so that incidents such as this do not keep happening.
Yours sincerely,
Barry Gardiner
Member of Parliament for Brent North
Looks like Barry has work to do even to get Brent to exist for Thames Water.......
ReplyDeleteRegarding the London Flooding Review Stage 2 Root Cause Assessment and Outcomes from Sensitivity Testing (April 2022) by Mott McDonald for Thames Water.
I am astonished that this reports root cause analysis of each impacted borough does not include Brent where the South Kilburn Growth Area flooded July 12th and 25th 2021? (Brent has a Section 19 Flood Report Investigation in draft form).
Camden is Review analysed with its 'lost rivers' and Westminster with its 'lost rivers' also, but not Brent stuck in between with its 'lost rivers' - all flooding interconnected?
Further, a look at your Review appendix flood event maps for 12th and 25th only includes Kilburn Lane, South Kilburn events (involving the electrified mainline railway line key infrastructure), while the rest of the flood events in South Kilburn, Brent are in these maps entirely corporate disappeared and denied?
Your report should correct these fails, denials and omissions concerning Brent. Thames Water customers in Brent must be fully London Flooding Review included from now on.