reminder – your Flood Forum questions please

Cranleigh Society would like your questions for MP Angela Richardson and Thames Water please –

and you are welcome to Cranleigh Band room on Friday 4th Feb, 10.30 – 12 for the Flood forum.

There will be refreshments served and opportunities to ask questions.

Please reply to this message or elsewhere if you intend to go along so we can gauge numbers. thanks

 

Cranleigh FLOOD FORUM Friday 4th February 10.30 am

Cranleigh FLOOD FORUM Friday 4th February 10.30 am

Cranleigh FLOOD FORUM Friday 4th February 10.30 am

Cranleigh Society and MP Angela Richardson invite your comments and queries

Cranleigh Society has organised the venue, the Band Room, for the next Cranleigh Flood Forum.

We will be asking questions of the panel on your behalf.

The meeting will be chaired by local MP Angela Richardson and include representatives from local county, borough and parish councils, the environment agency, Surrey Wildlife Trust and Thames Water.

Unfortunately, due to Covid carefulness, the venue will preclude attendance by all of those who would like to attend.

If you have a particular reason to be present, will you please let us know and we will try to make it possible.

Please let us have any comments and queries as soon as possible.

Unfortunately, the venue does not have internet access so ‘virtual’ sharing of the meeting will not be possible on this occasion.

We look forward to your comments as soon as possible please, so that we can ask the panel in advance – that way they come with their answers and we can progress from there. 

thank you

please email membership@cranleighsociety.org

 

Water Supplies being constantly interrupted!

Water Supplies being constantly interrupted!

It is important that everyone reports all water supply problems to Thames Water – even if others have done so.

When you report the problem to Thames Water please note the complaint reference and send it to us at Cranleigh Society info@cranleighsociety.org. We can collate the data and send it on to Angela Richardson MP as proof of the sheer quantity of problems and to enable us to follow up the response. The number of individual complaints is important and is necessary especially if you later wish to complain via OFWAT.

  • official complaints line 0845 9200 800. (Minicom or Typetalk: 0845 7200 898).
  • Call Thames Water on 0800 316 9800. 7 days a week, 24 hours a day. or write to 
  • Thames Water, PO Box 436, Swindon, SN38 1TU

twitter – @thameswater – “If you’re currently experiencing low pressure or have no water, the best place to check for an update is our website which is regularly updated – bit.ly/3xOqsAN. If the location you are in is not covered, please drop us a message so we can help you.”

Cranleigh Society is very grateful to Liz Townsend, our Surrey County Councillor as well as Waverley Borough and Cranleigh Parish councillor, who is actively chasing Thames Water and keeping the community informed via FaceBook posts and other media. We are liaising with Angela Richardson MP and Councillor Townsend to get a long term resolution to these never-ending supply issues

We need your help to keep pushing Thames to sort this fundamental issue out.  They state that their strategy is to keep costs down – better for shareholders – and they say better value for money for customers.  We believe their strategy needs a massive overhaul – managed replacements!

Water supplies to various parts of Cranleigh continue to be seriously affected.  This is in addition to all the bursts.

Last weekend it was Gaston Gate and Rowly, now Ewhurst Road, Amletts Lane and Summerlands have been without water supplies or suffering low pressure.

Many of Cranleigh’s pipes are at the end of their design life. Many are made of forms of asbestos cement. There is no evidence that this can cause a health risk, but neither is it proved that they don’t.

.Cranleigh Society recently requested a statement on the risk assessment for supplying water through asbestos pipes. Here is the official response:

We asked Thames Water: In respect of the Environmental Information Regulations 2004, Clause 5 (2), please would you send us within 20 days of this request a copy of your risk assessment for supplying drinking water through pipes made of asbestos cement past the end of its 50 year design life where the identified hazard reinforcement used is crocidolite.

They replied – “Our risk assessment approach to management of drinking water supplies looks at all aspects of water quality and public health risk from source to tap in line with the WHO water safety plan approach and the DWI requirements under the WS (WQ) Regs. This requires a targeted risk characterisation for all hazards/hazardous events that could potentially impact on water quality and consumers’ health”. WHO – World Health Organisation – https://www.who.int   DWI – Drinking Water Inspectorate. 

Note that current DWI guidance is based on published papers on pipes made using chrysotile, though this is not differentiated by DWI other than in the appendices to the guidance, and note also that in the conclusions of the latest “draft WHO Guidelines for Drinking-water Quality” dated 14-Dec-2020 states “regarding the use of asbestos cement pipes for drinking water “the data on ingestion are unclear”. 

We also asked – Note also that section 8.2 of the WHO document states that it is “important” not to supply drinking water through asbestos cement pipes in areas of aggressive pH, and please confirm how your risk assessment covers this point.

As the WHO has stated in its draft guidance [referred to in the request], “Because there is no consistent, convincing evidence for adverse health effects from the ingestion of asbestos fibres in drinking water, it is considered not appropriate or necessary to establish a guideline value for asbestos fibres in drinking-water”.  Additionally, in a recent review of the European Drinking Water Directive, the WHO advised that asbestos would be considered a very low priority for inclusion in the drinking water directive due to limited health significance through ingestion. Therefore, we have not included a specific requirement to consider asbestos as a specific hazard in our risk assessment approach.  As with all risks to health, we will keep this under review should the WHO/DWI advice and guidance change. We do ensure that the drinking water in all our pipework is not aggressive and where necessary apply pH and alkalinity control as part of the treatment process to maintain a neutral pH that controls corrosivity.  

To summarise, there is no evidence of adverse health effects from asbestos pipes, but that is because no-one has actually researched the issue. What concerns us is when the pipes actually burst. The question is are there fibres present in our drinking water?

It is however undeniable that the pipes are at the end of their design life. This is why they are constantly failing.

We believe Thames Water should replace all the relevant pipes throughout the area, not just piecemeal replacement of short sections. If you agree please tell us and tell Thames Water.

Cranleigh Civic Society will keep pushing to keep us all safe.

Adrian Clark “WHO report 2020 Here’s the latest update from WHO, issued last December. There’s nothing new in it about crocidolite (blue asbestos, the nasty one). Here’s the main comment I found interesting: It’s mostly based on old (70s and 80s) reports done on chrysotile (white asbestos which we’re not so worried about).  Some of it was done by the asbestos industry themselves to allay public fears.  You could get away with that back then.  If WHO has nothing, then neither would Thames Water of course.”

Riverfly monitoring – Come & Learn! 16 July 10-2:30

Riverfly monitoring – Come & Learn! 16 July 10-2:30

Surrey Wildlife Trust and Cranleigh Society are putting together some free live training

Dipping in our local river “Cranleigh Waters”

Mayfly Monitoring Training course  Cranleigh Band room

Friday 16th 10 till 2:30

Join us for this Free training session to help us protect Cranleigh’s waterways. 

Learn how to sample and identify the different species living in the local streams. 

Training involves:

Presentation on Mayfly life history, collecting a sample from the local stream and identifying species from the samples. 

All Covid compliant and health & safety risks assessed. 

The Project

In partnership with Thames Water, Surrey Wildlife Trust are working to restore the Cranleigh Waters back to a thriving river. To do this we need your help. We are recruiting volunteers in the area to join our team of regular riverfly monitors who sample the aquatic life that lives on the river bed. 

Get involved and find out more! 

Email: glen.skelton@surreywt.org.uk

or call Cranleigh Society rep Sue

07946 590347

Flooding and How clean are our local rivers and streams? New Water Bill on the way

Have you had a chance to listen to Destination Cranleigh’s Cranleigh Community Radio number 23? Have a listen here 

Cranleigh Society current Chair Trevor talks about where the streams are and how we need to keep them clean.  If you see them getting blocked up please let Cranleigh Parish Council know.  It’s time to get back to working on what worries us such as potential flooding and the various problems, including sewage coming up where it shouldn’t.  We will be contacting MP Angela Richardson for her help in this matter.

How clean are our rivers?

The newspaper – The Times – this week said that we are suffering from Rivers of Shame due to raw sewage finding its way into rivers –  here is a link to the article here

Who is responsible for allowing what into the rivers and streams? is the privately owned water companies and the farmers for example, and what about the public?

and who makes sure they are clean enough?  Well, the Government would say it has the Environment Agency to make sure our rivers are clean and safe for wildlife.  But can we leave it to them?

Environment Agency Government site says  “We were established in 1996 to protect and improve the environment. We have around 10,600 employees. Our head office is in Bristol and we have another office in London. We have offices across England, divided into 14 areas listed below. See a map of our areas. Within England we’re responsible for:

  • regulating major industry and waste
  • treatment of contaminated land
  • water quality and resources
  • fisheries
  • inland river, estuary and harbour navigations
  • conservation and ecology

We are also responsible for managing the risk of flooding from main rivers, reservoirs, estuaries and the sea. Lead local flood authorities (LLFAs) are responsible for managing the risk of flooding from surface water, groundwater and ordinary watercourses and lead on community recovery.  More detail about who is responsible for managing flood risks.”

We at Cranleigh Society have, over the years, with the help of the Right Honorable Anne Milton, held Thames Water to account concerning the quality of water they emit into our tiny rivers in and around Cranleigh. The rivers are named Cranleigh Waters, Littlemead Brook, Wey & Arun Canal, Cobblers Brook, Thornhurst Brook, and others. There are several ponds too including on the Common, and Vachery pond.

Looking at a map of Cranleigh on Google it’s easy to see our rivers are a major part of Cranleigh and need to be cared for, for us, for wildlife and for the future.

The Sewage (Inland Waters) Bill

According to The Angling Trust “Our rivers are in crisis. In 2019 water companies released raw sewage into our rivers more than 200,000 times, equating to more than 1.5 million hours. In September this year data from the Environment Agency revealed that not a single river in England achieved good chemical status and only 14% were classed as being of good ecological status. Sewage discharges by water companies into our rivers, lakes and waterways are suffocating our precious fish biodiversity and further degrading our environment. You can be a part of the urgent change needed to hold water companies to account for their actions and put an end to this pollution. The Sewage (Inland Waters) Bill is going through Parliament right now and we need your help to write to your MP to support the Bill.” 

If you witness a pollution incident, it is important to report it. Making the regulator (for example the Environment Agency and Natural England) aware of an incident is an essential step to make sure the polluter is held to account for their actions.” 

Government web site – “Summary of the Sewage (Inland Waters) Bill 2019-21

A Bill to place a duty on water companies to ensure that untreated sewage is not discharged into rivers and other inland waters; and for connected purposes.”

 

 

9:30 FLOOD FORUM Sept 6th BAND ROOM

9:30 FLOOD FORUM Sept 6th BAND ROOM

9 am FLOOD FORUM Sept 6th BAND ROOM (with microphones and information sheets)

Anne Milton’s MEETING starts at 9:30 for one hour only.

Do get in touch in advance, join us and please tell us and the forum your flood news –

Do you have any problems you want to share – do write and reply to this post –

Perhaps you have noticed dried up rivers and brooks in Cranleigh area during the summer? Or maybe flooding and surface water pooling?

What about burst pipes,  mains replacements, and the sewage plant upgrades?

In England and Wales much of the rain water is meant to go into the sewers and be added to the sewage from households etc.  Some people have another system – see OFWAT’s link below.

Surface water drainage

We look forward to seeing you at the meeting and also to reading your comments