Budleigh owes its thanks to Peter for his investigative work; organising this meeting; and getting South West Water to come clean with real information and positive action. – Owl
Meeting with South West Water – Lime Kiln issues and resolution : 2nd July 2024
Petercrwilliams fightingpoolution.com
There have been a huge number of posts and discussions over the last 6 months, relating to the regular sewage alerts and tankering at Budleigh’s Lime Kiln sewage pumping station. In order to resolve these issues – and after several months of data collection and negotiation, we organised a meeting with senior South West Water staff and a cross-party group of local EDDC councillors and officers.
The objective was to fully understand what has been going on – and discuss a plan to resolve the ongoing issues.
Warning: The notes from the meeting are quite long, as the issues are long-standing and complex, and we believe that – after all this time – transparency is important.
Budleigh Salterton attendees
Cllr Charlotte Fitzgerald EDDC – Budleigh Salterton, Environment portfolio
Cllr Henry Riddell EDDC – Budleigh Salterton
Cllr Geoff Jung EDDC – Environment/Coast portfolio lead
Peter Blyth EDDC Beach Safety Officer
Peter Williams (Chair) Budleigh Sewage Action, Escape
South West Water Attendees
Hazel Tranchant Senior Asset Manager
Alan Burrows Head of Community Engagement
Jay Harris Regional Operations manager
Charlie Ford Projects Team
Meeting format: During the meeting, the Chair presented a slide deck of the issues relating to Lime Kiln Sewage Pumping Station, the source of around 95% of Budleigh’s current sewage discharges and alerts. Each key issue was then discussed by the group, and actions agreed.
Presentation slides shown in boxes, followed by discussion notes.
Summary of issues
Detail Section 1: Lime Kiln Emergency Overflow
Discussion and actions on Emergency Overflow (EO)
SWW acknowledged the 2023 discharge history for the EO. Until the new pumps and pipeline were commissioned in July 2023 (as part of LORP development), this EO had been discharging raw sewage into Kersbrook whenever the pumping station liquid level reached the overflow point. The level of discharges became apparent when the EDM sensor was installed in January 2023.
Comment: This use of an EO does not appear to be in line with normal EO permits, which are generally expected to be used ONLY in extreme mechanical failure conditions (eg: pump failure etc).
The positive news is that the new pump and pipeline system, commissioned in July 2023 as part of the LORP program, appears to have reduced or eliminated the use of this EO. There remains some concern that the EO could be activated in cases of severe inundation (ie: infiltration in excess of pump capacity).
Actions on Emergency Overflow (EO)
- Hazel to confirm if there have been any discharges from the EO into Kersbrook, since end July 2023.
- The continued high levels of E-coli recorded in the Kersbrook (eg: 27,000 on 3rd May and 18,000 on 15th May 2024), indicate a continued source of E-coli. SWW to consider how they can monitor the E-coli levels, identify the type (human, animal, etc) and determine the source. SWW to consider installation of one or more continuous-monitoring sensors to help with investigation.
Detail Section 2: Lime Kiln Combined Sewage Overflow (CSO)
Discussion and actions on Combined Sewage Overflow (CSO)
SWW confirmed that root cause of Lime Kiln overflow issues is that water ingress into the sewer system is greater than the capacity of the current Lime Kiln pumping station to push the sewage up to the Exmouth sewage treatment works (Maer Lane).
The result is that Lime Kiln CSO is currently pumping a mix of water and sewage out to Otter Mouth multiple times per day. (Note: in the period that we requested full data for, this was approx. 100 times per day, or approx 2 hours per day). This level of discharge continues even when there has been no rain for many days. This is the cause of the frequent pollution alerts shown on the SSRS app, and why so many people in Budleigh are uncertain as to whether it’s safe to swim.
SWW stated that this situation was historically ‘normal’ during Winter months (!), but that previously the volume of liquid arriving at Lime Kiln reduced to a manageable level before May. They stated that this normalisation has not happened in 2024, and that the water ingress is still inundating their system. Tankers have therefore been brought in to lower the tank levels and reduce the volume of sewage which is being discharged into the sea.
Comment: Although SWW state that they were not aware of an issue until April / May, I would point out that I posted (on Facebook) photos of a large number of tankers in Lime Kiln on 20th January 2024, and when we asked SWW what was going on, we were told then that they were lowering the level in the storm tanks. To us, this appeared unusual. We subsequently identified – and reported – exceptionally high numbers of short discharges going out of the CSO. I wrote a blog post on this, published on 18th February this year: https://fightingpoolution.com/2024/02/18/whats-really-happening-with-sewage-overflows-at-lime-kiln-budleigh/
We also raised a case (Case-0013670406) with SWW on 21st January, reporting an excessive number of CSO discharges. SWW responded on 2nd February to say they were investigating the source of excess ‘non-foul flows’. We followed up on 2nd, 8th and 13th of February as we were not satisfied with the response.
So it appears to us that SWW should have been aware of the exceptional nature of these excess flows much earlier in the year. The issue of when SWW were aware of the issue is important, as the late start means that resolution work will now be running into the Summer holiday season.
The good news however is that SWW have recently carried out a large number of underground CCTV surveys of the local sewage system in Budleigh, in an effort to identify the source of the exceptional water ingress.
SWW shared with the team their detailed (and impressive) survey mapping, along with photos of water gushing into the sewer system from the adjacent stream. In fact, the main sewer pipe runs underneath the Knowle Brook, between Brook Road / Mews and right along the side of Fore Street. The location of this sewer pipe under the stream is not SWW’s fault, but it is clear that any failure of joints or manhole covers (which actually sit IN the stream itself), can cause the sort of large-scale water ingress that we are suffering from. SWW have also identified and mapped quite a number of other specific points of ingress, including locations in Chapel Street, Rolle Street and Ryll Lane.
SWW Immediate Action
SWW put forward a plan to address the key areas of water ingress in this area, starting immediately in July. The total timeline to address these critical issues is approx. three months, but it is hoped that by addressing the major issues first, SWW could return Lime Kiln to a properly functioning pumping station within 4-6 weeks (ie: no tankers through the town and elimination of dry-weather discharges). It is encouraging to see SWW now have a detailed plan to resolve these issues.
Some of the areas which need addressing include sections of Fore Street. It is not expected that any roads will need to be dug up, as the main solution involves installing waterproof ‘sleaves’ through existing manhole covers. However, to allow the equipment to be set up, some traffic management would be needed in order to safely access manhole covers.
SWW will work with Devon Council and local councils in order to minimise any disruption, particularly as we are running into the peak summer season. All of the EDDC councillors present at the meeting raised the potential issues that this could cause, and discussed how we could balance the need to resolve Budleigh’s ongoing sewage issue, with the needs of a coastal town in the holiday season.
One of the options discussed was to start by fixing some of the major ingress sources in July, and to then review the disruption caused and the degree of improvement achieved – and if absolutely necessary, pause some of the Fore Street works until the end of the Summer holiday season.
As with any actions involving traffic management, the plans will need to go through proper consideration and permits. However, the sooner that actions start, the quicker we will have a functioning sewage system, eliminate most sewage alerts and end the stream of tankers through the town – good for locals, visitors and holiday businesses alike.
We also discussed the routing of the existing tanker lorries, and SWW will confirm whether these can be routed around the town, rather than causing a regular stream of heavy lorries blocking our main high street.
Communications for this short-term action plan: we discussed with SWW how they could provide regular updates to Budleigh residents on what they were doing, why and when. One idea was for SWW to publish this information on an easily accessible web page, so everyone can be fully informed on the plans and progress. SWW to confirm.
SWW Longer Term Action Plan
SWW accept that the above actions by themselves will not resolve all of Budleigh’s sewage issues. Whilst not the focus for this meeting, SWW did present a high-level plan for longer term, staged improvements, including:
- A series of works to separate surface water from sewage pipes, reducing the volume of rainwater coming down to Lime Kiln storm pumping station and inundating the storm tanks. Some of this work is scheduled to begin in September 2024
- A series of long-term improvements (through 2028+) to the pumping capacity from Lime Kiln up to Maer Lane, so that the system can cope with greater fluid volumes without having to discharge to Otter Mouth, or to require tankers to lower the sewage level. This would also require one or more interim pumping stations along the route, and possibly some upgrades to the pipeline itself. Treatment capacity at Maer Lane (Exmouth) sewage treatment works is also due to be expanded in 2028, though no additional storm tank capacity is currently planned.
- SWW state that they are planning to improve the performance of the Budleigh sewage system, such that Lime Kiln sewage overflow will reach the regulator’s target of “10 discharges per year by 2030”. They stated that they will be evaluating a range of further changes to achieve this.
- Comment: Although the issues at the EO appear to be resolved, the current CSO issues mean that 2024 may end up being even worse than 2023. Major improvement is therefore required. We have a concern that simply building more efficient pumping systems from all regional points, up to Maer Lane treatment works could result in large volumes of excess sewage being discharged through SWW’s expanded outfall pipe when it rains. This outfall is just 200m off Straight Point. Whilst not the subject for this meeting, we do need guarantees that any long-term plans meet the needs of our local community, and do not result in sewage plumes drifting back to Budleigh from Straight Point.
Detail Section 3: Water Quality Warnings and Communications
Discussion and actions on water-quality warnings and communication
We discussed the problems that Budleigh residents face when they want to check if – and where – it’s safe for them to swim. There is no single source which gives the current status of our bathing water – see my blog post on this issue here.
One issue is that the main Lime Kiln swimming area is located much closer to the CSO discharge outfall point than the Environment Agency’s sampling point. We therefore have no actual data on E-coli levels at Lime Kiln swimming area, which could be higher than the EA’s published data. Similarly, we have no sampling data from the Steamer Steps swimming area, which is three times further from the sewage outfall point – so it’s possible that this area could be cleaner.
We asked SWW whether they had done any sampling of the water quality at the Lime Kiln end of the beach (as they are the ones who are discharging sewage near there), but they insisted that this was the Environment Agency’s role and SWW would not be providing any sampling data.
We also, once again, asked them to improve the utility of SWW’s WaterFit app, by including a ‘History’ button to show all the recent discharges for each overflow. This is important as at present, a 1 minute discharge can ‘hide’ a previous 2 hour discharge notification. It does appear that this function is in development, but it remains unclear when they will make this feature available to the public.
We certainly feel that SWW have some way to go in order to provide transparent and actionable data, aimed at genuinely helping Budleigh’s residents.
Section 4: Final thoughts
I believe all participants found this to be a useful meeting, enabling us to speak directly about the issues and challenges.
Most of the SWW team were clear that the current situation was not acceptable, were keen to discuss the issues openly and wanted to resolve the problems. I would like to thank Hazel Tranchant for her positive commitment to the meeting and bringing together the SWW team.
We came away from the meeting with agreement on a plan which we hope will resolve the short-term issue of multiple, daily sewage discharges. Both sides committed to doing whatever they could to deliver or support a quick and effective solution, balancing the needs of the town’s summer tourist trade with the requirement to stop the sewage flows.
So when we see SWW vans or their contractors working in Budleigh over the next few months, it’s probably worth remembering that they are working to a plan to fix these issues as quickly as possible.
The meeting also highlighted the potential for an ongoing working group who can represent Budleigh’s resident water users, and hopefully ensure that future plans and issues are resolved more quickly and effectively.
PW, 2nd July 2024.
Note: The information contained in this document is presented in good faith and represents my best understanding of the facts. Should anything printed here be incorrect, please inform me as soon as possible and I will endeavour to verify and correct where necessary.
East Devon Watch 