Minutes:
Councillor Clarance asked the following questions of the Executive Member for Environmental Health, Waste and Recycling. Cllr Clarance advised they were split into two criteria, those being to establish the current actual situation followed by what proposed remedies will/should follow.
The questions were asked in relation to Minute 57 above. The responsibility for the matters the subject of the questions is not in the remit of the District Council and therefore the answers would be provided at a later time if not covered in the presentation at minute 57 above.
Criteria 1.
1. Operation Clean Sweep intentions were to pipe as much raw sewage to Buckland for full treatment as possible. I know that in times of stress this isnt able to happen with discharges into the river estuary. I know the discharge point for Shaldon as being the pipe marked by the stake off Ringmore Towers Shaldon, plus Teignmouth discharge points being certainly off Milford Park and Gales Hill. Is the Point outlet still in use? What other discharge outlets are there in the Estuary? Is there one for Bishopsteignton and does Buckland have an outlet, serving the entire Newton Abbot catchment area, thus confirming or not that the entire Estuary is contaminated by diluted raw sewage in times of stress?
2. What other emergency outlets are there in the actual rivers that feed the Teign Estuary, notably the River Teign itself, up river from the racecourse main road bridge, the River Lemon and the Aller Brook?
3 Have you any figures on the actual outlets how many times you have used these outlets on an annual basis? This should establish exactly where failures occur most, plus the number of times at each outlet, over a number of years recently.
4. The holding tanks firstly take the strain. For example, the one put in at Shaldon, in 1994/96, under the bund in the KG5 field becomes surcharged all too often, hence the final relief being the Estuary.
What do you identify as being the main contributory factors causing this situation? Is it too smaller holding tanks, pumping to slowly to the Buckland Works, insufficient capacity at the Buckland Works, the inability to stop so much rain water from getting into the sewer?
5. If for example you were able to pump at a greater speed/rate to Buckland, from Shaldon/Teignmouth through your near one metre diameter pipe, do you feel the piping pipe joints would stand the strain?
6. Not knowing the exact catchment area for Buckland, how many properties do you believe the Buckland Works serves?
7. How many new connections, properties will suffice, to do estimate have been added to your system since Clean Sweep was completed in 1996?
Criteria 2
8. In the light of answers to the questions above, what plans to you have to remedy/rectify the current situation in the River Teign Estuary?
9. What sort of timescale on what has to be done?
10. Have you any costings of the overall works that will be needed to rectify the situation, from hopefully what answer you have given to my second paragraph in question 4? Are you also intending to increase water bills over the rate of inflation to cover such capital costs?