Ere we go, Ere we go, Ere we go - by the time you get this
newsletter, Southern Water's plans to upgrade the Portobello
outfall may have been announced.
At present the sewage of nearly 300 000 people only gets screened
before discharge down the long sea outfall at Telscombe Cliffs.
Southern Water will be proposing to excavate back into the cliffs
and probably provide only primary treatment.
SAS consider that this level of treatment is insufficient as it
will still result in harmful viruses and bacteria being
discharged into the sea and finding their way to beaches in the
area. The European Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive says that
secondary treatment should be provided. Southern Water will
probably be arguing that the tides will disperse the bacteria
sufficiently only to provide primary.
They will have to convince the local Environment Agency, the
government and the European Commission if they want to get away
with only primary treatment.
We will be calling for full tertiary treatment (ultra violet or
microfiltration). In addition, in these times of water shortage,
pumping the equivalent of 30 olympic swimming pools of sewage
(which is 99% water) into the sea is a waste of valuable
resources. With a bit more treatment, the cleaned effluent could
be used as drinking water.
We will be issuing a special Portobello campaign newsletter to
help fight the proposal.
Please contact us to obtain a petition form. Please copy it as
many times as you need and then fill it in and return it to the
address at the bottom of the form. Brighton SAS will be sending
the petition to the Environment Agency and be holding a
demonstration.
We will also be producing postcards for you to send to the
Environment Agency and East Sussex CC featuring our new cartoon
character, Vic the Virus - a long distance swimmer.
Both new Labour Brighton MPs, Dave Lepper and Des Turner (who
replaced Sir Andrew Bowden who was a paid parliamentary
consultant to Southern Water) have been pressurising Southern
Water and the government minister Michael Meacher (who visited us
in March) for full sewage treatment.
As a result of a "Briefing Pack" which Andrew sent to
all 4 new local MPs, Hove's Labour MP, Ivor Caplin, and Lewes's
LibDem MP Norman Baker have also expressed keen interest in
tackling Southern Water. We are going to arrange a briefing
session with them in the near future.
Chris Hines went to the Scottish Power (owners of Southern Water)
AGM in Glasgow in late July to argue for full sewage treatment.
The campaign to get Peacehaven designated as a bathing beach is
picking up steam.
A letter and petition has been sent to Lewes DC asking them to
apply to the Department of the Environment for bathing beach
status. As part of the request we are asking for the Council to
pay for the Environment Agency to start bathing water testing.
The request is being supported by the local Town Council and the
new MP Des Turner backs the campaign. Radio 4's consumer
programme "You and Yours" did a story on the campaign
on 18 June, including interviews with Linda Butler and Andrew
Coleman. The Council are pretty lukewarm about it at the moment -
they seem to regard Peacehaven as not worth bothering about.
The Low Tide Discovery Walk led by Linda Butler in May attracted
over 30 local people of all ages and some teachers to provide an
intellectual input. The walk discovered some of the plant and
animal life found below high tide level and was very interesting
and popular - to be repeated.
On August Bank Holiday Saturday August 23rd, there will be a
Cliffest in Peacehaven to celebrate the opening of the Undercliff
Walk there. There will be live music, arty visuals will be
projected onto the cliffs using a pedal-powered generator,
storytelling, ecology and history walks and a barbeque. Brighton
SAS will have a stall there. For more details, contact Mark on
582467. If you want to help with the Peacehaven Bathing Beach
campaign, contact Linda on 588647.
The results of a research study have been released which show
that surfers are three times more likely to suffer from liver
disease Hepatitis A than the general public. Hep A is found in
sewage and can live in seawater for up to 100 days. The type of
sewage treatment favoured by Southern Water does not kill viruses
- uv does. The results of the study are about to be published in
The Lancet which doctors read.
We recommend that you go to your doctor for a 10 year Hep A
inoculation. Stress that you are regularly in seawater which
contains raw sewage (60m litres every day from the Portobello).
Ask for a prescription for Havrix Monodose - different doctors
will have different policies on charging patients and it costs
about £40. If every sea user demands jabs the government might
wake up to the fact that prevention is better than cure and
insist on sewage treatment which removes the risk.
What we had suspected for a long time - that the local
Environment Agency is uninformed and enjoys a cosy relationship
with Southern Water - has been confirmed in a letter to a
Brighton resident which was passed to Brighton SAS. The local
EA's head honcho on bathing water quality had been asked why he
did n't insist on uv or microfiltration (remember our request to
write letters in an earlier newsletter - it worked!!). His reply
included the revelations that the local EA have n't investigated
the cost effectiveness of uv "in any detail" and that
in their view, uv and microfiltration are not as good as long sea
outfalls in ensuring that effluent does not return to bathing
waters. Where has this man been for the last 3 years?
The letter was passed to Chris Hines who informed him of the cost
effectiveness of uv and took up the need for a national viral
standard.
The last few months have seen a flurry of top quality SAS
fundraising events. The "banging" event at The Comber
on May 25th raised about £1300 for national SAS. The Paddle
Round the Pier on June 8th raised nearly £1000 and the Dance
Parade on July 12th raised over £100.
Come to the next Brighton SAS meeting to decide what happens to
the money raised. We need our own campaign funds (we are fighting
Southern Water which has a multi-million pound publicity budget).
We need to decide how much to donate to national SAS which goes
into keeping Chris Hines campaigning and to help run the office.
We might also want to donate some to the Dance Parade which is
facing debts reported to be up to œ40 000.
At present all the money retained by the Brighton group goes into
printing and posting the newsletter and to enable us to pay
upfront for events like the 7th Birthday Party. We have also had
up-to-date display material made for exhibitions and some
brilliant banners made by Quest Arts (Becca and Mel).
All of our fundraising events are arranged by volunteers who do
it in their spare time. We are eternally grateful for this help
and need more volunteers to do things like selling merchandise at
stalls. Special mention in despatches for their efforts since the
last newsletter must go to the McDonald family, Linda Butler,
Richard Hardy and Sophie, Richard Gregory and Bone Idol (for the
Low Tide, Whitsun Bank Holiday weekend), David Sandals, Emily
Hillier, Tim Mayer, Guy Simmons and family, Kevin Hayter and son,
Oceansports Boardriders and Hove Lagoon Windsurfing Club (for the
Paddle Round the Pier).
Two foot long photographs of the Paddle Round the Pier crew lined
up on Hove Lawns are now available from Dave Samuel (820470) and
from Oceansports. They are priced at a very reasonable œ12 and
make a heartwarming memory of a wonderful afternoon filled with
fun and camaraderie. They're also perfect for covering up any
unsightly stains on your living room wall. All proceeds go to
(you guessed it!) Brighton SAS.
The Dance Parade on July 12th was a brilliant success. Thanks to
generous help from Webb / Kirby (who run about 20 pubs around
town), we had a float with an excellent sound system. We also had
some fantastic banners made by Quest Arts (Becca and Mel), a
sewer pipe made by Izzy Charman and lots of help from Mark
Elliott, the McDonald family, Breda and Tom, Darren Grainger,
Linda Butler, Kevin Hayter, David and Emily on the day. A special
mention must also go to Revamp Fancy Dress shop at 11 Sydney
Street (623288) which donated the use of their most excellent and
lifelike mermaid outfit which went down a storm, even though the
dress was a bit scratchy, the long blonde wig very hot and the
false boobs made Andrew feel (and get felt) like Pamela Anderson!
We ran a stall, collected money from the throbbing masses and
national SAS sent up a minibus of volunteer stewards. We also did
a piece for cable TV (to be repeated for a week), were mentioned
in the Argus and Andrew had loads of pictures taken of him in his
gas masked mermaid outfit. SAS got good publicity from it, we
collected hundreds of signatures on our petition, as well as it
being a way crunchy day. Can't wait for next year. The mastermind
who organised the Dance Parade - Atlanta Cook - is a local SAS
member to whom large respect is due.
Brighton and Hove Council has received a grant from the European
Union to develop "real time" bathing water testing
which will enable test results to be publicised on the same day
as the samples are taken. At present there is a delay of about a
week or more before the results are available and the posters on
the seafront are about a month behind, if they are readable at
all. Is this something to do with the bathing water failing, we
wonder? We have written to the Council saying we support the
development and pointing out that they should be testing for
faecal streptococci and at places other than designated bathing
beaches. Both of these issues were adopted by the European
Parliament when it voted through revisions to the Bathing Water
Directive last December. Come and hear more about this at the
meeting in October.
We are increasingly being asked to provide stalls at festivals
and other events and need more volunteers to spread the load a
little. We've been asked by the Body Shop to be at Littlehampton
Regatta on the 9th and 10th of August and at a Greenpeace
festival in Hailsham the following weekend (16th August). All it
involves is putting up our information boards, dispensing wisdom
(information provided) and selling a little merchandise. In
return, you get a lovely warm feeling inside you and enjoy a fun
event for free. Can anyone help? Ring Andrew (570261) to
volunteer.
Ever wondered who designs, prints and posts out this newsletter?
Pats on the back are due to Richard Gregory who lays it out and
prints it and the McDonald family who stick it in envelopes and
stick the address labels and stamps on. Their tongues bleed for
days afterwards.
We will be discussing the Portobello campaign and how to spend
our hard earned loot.
Hove Lagon Watersports Centre 7PM - 9PM (UNDER 18S WELCOME)
TUESDAY 5TH AUGUST
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