Pipe problem could see sewage pumped into sea in Bognor

The discharge of the effluent into a watercourse is a possibility while the company seeks to find out why its sewage pipes are becoming overloaded.

John Challener, Southern Water's county sewage engineer, said the move would send the contaminated excess water away instead of it lying in the roads around the Elmer Sands estate.

"To be able to do that, we would need to negotiate with the Environment Agency because we can only do it if they give us a discharge licence," he said.

Southern Water was considering the move because the 1.7m cost of doubling the capacity of The Hard's sewage pumping station and installing a 1ft diameter main pipe from there to the Ford treatment works was too much.

The scheme was outside Southern Water's agreed business plan with water industry regulator Ofwat for 2005-2010, he told Arun District Council's performance scrutiny committee, which meant it could not be funded.

But the thought of raw sewage flowing into the sea was criticised by Felpham East councillor Paul English. He said it had the potential to seriously harm the Bognor Regis area's prized Blue Flag sea water status.

"Southern Water are the only people in the world who can sort this out," he said.

"There is no-one else. The cross-contamination of the sea could affect our Blue Flag and tourism to a massive extent.

"It would be a case of people bathing in sewage. At some point, someone has to draw a line and change their benefit and cost situation."

He said 1.7m was a modest amount compared to the loss to the tourism industry in just six to seven months if visitors started shunning the area because of pollution fears.

He questioned how much sewage was already getting into the sea from leaking pipes.

Cllr Terence Chapman (East Preston) was astounded a five-year business plan could not be changed even if a threat to public health existed.

Mr Challener said Southern Water's surveys of the Elmer Sands sewage network showed its sewers could easily cope with the flows of effluent from households.

The problem of flooding during heavy rainfall was caused because water was getting into the pipes.

The largest quantity was surface foul water with a small amount of ground water and water from roofs.

"If we remove that, then the public sewer system will operate to a sufficient standard with a once-in-30-year standard of flooding," he said.

He explained joint working with Arun and West Sussex councils and the Environment Agency would be the best way to discover where the water was getting into the pipes and curing the problem.

Southern Water would, meanwhile, work with households to make them more flood-proof with measures such as watertight doors.

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