E. Coli contamination of Grouville Beach

[more]

 Whether you have E. Coli contamination on Grouville beach or as been suggested cows crapping on farm land doing their bit in damaging the envoirment.What of the mass influx of people who also crapp arriving au masse that is placing massive  pressure on all aspects on such a small Island.Sewage, more schools places, hospitals with up to a hundred on the waiting lis, some needing serious attention.Along with the rest of all public services. Bringing yet more civil servants within a couple of years  later to take care of the latest influx. See J.E.P.vacant columns for States puplic placements for never ending new jobs being created. Obviously the Island shortage of space in all these demands is now sinking under the weightof it all.How much longer before an outbreak of not only E. Coli along with other diseases due to overcrowding will have to take place or some other forseen mishap, before any Action or  Notice is even taken?

[Fritz]

There is an old saying, "You cannot polish a turd". But you can roll it in glitter.

[Chief Minister]

Is this the dandara thread or the sewage thread

[boatyboy]

Some facts, on population, I read six months ago an item on land mass population, so I guess its a little out of date but its a start. France 7 people per sq mile, America 8. England 325, Jersey 2,000, Islands apparently always have a higher population ? The council of ministers headed by as you know CM Frank Walker want to bring in 250 people to keep Jersey growing. Pardon ?

[Jack]

Thank you all for your interesting comments and ideas so far, I would like to try and gently steer this debate in another direction:

The States of Jersey policy of dumping 25% of all treated sewerage sludge production by deep injection into the agricultural land of Jersey officially ceased in 2005.

I was puzzled by this, for a practice which had been going on for decades to suddenly stop in 2005, there must have been a very good reason?

Why?

What was that reason, or should I say, who was that reason?

Who became Minister for Health and Social Services in December 2005..........   

Who were those involved, terrified enough to finally stop such a massive project, should the new "green" Minister of Health and Social Services find out?

And more importantly, find out what?   

Thanks to a cloak of secrecy which still covers much of our governmental departments, there seems to be no official information on this subject available to you and I, the people of Jersey!

Do you have any thoughts about why they may have so suddenly stopped such a massive project which stretched back decades?

[Stuart Syvret]

Jack

Sorry for not getting involved in this thread sooner, but as you’ll appreciate, I have rather a lot of other things on my desk at the moment.

I couldn’t say for sure that the deep injection of sewage sludge was stopped because of fears of what I would say. But I can say, had I been aware of it, I would most bloody certainly have kicked-off – big time.

It is, frankly, astonishing that such a policy was ever deemed suitable for a small island with the geology of Jersey. Our ground waters have always been at risk – and in the last 2 or 3 decades they have become particularly abused – through agrochemical applications, domestic sewage and over-abstraction.

Injecting crap into the water table? - Well – maybe it isn’t so surprising; after all, this is the States of Jersey we’re talking about.

I’m no expert on these matters, but for what it’s worth, here is my take on what is going on.

Back when I was first elected as a Deputy, I had the great misfortune to become a member of the then Public Services Committee. I eventually resigned from it as it was clearly a chaotic organisation under the control of a load of clowns.

But I did battle repeatedly on behalf of an oyster framer against these kinds of routine out-breaks of contamination.

Invariably – 95% of the contamination incidents occurred at times of heavy rainfall. This because the east-coast foul sewer network was far too small at that time – and like much of the rest of Jersey’s sewers – a great deal of surface water was discharged into the foul water system. This would cause the back-ups in the system – which in turn would lead to many of the water out-falls along the coast discharging the overflowing sewerage straight into the sea or on to the beech at times of heavy rainfall.

Although since then, a significant number of major improvement programs have bee undertaken on the east-coast sewers – mainly increasing capacity and adding pumping stations – it is still the plain fact that we have allowed so much over-development –and have not invested in the infrastructure – that still, at times, the east-coast foul sewer network will become overloaded with rain – in which case it will discharge on to the beaches or into the sea.

And haven’t we had a very substation amount of rain just lately?
 
Publish Services always attempted to deny the sewers were the cause of the problem – but, frankly, everyone knew that was total rubbish. It got to the point were I would go to a PSD Committee meeting with photographs of gushing streams of filth spilling out the pipes – and the accompanying vast slick of all those things one finds in sewage.

The then Chief Officer would just go purple in the face and shout that the photos were faked.

For sure – there could be several other causes of the e. coli outbreak – but I’d bet you 10 to 1 it’s nothing more mysterious than 10,000’s litres of sewage spilling out of the system overflows because of the recent heavy rains.

Stuart

[Fritz]

Perhaps we need another cavern . LOL.

[Pomme de terre]

The then Chief Officer would just go purple in the face and shout that the photos were faked.

If this weren't true, it would be funny.

Nowadays, with a water pollution law, I imagine such behaviour would be criminally negligent. Back in the day, I suppose it was acceptable.

[Jack]

Fritz & Spud: "If only it was the echoes of my laughter that I could hear whilst merrily digging another fiscal cavern of intellect!"

Thank you Senator Syvret for posting your views on this thread, I am sorry to be taking precious time away from you during what must be the most crucial point in your duties as Senator, and of the constitution of this island.

So I am right in saying, that as Health and Social Services Minister from the start of your office from December 2005 up until September 2007 you had no knowledge of the historical States of Jersey policy of dumping 25% of all treated sewerage sludge production by deep injection into the agricultural land of Jersey?

Or that during your time in office, to your knowledge, no other elected member of the States of Jersey, Civil Service or manual workers approached you with any health or environmental concerns linked to this?

And that during your time as a member of the public services committee, you were never made aware of this practice of sewage sludge dumping?

I am astonished that not one person with the knowledge of this ever came forward to warn you of such a bad practice of sewage disposal during both your time on the public services committee, and during your term of office as Health and Social Services Minister.

All the readers of this forum I am sure understand that as a politician, you are not an expert on these matters, and neither are we; but even the most tolerant of readers here must be disgusted by the health and environmental damage such a practice sustained over decades may have permanently caused to our beautiful island, especially by those we have placed our trust in and voted into office to represent us!

As you have quite rightly stated, it is frankly astonishing to have sustained such a practice over decades alongside the separate and added burden of agrochemicals, domestic sewage and over-abstraction.

With such a number of possible causes of contamination which you have highlighted; the realisation that our government, the States of Jersey have also historically for decades up until 2005 dumped 25% of all treated sewerage sludge production by deep injection into the agricultural land of Jersey is frightening.

As you now know, and no other politician has decided to bring this out into the open (at least into the public domain), what will you be doing about it?

[Stuart Syvret]

Spud & Jack

The Chief Officer, John Mullready, going purple in the face and shouting abuse at me?

Yep – it happened frequently.

The sewage rows were one thing – but if I wanted some real fire-works all I had to do was raise the subject of the dumping of toxic ash from the incinerator.

And this might answer Jack’s questions about what politicians are told – or more usually not told – by senior civil servants.

The PSD civil servants would repeatedly deny that the ash was in anyway toxic or any kind of hazardous waste.

Essentially – they would just lie to the politicians who formed the Committee. It was this issue which led me to resign from the Committee.

We eventually had the Warren Spring Laboratory analysis of the toxic components of the ash – and still the civil servants would lie about its toxicity.

The ash is basically a cocktail of toxins, for example, dioxins, furans, a variety of toxic heavy metals, such as mercury, lead, cadmium arsenic etc and PCB’s.

Simply nothing at all ambiguous about it.

It got to the stage where I would take books on toxicology to the Committee meetings and say ‘look here – it says cadmium is very toxic – renal necrosis, cancers, the whole bit’.

On this particular occasion the response of Mullready was to go an even greater shade of purple – and actually slam his fist on the table and shout, “who the bloody hell do you think you’re talking to? I was an expert in these things when you were in short trousers!”

I actually did a blog post on the ash subject – in which I include my report & proposition for a Committee of Enquiry. If you want to read the grim details of the whole affair, here is the address of the blog-post in question:

http://stuartsyvret.blogspot.com/2008/06/another-jersey-disaster.html

You know the TV comedy series “Yes, Minister”?

The awful truth is far, far worse than that.

Stuart.

[Jack]

Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

What do I mean, well think about it.......

The States of Jersey decided and took it upon themselves to embark upon a huge project of land reclamation from the sea.

They commissioned a long line of engineers, specialists, Uncle “Tom Cobbly and all” to plan and build it for them.

They knew they needed a vessel to dump the toxic waste (as no other right-minded government would take such large amounts of dangerous heavy metals and other toxic compounds off their hands), especially the E.U. and U.K.!

The reclamation site was the best option, a perfect vessel, a great excuse to dump and hide all this crap!

Now, they have the reclamation site, but still have no real idea of what they want to have built on it?

So what came first, the will to build a reclamation site, or the need to fill it?

I think you have been hoodwinked into thinking events are due to the cretinous intellect of the many!

On the contrary,

events are controlled by the cold logic of the controlling few........

[Eastern correspondent]

The beach all the way along to Gorey slip from Seymour is not looking good at all this year, I used to walk it regularly with my dog until he became ill and died in June - I am wondering now if any contanimation from the beach caused his illness...................any other dogs from the area been ill or died...............?

[Jack]

I am sorry for your loss EC, the passing of any pet animal is like the loss of a family member. 

The sudden deaths of other pets (or people) regularly walked on this beach would make interesting statistical reading!

The beach all the way along to Gorey slip from Seymour is not looking good at all this year, I used to walk it regularly with my dog until he became ill and died in June - I am wondering now if any contanimation from the beach caused his illness...................any other dogs from the area been ill or died...............?

[Jack]

Have the fiscal experts found the source of E. coli yet?

Any news?

Anyone?

 

[Deputy Dawg]

Have the fiscal experts found the source of E. coli yet?

Any news?

Anyone?

 

not from that sandwich company that supply the schools and battle of flowers etc!

Jack, Whats with such a big footer. I would have thought that it was a Dandara flat floorplan but there are much too many square feet there.