A stink about beach sewage

For Hastings Independent Press

Making a stink about sewage on the beach 

By Kent Barker

It was a lovely evening, the tide was out and, since we are banned from the main beach at this time of year, Myrtle and I decided to walk under the cliffs eastwards from Rock-A-Nore.

            The sand soon gave way to an extraordinary assortment of rocks, burnished by the waves.  With four-paw traction Myrtle was able to leap over them with ease.  I’m a bit more cautious these days and so when I saw a long concrete embankment running parallel between cliffs and shore I climbed up and followed it along.  Perhaps five hundred meters from the car park, the concrete covering ceased, revealing a huge metal pipe. And soon this ended, allowing the liquid it was carrying to gush out onto the shore.  Now I don’t know if this was sewage but it certainly smelt rather like it.

            My interest in sewage (no jokes please) had been stimulated by news reports suggesting Hastings’ beaches are likely to fail a new, more stringent, EU Bathing Water Directive on pollution. This was based on regular samplings from last year showing levels of intestinal enterococci and Escherichia coli (E. coli) that fell short of the old guidelines, let alone the new.  This is obviously embarrassing for Hastings, bad for bathers, and could have a seriously detrimental effect on the tourist trade.  So what’s being done about it?

            Well as far as sewage is concerned, apparently not much.  The Environment Agency says the local sewage treatment works at Galley Hill which discharges through “long sea outfalls” at Bulverhythe and Combe Haven” were upgraded in 2003. And anyway they are “6 kilometres west of the bathing water”.  So that will be all right then.  Just avoid sea swimming at Bulvehythe.  Though, just a moment, isn’t that where they’ve just upgraded those attractive beach-huts.  Still if you’ve got a beach hut you can just sit in it and look at the sea.  Or around there probably, smell the sea.

            What seems to be the problem here is the definition of  ‘bathing water’.  They don’t monitor at Bulvehythe. For Hastings the beach immediately across from Pelham Crescent is where they do the sampling.  And even that’s none too good.  I quote from the Environment Agency again:

 “This bathing water is subject to short term pollution. Short term pollution is caused when heavy rainfall washes faecal material into the sea from livestock, sewage and urban drainage via rivers and streams. At this site the risk of encountering reduced water quality increases after rainfall and typically returns to normal after 1-3 days. The Environment Agency makes daily pollution risk forecasts based on rainfall patterns and will issue a pollution risk warning if heavy rainfall occurs to enable bathers to avoid periods of increased risk”.

            Personally I’ve never seen a pollution risk warning for the bathing beach at Hastings, but the lesson here seems to be, avoid sea bathing for at least three days after it has rained.  Though this being Britain, that’s likely to cut down your options a bit. 

Now, you may ask, how is the pollution getting to the sea in the first place?  And the answer is pretty much there in front of your very eyes.  From that bloody great pipe that disgorges water straight onto the beach at low tide.  Visitors often ask nervously what this is and are generally reassured when the reply comes, ‘Oh it’s just the outfall from the stream that runs through Alexandra Park.”  The trouble is that it’s this stream that appears to be one of the main sources of pollution. 

The Environment Agency focused their investigations between 2007 and 2010 in to the sources of pollution on the Alexandra Park Stream catchment and concluded:  “We have not yet identified specific sources of contamination. The Environment Agency introduced a DNA tracing technique that helps us identify whether sources of faecal pollution are human or animal… This means we can target further investigations and identify appropriate courses of corrective action.”

Yes, but hang on, this was six years ago and we’ve only got until October this year to clean up the discharges into the sea or Hastings is going to fail the EU Bathing Water Directive.

To be fair things are happening.  A huge project to reduce silt and increase aquatic plants is underway in the Park and a local pressure group Clean Seas Please is focusing attention on domestic and industrial pollution through incorrect plumbing connections, miss-disposal of fats oils and greases, and problems caused by putting any material other than toilet paper down the pan.

Somehow, though, it all feels as if it may be happening a bit too late.  And I’m not sure I’ll be joining my dog or my partner in much sea swimming this summer.  Especially not under the cliffs at the end of Rock-A-Nore.