River pollution meeting

Cllr Martin Baines attended the recent meeting on the state of our river and had this to say on the event:

Last Wednesday evening, several members of Thame Town Council attended a packed meeting at the Barns Centre to discuss the polluted state of our River Thame, a meeting called by the Thame Valley Fisheries Preservation Trust. 
Speakers included representatives from Thames Water and the Environment Agency.
 
Although there are many factors that affect the quality of river water – farm chemicals and road drainage are high on the list – the worst offender is spills of raw sewage.
 
The sewage works on Moorend Lane spilled for a total of 713 hours in the first three months of this year, the equivalent of 30 continuous days.  The sewage is discharged into the Lashlake Brook, which in turn empties into the Thame just upstream of the old Crendon road bridge. The image above of polluted flood water was taken at the bridge earlier this year.
 
But it’s not just Thame sewage works that’s to blame; there are 32 of them discharging directly or indirectly into the Thame, clocking up a staggering twelve thousand hours of spillage so far this year.
 
Not surprisingly, there were some pretty angry voices raised. The environmental organisations are carrying out fairly comprehensive monitoring and testing, but no-one seems to have the money to make real improvements, least of all Thames Water which is in serious financial difficulty and has paid no dividends to its shareholders for three years.
 
Water bills will certainly go up. Maybe some of the extra money will be spent on making some improvements somewhere.
 
Cllr Martin Baines.