SURFERS AGAINST SEWAGE ASK YOU TO SEND E – CARD TO DEFRA CALLING FOR FULL UV TREATMENT FOR BRIGHTON SEWAGE PLAN

Campaigners from Surfers Against Sewage (SAS) are asking supporters to help them by sending an E – card to the Secretary of State for the Environment, Margaret Becket. The E – card calls for Margaret Becket to ensure Brighton and Hove’s sewage treatment is upgraded to full treatment.

SAS have lobbied Southern Water, Brighton and Hove City Council (who support SAS’s call for full treatment), East Sussex County Council and the Environment Agency (EA) to try and obtain full tertiary treatment for Brighton and Hove’s sewage treatment works. However, secondary treatment may still get the go ahead if Margaret Becket doesn’t step in.

SAS have written to the Secretary of State for the Environment asking her to call in the Southern Water discharge consent for her determination under the Water Resources Act 1991. By sending their E- card SAS hope their supporters will do the same. The E – card is on the SAS home page www.sas.org.uk or on this link http://www.sas.org.uk/pr/brighton_vicvirus_sept_2005.asp

UV disinfection (full tertiary treatment) will improve bathing water quality and sustainability. If DEFRA and the EA were to endorse the Southern Water application as it currently stands, it would be giving its approval to wasting millions of gallons of wastewater that, with an extra level of treatment, could be reused.

This would not be good environmental practice, especially at a time when the Southern Water region needs to be conserving water and planning for a future where water shortages are increasingly more likely.

Recent figures from DEFRA have shone further light on the cost of providing an extra level of treatment. SAS now believe the cost of adding UV could be as low as £1 ½ million. Plans are to build a new long sea outfall costing £4 million, but the current long sea outfall could instead be used to discharge UV treated effluent. This could allow an overall saving on the project of £2 ½ million.

Richard Hardy SAS Campaigns Director says: “This is your chance to ensure that Brighton and Hove get the treatment they desire. Not only will it see an improvement in water quality, it will cost less than the proposed secondary level treatment, and may also help with the water shortages seen in this region. Water shortages are forecast to get worse with climate change. By sending Margaret Becket this E – card you are letting her know that it’s important to you that Brighton gets the right treatment!”