A release of oil into sewers was largely stopped upon reaching Northumbrian Water’s Sacriston sewage treatment works and the Black Burn watercourse. Northumbrian Water said that they had largely caught and isolated the oil at the sewage treatment works, but issued a warning to businesses in the area to take care of the environment.
Around 1,000 litres of oil entered the sewage system in less than half a day in March, and although it was captured in the treatment works’ primary tanks, minimising any pollution threat, Northumbrian Water said that the cost of the removal of the oil, which is classed as hazardous waste, is considerable and it has the right to pass on the costs to those responsible for the pollution.
Anthony Wilson, Technical Advisor at Northumbrian Water, said: “With approximately 1,000 litres of oil entering into the sewerage system, the impact on the sewage treatment works and potential to contaminate the watercourse would have been much higher if it had not been captured in our tanks.
Although the sewage treatment works reduce the potential for such problems, it is important that people handle all waste responsibly. Both Northumbrian Water and the Environment Agency take breaches of this nature very seriously, but so should all domestic and commercial customers.â€
The water company, which serves 814 properties, including a wide range of non-domestic users, urged businesses to take more care in order to avoid more incidents and potential problems for treatment works. Legally, business sewage must be disposed of in compliance with relevant consent from the sewerage owners and managers, in this case Northumbrian Water.
It is fortunate that the sewage treatment works managed to eliminate most of the threat as, had they not done so, the potential harm that could have been done to the drinking water in the area would have been a major catastrophe and could have caused many users to get ill.
Get office water cooler and home water dispenser from Living-Water.
