Swimming in sewerage

[Mike Jackson]

Doesn't sound very pleasant but it appears that I used to when I was a kid.

Driving along the coast around Hastings and Eastbourne this year the sea is a lovely blue colour. I can never remember it being this blue and as a kid remember it being a murky brown colour. We were always told that this was the sand being churned up by the waves.

A new sewerage treatment plant has been in operation in Hastings for the last year or so. Previously the raw sewerage was pumped out to sea via a long sea outfall. The blue sea coinciding with the coming online of this new plant can't be a coincidence and leads me to believe that the murky brown was not sand but sewerage.

We all moan that things were better when we were kids but this is one instance when they are certainly a lot better.

Mike

[Meta menardi]

Billy Connolly said that the two things that made him swim fast for the shore were sharks and toilet paper.

[ron1863]

I remember the floating stones only too well

[ellen h]

Originally Posted by ron1863

I remember the floating stones only too well

Me too
As kids we would look out for the prceding scumline on the water which meant you swam in the other direction-fast!!!
ellen

[snowdrop]

One summers afternoon I took the kids swimming in the Mersey but the sight of a bloated dead cow floating past made us head for shore. It must have gone overboard when being unloaded for slaughter at Birkenhead.
When we reached land we found we were covered in tiny black worms that flicked their tails at us. (Screams all round.)
Later we arrived home to hear the announcer on 'Look North' telling us that injections were required before entering that particular river.

[The Woodman]

I started my fisheries career in the North West Water Authority's South Mersey area where such things were called "Brown Mersey Trout".

I'll leave it to your imagination as to what "Long-nosed Mersey Trout" were!

[Lance Morgan]

Originally Posted by The Woodman

I started my fisheries career in the North West Water Authority's South Mersey area where such things were called "Brown Mersey Trout".

I'll leave it to your imagination as to what "Long-nosed Mersey Trout" were!

LOL
Did you catch them on the fly

[treecreeper]

Until recently raw sewage was pumped into Mersey Bay from a pipe at Meols. The pipe went some distance into the sea and there was something delicately called a 'chopper' at the end. Despite this I remember my mother taking us to paddle in the sea at Moreton and Leasowe (just along the coast), along with hundreds of other kids. At Moreton you had to wade through thick mud to get to the water. I don't like to think what constituted that mud.

People who go sailing have told me chilling stories about what emerged at the outfall of the pipe. The golden rule was, if you're going to capsize, don't do it there!

[tufftie]

In Cornwall they let out hundreds of oranges through the sewage system from Redruth way and they washed up all around St Ives and round to the Cot Valley area and a few even got as far as Sennen! I think it was something Sufers Against Sewage did to draw attention to the situation. I beleive oranges are meant to float in the same ways as other things.

[Wild-Woman]

It does make you wonder where it is safe to swim. Two choices really - risk the sea and the possibility of raw sewage. Or, go swimming in the chemical soup of a public pool.
Think I'll stick to the land.