SCOTTISH Water unveiled its plans this week for the five-stage improvements it plans to clean up Campbeltown’s waste water by 2011 – only days after being in the dock at the town’s sheriff court and pleading guilty to spilling sewage into the loch.
The water authority admitted breaching its water use licence on various dates between January 1 and June 5 2007 by discharging sewage effluent into Campbeltown Loch other than in terms of its licence.
Procurator fiscal depute Alastair McSporran said part of the licence issued by Scottish Environmental Projection Agency (SEPA) to Scottish Water enables it, in specific situations, to dump untreated sewage directly into Campbeltown Loch but this is tightly controlled. ‘But Scottish Water has discharged untreated sewage into Campbeltown Loch when there were no exceptional circumstances,’ he said.
He described this as: ‘A failsafe to deal with emergency situations so the [Kinloch Park] pumping station doesn’t flood which would become disastrous.’
Mr McSporran added: ‘The cost to the community is not just monetary value but perceived deterioration of water quality and users of the loch express constant concern about the effect on human health arising from the continuing discharges.
‘The proprietor of the marina has constantly complained he is right in there.’
Mr McSporran said there were reports of yachts being surrounded by human waste and that the proprietor of the marina [pontoons] had taken a DVD from the marina ‘of children playing in the loch but slipping and sliding on human sewage as they were getting out’.
He ended his case: ‘There is a history of Scottish Water failing to deliver improvements and many local residents have become frustrated.’
Scottish Water’s lawyer admitted in court: ‘Everything we are doing at the present is sticking an Elastoplast over it. The only solution is redesign of the pumping station and works.’
Designed
He told Sheriff Ruth Anderson: ‘The works was not designed correctly in the first place’, adding that Scottish Water had ‘inherited the problem from West of Scotland Water’.
‘They obviously didn’t know the full information or the works would not have been in its present form.’
He added: ‘The only resolution to this is radical works; huge changes to the pumping station and works, also involving Argyll and Bute Council who are looking at ways to reroute or culvert burns so they don’t drain into the system.’ This would cost £26 million, he said, but added, ‘Plans have had to be changed because of various levels of opposition.’
Sheriff Anderson said: ‘It’s pretty obvious they need to do something. This happened in 2007. What’s been going on for the last two-and-a-half years?’
Scottish Water told the sheriff that whilst at risk of having further incidents there hadn’t been any since then and that the chamber of the pumping station been deepened and extra pumps added.
‘The pumping station undergoes considerably higher levels of maintenance than it used to with additional pumps added in the third chamber of the pumping station within the last year and year and a half,’ he said, ‘Campbeltown is a key objective that Scottish Water wants to resolve.’
Sheriff Anderson said: ‘There is huge community concern about this.’And she said she would defer sentence until May: ‘I want a report from Scottish Water and from SEPA both. I want to see if progress has been made. I haven’t given Scottish Water a massive fine there is little point in doing that at this stage.’
But Sheriff Anderson added that she did not rule out a fine in May.
