Swimmers were told to leave the water at Hove beach yesterday after lifeguards found a patch of discoloured water – but Southern Water insists it was nothing to do with them.
People on the beach by the King Alfred said lifeguards blew a whistle and told people to get out of the water because of a sewage dump.
Southern Water said that it was algal bloom, not sewage. The froth is often found in hot weather and sometimes linked to power station cooling water outflows.
The council says it still has red flags flying, and is advising people not to go back in the water yet.
A video posted on Twitter at Shoreham Beach shows a foamy yellow substance on the shoreline, which the woman filming it says is coming from the outfall pipe.
But Southern Water says it has investigated and there were no wastewater releases there or from nearby outlets.
Some swimmers say there are rumours a boat dumped sewage, but these have not been confirmed.
Resident Andrew Mann said: “I was down there at around 3pm to 3.30pm, we were on the beach down from Lex’s cafe near the King Alfred.
“The life guards who were patrolling and informing people, telling them to avoid the water.
“People on the beach were talking about the sewage floating.
“A sewage spill flag would be useful.”
@SouthernWater @BrightonHoveCC @BBCNews @itvnews @SkyNews @EnvAgency @Conservatives I watched children playing in a disgusting sewage spill at Shoreham today. Any comeback on this? pic.twitter.com/1CSXyGsIxZ
— Sahlou Support the Strike #NEU (@sarahlouisegr13) June 11, 2023
A council spokesperson said: “Yesterday lifeguards in Hove reported a large area of discoloured water near the west side of the swim zone.
“Our patrol boat investigated and found a large area of brown water with a strong smell of effluents and clumps of solid mass in the water.
“We immediately put up red flags and advised people not to enter the water due to water quality concerns.
“We have reported our concerns to the Environment Agency.
“We have kept the red flags flying today and are advising people not to go in the sea.
“We are awaiting guidance from the Environment Agency and the Coastguard on when it will be safe to reopen the swim zones to the public.”
A spokesperson for Southern Water, said: “We’re aware of people being asked to leave the sea in the Hove area today due to reports of a visible sewage release.
“We have found no operational issues with our network and there were no releases of wastewater in the area.
“We care very much that people were unable to enjoy the sea as a result of these reports and immediately launched an investigation to understand what had taken place.
“We’ve closely monitored the performance of our pumping stations and wastewater assets since the reports were first received and found no problems with how they are operating.
“Our engineers have also walked the beaches to inspect our network and confirm there was no release of wastewater.”
Southern Water has been under fire from swimmers and environmentalists for discharging raw sewage into rivers and seas
However, Environment Agency figures show that such discharges in Brighton and Hove rarely happen, partly because of a new 11km sewer pipe.
In spring and early summer, algal blooms which can resemble sewage are common, causing creamy brown foam to form on the surface of the water.
These stories will probably come thick and fast this summer – but the truth is that most pollution scares will be false alarms. Many of us are now so convinced the sea is polluted that everything we see appears to confirm that.
The Brighton and Have section of the coastline is actually pretty good, not least because we do have the underground overflow storage tunnel for when the drains can’t cope with the rain.
The risk-averse council and their diligent lifeguards will of course take precautionary action, but what we really need is for the alleged ‘sewage spill’ to be tested for bacteria.
In the summer, the water quality is usually tested every two weeks by the Environment Agency. Could they do this more often?
But we can also apply some background common sense here.
There has been no rain for weeks so there is no reason to suppose combined sewers can’t cope, or that drains water has been discharged into the sea. Southern Water themselves say they have discharged nothing, but of course our trust with them is at an all time low.
What the recent hot weather does do is set up an algae bloom, and seaweed breaking down acts like soap to make foam when the water is disturbed. In the picture here, we have the ‘Hotpipes’ jetty which is adjacent to the Shoreham water treatment facility (sewage farm) so it’s easy to jump to conclusions – but this jetty is actually the outlet pipe for the coolant water used in the power station, to cool their gas-fired turbines. The water coming out of the jetty is clean but warm, so hence the name, Hotpipes.
And of course a flow of warm water onto algae and decomposing seaweed makes a foam, like you get at home with your washing up detergent. This means that part of this story is already pretty definitely a false alarm.
But I personally didn’t see the worrying slick on this occasion, and testing the water is the only real solution,
Another local source of pollution could be something coming out of the river Adur, resulting for some earlier event upstream, including from the houseboats .
A further source of water pollution is indeed where sea-going craft clean out their tanks at sea, illegally.
The lack of wind recently means there are no waves to break up any algae bloom or to dissipate any minor boat spillage. As a regular water user I’m actually looking forwards to a return of the wind and the rain, so that we also get some waves. No sign of that yet though.
While I’m leaning towards the ship dump theory, especially as I saw a large ship near the Marina heading towards Newhaven at around 3pm Saturday, I also wonder if the weeks of dry weather could have reduced the soil’s absorbency to the point that the storm on Saturday night could have caused a flash overflow.
Blah! Blah! Blah! We all know shit when we see it
We watched the white foam surrounding a discharge from the sewage outfall pipe just past Carat’s with a couple of canoeists following its progress at about 2.30 ish this afternoon Tuesday 13 June and wondered why, with no heavy rainfall why a discharge? Later, about 4ish drove back past it again to the reek of a powerful sewage smell and about a few hundred yards of brownish discoloured discharge. I now find that Southern water say there was no discharge. What rubbish is this and what can be done?
Dear Billy, my 15 year old child is very sick after swimming in the sea yesterday. Severe stomach cramps from the early hours this morning, followed by sickness, temperature and still very ill. Also friends have sick children who were in the sea yesterday. They were swimming just before the life guards told people to stay out of the sea. This is pretty clear evidence that there was something very unpleasant in the sea yesterday.
However, that does not mean it’s sewage from a discharge pipe.
Hi Ben, agreed, we dont know if it was sewage, something made lots of people very ill. This was the email response I got from the seafront office on Monday 12th June which suggests it could have been. It would be very helpful in future if samples were taken of suspicious looking foam/mass when it happens, then we could know what has happened rather than speculating. I asked the Seafront office if the test, they said it isn’t their job to test….. and on we go…
Dear Sam, please see our press release below . If you wish to you can repot this to the environment agency. Sorry to hear your son was sick.
A council spokesperson said:
“Yesterday lifeguards in Hove reported a large area of discoloured water near the west side of the swim zone.
“Our patrol boat investigated and found a large area of brown water with a strong smell of effluents and clumps of solid mass in the water.
“A colleague on the boat with 10 years’ experience of patrolling our local waters considered it to be raw sewage.
“We do not believe it was algae bloom as the season for that has now passed.
“We immediately put up red flags and advised people not to enter the water due to water quality concerns.
“Sometimes sewage is discharged from boats. But at this stage we cannot speculate as to where the sewage may have come from.
“We have since had reports of members of the public becoming sick after swimming in the sea yesterday.
“So we have kept the red flags and are advising people not to go in the sea.
“We are awaiting guidance from the Environment Agency and the Coastguard on when it will be safe to reopen the swim zones to the public.”
Then that’s pretty clear it WAS a toxic section of water, and not a false alarm on this occasion.
If our experienced lifeguards say it looks like sewage then I totally accept their call.
I also hope the seafront office were able to test the water for ecoli, or at least to get the environment agency to investigate further.
It’s a sensible rule not to go swimming in the sea if you see something in the water that looks wrong. My own rule is not to go swimming on my local beach on the days following heavy rain.
As a watersports enthusiast, I’m also aware that most reported spillages in our area last year proved to be a false alarm, and that Lancing, Worthing, Bexhill and Hastings, and Hayling Island had far worse sewage spill issues than ours.
We’re certainly not letting Southern Water off the hook here, but it would be helpful if we could pinpoint the source of any problem.
I was biking past the outflow pipe near Carats Cafe a couple of weeks ago & a large stream of sewage was coming out. I’m subscribed to Sourhern Water’s BeachBuoy alerting system but never received anything that day so I’m a bit suspicious when Southern Water say it wasn’t them. I was also swimming yesterday morning & we remarked how much dirtier the water looked to Sunday.
I don’t trust Southern water at all! It’s probably them.
I’m waiting for the hosepipe ban. The sun has come out – it’s the end of the world, not. It’s summer. SE Water are already in a flap. Every time it gets reasonably warm The Water Companies panic. Next, the trains have stopped as it’s too hot for the tracks, then 5he roads melt. Makes you wonder how they cope in other countries.
I went in the sea for a swim this morning and came out with horrible diarrhoea 🤢