Sea Toilets

[Paladin]

Copy of the relevant bye law attached.

[Smoggy]

Wouldn't that be superseded by the broads bill?

[LizG]

4 hours ago, LizG said:

As far as I can remember the regulations came in towards the end of the 1970s.  Father installed a Porta-potti on WR which was revolting but he did it even though the boat would now be over 50 years old.  I have heard it said there is a 50 year amnesty but it certainly didn't apply in the late 1970s

Managed to get my decades wrong!

[Aboattime]

So my next question is,if said boat has been on the broads for the last twenty years with only  a sea toilet, how has it been allowed to pollute the rivers for so long? Not a nice thought ! 

[BroadAmbition]

So my next question is, if said boat has been on the broads for the last twenty years with only a sea toilet, how has it been allowed to pollute the rivers for so long? Not a nice thought !

 

 

Simple answers:-

Because its not part of the BSS?

Because no one in authority checked?

Because the owners turned a blind eye to it, kept stum and saved on pump out fees?

Griff

[dom]

8 minutes ago, Aboattime said:

So my next question is,if said boat has been on the broads for the last twenty years with only  a sea toilet, how has it been allowed to pollute the rivers for so long? Not a nice thought ! 

That assumes the owner is staying on the boat overnight and not mooring in proximity to other facilities.

A lot of boats spend their lives moored in front of their owner's houses and/or only used as day boats (a lot of which lack facilities altogether), or taking short trips back and forth to the pub or other places with public facilities.

1 hour ago, Smoggy said:

Wouldn't that be superseded by the broads bill?

The Water Resources Act of 1963 has been repealed by the WRA 1991 which, in turn, has been repealed by the Environment Act 1995. Most of the current pollution law explicitly excludes boats.

I think the current status is that there's no effective legislation to enforce the issue with private boaters (hire boats are a different issue, as they're bound by their own codes of practice). I suspect there's probably a reluctance to introduce new laws which would almost certainly point fingers at waste water treatment industry and cause new problems for government. At the moment, they obviously can and do turn a blind eye to issues around overcapacity like those seen at Hickling.

The way pump-out prices are going, I suspect sea toilets are probably a lesser concern than people switching to Elsan type units and disposing of the contents in inappropriate ways.

[Aboattime]

It’s definitely not moored outside any ones house .

[marshman]

If Pally says that that is the relevant piece of legislation applicable, then I am tended to agree with him!!!! (from experience) 

[dom]

3 hours ago, marshman said:

If Pally says that that is the relevant piece of legislation applicable, then I am tended to agree with him!!!! (from experience) 

The byelaw quoted is one from East Suffolk and Norfolk River Authority, which was subsumed into Anglian Water, then the Environment Agency.

If it's still valid (which I think is highly questionable), that presumably means EA are the only body able to take enforcing action against anyone polluting, and BA are powerless to do anything - which would explain why there's nothing of significance in BA's byelaws.

[Vaughan]

10 hours ago, dom said:

If it's still valid (which I think is highly questionable), that presumably means EA are the only body able to take enforcing action against anyone polluting,

Perhaps that is why they are called the Environment Agency?  I think the clue, for you, is in the name?

BA are responsible to maintain "the navigation" but not necessarily the quality of the water.  It was ever thus.

[annv]

Hi The story goes that in the 70's a boat yard changed the toilet paper on their boats to save money this then led to little paper boats floating on Womack water this then bought everyone's attention to how toilet waist was dumped on boats this then led to all hire boats having to fit holding tanks. A hundred yards of river will clean the contents of one toilet poo and urine only, as it does in France which allows sea toilets. what it wont clean is all the detritus that is flushed down household toilets, and gets flushed into rivers when sewage works overflow which then shows up for all to see. It's when too many toilets empty into the river as was the case in London causing the big stink in Parliament which then led to Mr Baseljet designing London's sewage system, this led the way for the rest of the country to following suit. My Grandfather use to bury the toilet waist in his garden this then had the tomatoes grown on top, everybody did it except in towns where they tipped it into the ash pit at the end of there yard which when full, was carted away by the night soil men to be used as fertilizer,  John 

[annv]

Hi If you do use a sea toilet it is imperative that you dont use Bleach or other household cleaners/additives in your sea toilet as these are harmful to the environment. ONLY use the ECO type. John

[dom]

42 minutes ago, annv said:

My Grandfather use to bury the toilet waist in his garden this then had the tomatoes grown on top

We did a field trip to Belaugh treatment works when I was in school. Everyone declined the offer of fresh tomatoes which self seeded on site

3 hours ago, Vaughan said:

Perhaps that is why they are called the Environment Agency?  I think the clue, for you, is in the name?

BA are responsible to maintain "the navigation" but not necessarily the quality of the water.  It was ever thus.

The main reason for my interest in encouraging discussion on the legality really relates to elsewhere. I had hoped someone might come up with a definitive legal requirement which wasn't a byelaw. There should be one, but it appears there's nothing. Obviously, no-one in their right mind wants raw sewage dumped straight into rivers, but that's exactly what happens on the Great Ouse, which is managed by the EA. They actually reduced the number of public pump out points recently and another looks likely to go soon if nothing changes. In one case, there's a marina with a large number of liveaboards, a lot pumping waste straight into the river directly upstream of a National Trust site where the river is awash with kids pretty much every warm day in summer.

Inferring that everything is great if we just use pump-out toilets is also a bit of a case of fiddling while Rome burns though. 86% of rivers (including the Norfolk Broads) are below good ecological standards, none are of an acceptable standard with regard to chemical levels and there has been no marked improvement in standards for the last 8 years.

If you look at ecological status for pretty much anywhere on the Broads, ecological status is poor throughout, and it's for entirely different reasons, ie.

https://environment.data.gov.uk/catchment-planning/WaterBody/GB30535655

The worst issue tends to be PBDEs, which accumulate in breast milk and get passed on to children, reducing IQ by up to 8 points.

[Andrewcook]

I'm wondering why the Green Algae keeps on coming up yet it has been said farming is causing the problem I don't think so I think it is the Raw Sewage doing some of the problems on the Green Algae.