The Saunton Issue Sunday 14th August
It is disappointing that having advertised that there was a pollution incident at Saunton the Environment Agency did not get a great deal of information out and as a result, it was immediately assumed that it was a storm overflow.
I put out the information as soon as possible and was accused of lying.
There was an incident over that weekend, the high tide did bring animal faeces into the water and the tides and winds brought it straight to Saunton. Many people have stated that they categorically saw human waste in the sea, it is quite possible that the same high tides brought other ‘presents’ from the shoreline to the sea as well.
The animal waste, combined with regular and predictable algal blooms were however the main pollutant
Animal waste however is significantly nastier, the equivalent quantity of sheep waste compared to human has 10 times the prevalence of E-Coli than human waste. In dog waste it is 20 times more prevalent and for Intestinal Enterococci dog waste, it is 300 times more in equivalence than human waste.
Attached to this page is a letter from the Environment Agency in answer to some of my questions. Please note, the Devon Live post quoted in the attached letter been removed for its inaccuracies.
I have also attached a presentation that was given to Come Martin Water Watch by South West Water, initially in 2016 but has been updated to January 2020.
It shows one of the most difficult and complicated water systems we have. Massive run off from agriculture into the River Umber and street water run off that can be inadvertently be held or redirected through old and now used ‘adits’ that were used by long closed silver mines.
It shows significantly more storm overflows from its monitors than actually happened but also that only 3% of the pollution detected was a result from actual overflows. The money spent on Combe Martin since 2012 has improved things and please do note page 11, I have asked for information like this for all our beaches, but this graph shows the actual improvement in the condition of this very difficult beach to keep clean.