MOTHER OF DRAINS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 243, 14 October 1935, Page 6

MOTHER OF DRAINS.

? I : LONDON'S SEWAGE PRO3LEM. London is once more faced with the prob- | lem of wiat to do with its sewage. At least the authorities are (says "Be Times"). The medical officer of the Port of London reported recently that many complaints had been received on the polluted condition of the Thames and that the main source of pollution of the river was the enormous volume of only partially treated sewage. He explained that when the flow of the river was comparatively small the polluted water wag not carried a way to sea oa the ebb tide, but was floated up to London on the flood and oscillated backwards and forwards. It had alwavs done tnat, or course, and alwavs would so long as the tide ran backwards and forwards. The immediate problem was to reduce the pollution. The effluent from the sewage works had gone on increasing since they started, until now it amounted to 270,000.<X>0 gallons a day: and the hot and rainless summers England had been enjoying had exposed its polluted state. The river was in fact probably (not far short of the condition that prevailed [berore the works were inaugurated; and the s Mate of things would inevitablv get worse and | worse unless the evil was energetically handled. Happily the County Council, which was the authority the main drainage of London, v.as aware of the unsatisfactory state of and was contemplating the inauguration of a new method of treatment known as the activated sludge process, which produced a much purer effluent. The apparatus to be installed would be capable of dealing with 00,000,000 gallons of sewage daily. Whether this would be sufficient was doubtful; it would leave more than three-fourths of the present effluent untouched. It was to be feared that London had no reason to be proud of the wav in which it had sought to solve its colossal sewage problem, and the question arose whether some more radical action would not become necessary before long.