Now I know how old illegal septic tanks get away with it......

[ProDave]

It is a requirement in Scotland (and probably elsewhere) when selling a property, you have to register any private waste treatment system with SEPA.

 

I have often wondered how old systems with a septic tank discharging to a watercourse continue to get away with it and why SEPA does not enforce them being upgraded.

 

Well now I know.  I have just registered the septic tank at our old house with SEPA.  This still complies with the general binding rules as it is a septic tank discharging to a land drain.

 

Well upon submitting my registration, ALL I provided was the property address, my email address, tick a box to confirm it serves between 1 and 9 properties, and tick another box to confirm it has been in use for more than 2 years.  Then give payment details so they can fleece me of £170.

 

I then expected to have to provide some details about the system, where it discharged to for instance.  but NO.  My registration was approved immediately.

 

So no wonder I continue to see old systems discharging straight to a watercourse, they don't even bother to seek ANY details of the system you are registering to confirm it complies with the general binding rules.

 

Why do I feel this is incredibly poor value for the £170 I have just given them.

 

If my blood has not stopped boiling by the end of the day I will be complaining to the head of SEPA. 

[saveasteading]

10 minutes ago, ProDave said:

how old systems with a septic tank discharging to a watercourse continue to get away with it

There have been several attempts by the EU to get old systems replaced. 

Correctly I would say, especially above aquifers.

 

I bought a house with a 1m3 brick chamber going to soakaway. A demand came from the water company to replace it. After research i found that proof of long term use killed the requirement.

 

Of course I expect it was the hidden powers in our society that had this killed off. People in big houses perhaps. Or the water companies themselves, in the knowledge of their own abuse.

 

Registering allows sepa / EA to find suspects in the case of a big spill.

 

I had a client who had a small oil spill which reached a river and the EA traced it exactly to them from a few miles downstream  by oil analysis. Similar may applying for sewage?

 

[SteamyTea]

Registration is the first step in controlling a population.

Who remembers the fuss when they wanted to issue your NI number on a bit of plastic, instead of card that that the acted like blotting paper.

[TonyT]

Some Houses on the other side of the road from me, discharge sewerage straight into the river, council not interested….

 

4” waste pipe run down the hill/cliff edge😩

[jayc89]

Our waste connection is crazy. We have a family bathroom that discharges to mains, but our ensuite discharges to a septic tank that has a surface water connection. The local water board requested that we changed that within a year of us purchasing the property, that was 2 years ago and no one has checked yet. 

[ProDave]

My complaint to SEPA about their negligence has been sent.  I will post any reply if I get one.

[Carrerahill]

2 hours ago, ProDave said:

It is a requirement in Scotland (and probably elsewhere) when selling a property, you have to register any private waste treatment system with SEPA.

 

I have often wondered how old systems with a septic tank discharging to a watercourse continue to get away with it and why SEPA does not enforce them being upgraded.

 

Well now I know.  I have just registered the septic tank at our old house with SEPA.  This still complies with the general binding rules as it is a septic tank discharging to a land drain.

 

Well upon submitting my registration, ALL I provided was the property address, my email address, tick a box to confirm it serves between 1 and 9 properties, and tick another box to confirm it has been in use for more than 2 years.  Then give payment details so they can fleece me of £170.

 

I then expected to have to provide some details about the system, where it discharged to for instance.  but NO.  My registration was approved immediately.

 

So no wonder I continue to see old systems discharging straight to a watercourse, they don't even bother to seek ANY details of the system you are registering to confirm it complies with the general binding rules.

 

Why do I feel this is incredibly poor value for the £170 I have just given them.

 

If my blood has not stopped boiling by the end of the day I will be complaining to the head of SEPA. 

Another thing about SEPA, is that they will rarely enforce anything and actually have very little by the way of powers.

 

They are a bit pointless as an organisation (I worked with them for a couple of years), a lot of civil servants working flexible hours (this was back in the early 00's), not much seemed to happen, the corporate office was quiet on a busy day and really they wouldn't say boo to a baby bird.

 

 

[ProDave]

9 minutes ago, Carrerahill said:

Another thing about SEPA, is that they will rarely enforce anything and actually have very little by the way of powers.

 

They are a bit pointless as an organisation (I worked with them for a couple of years), a lot of civil servants working flexible hours (this was back in the early 00's), not much seemed to happen, the corporate office was quiet on a busy day and really they wouldn't say boo to a baby bird.

 

 

Then they are not fit for purpose then are they?

 

Building my new house, I had to jump through lots of hoops to get a CAR permit before building control would issue the building warrant.  All good and correct.

 

But they are also supposed to ensure pollution does not happen and deal with it where it does.

 

If they don't even bother checking the basic details of old systems that they register then how can they be performing the most basic of checks to see if those are up to date and okay, or old and in need of upgrading?

 

Quite shocking really at the total negligence I am seeing.

[Carrerahill]

1 minute ago, ProDave said:

Then they are not fit for purpose then are they?

 

Building my new house, I had to jump through lots of hoops to get a CAR permit before building control would issue the building warrant.  All good and correct.

 

But they are also supposed to ensure pollution does not happen and deal with it where it does.

 

If they don't even bother checking the basic details of old systems that they register then how can they be performing the most basic of checks to see if those are up to date and okay, or old and in need of upgrading?

 

Quite shocking really at the total negligence I am seeing.

No they are not, far from it.

 

They are a useless non-departmental public body of the Scottish government, there are too many of them, each of them do very little (OK, some may work hard) and are not value for money at all (like most government departments).

 

The only way they will ever be taken seriously is if they are given some realistic power (without going too far clearly) to deal with serious issues.

 

There are reported cases of garages dumping oil in drains and rivers and SEPA have been involved, written a letter to the garages to say, "Bad boy, please don't do that" and yet the issue continues with no meaningful enforcement. I have a farmer friend who knows that raw sewage runs along the bottom of one of his fields, SEPA didn't care. They even know where the outfall is and where it is from. A letter was written I think. 

 

 

[ProDave]

We have a burn through our garden.  Occasionally the water flows a funny colour, almost milky white.  So one day when it was like that I walked the burn upstream and found the source, a drain pipe entering the burn from under a farmers field.  I took a picture of the milky white liquid exiting and notified SEPA with a photograph, the exact location of the pipe and the date and time.

 

Their reply was "it looks like sediment" and did not even come and look.  So agreed, they have no intention of actually dealing with pollution.

 

Not fit for purpose, waste of tax payers money.

[ProDave]

I had a phone call from someone at SEPA following up mu complaint today.

 

An outcome from that confirmation is that in Scotland, it is NOT illegal for an existing septic tank to discharge to a watercourse, and there is no requirement to upgrade them unless there is a specific problem with pollution.  The General Binding rules do NOT apply in Scotland.

 

The reasons given for not outlawing existing septic tanks discharging to watercourses  was the sheer number of them in existence and the costs of upgrading.

 

I then got onto the cost issue, £170 to register an existing septic tank which was an entirely automated process that issued a registration within seconds of submitting the details and paying the fee.  That is still going to be looked at and I await a response.  As part of the discussion I pointed out the fees charged by a public body must be a fair representation of the costs and work involved in providing that service.  I pointed out when building my new house I had to get approval from SEPA and a discharge permit to allow my new treatment plant to discharge to the burn.  That was a process that involved discussions with SEPA staff to agree a suitable acceptable system.  For that, with much interaction with SEPA staff i paid a lower fee than I have just been charged for this automated registration for an old system with no staff time involved.

 

I will let you know what they say about that.