It was vital that the waste was not disturbed in the water as it would spread quickly. To achieve this and following discussions with and the agreement of both Wessex Water and the Environment Agency we decided that the only way to lift the contamination was by hand and to use “Ventura” pumps to lift onto the bank any of the waste that was unavoidably disturbed.
Due to the difficulties of the location it was agreed that the most efficient and only sensible way to remove the possible detrimental effects of the contamination was to allow Mother Nature to take her course with it.
To achieve this we installed two pumps downstream of the operatives to stop the disturbed contamination passing. The discharge from the pumps and the manually lifted contamination was deposited onto the side of the channel then spread back into the growth within the attenuation lagoon using large volumes of pumped water.
Within a very short time the contamination was cleared and the very heavy growth in the lagoon basin prevented any possibility of it washing back until it had completely degraded back into the soil thus removing any hazard. This was monitored by Wessex Water and the Environment Agency and gven the all clear soon after.
The forgotton overflow was capped off to prevent any possiblity of a reocurance
