UKC

A few days back myself and my 7 year old lad completed a short rock climb at Thirlstane on the Solway coast. On dropping down the easy slabs at the rear we could return to the beach through a small zawn. On reaching this I realised the tide was in but reckoned it was shallow enough to wade through. The sea was the consistency of pea soup and stank strongly of sewage. On wading through it was obvious this was raw sewage and not what I thought was a smell from the zawn itself.
I've never experienced anything like this before even having lived next to the sea all my life. I was informed the nearby caravan park at Southerness has been blamed in the past. My thoughts on this were that these days the dumping of raw sewage was regulated although at times of high rainfall it does go through. There hadn't been any heavy rain recently more like periods of drizzle.
I was thinking of doing more down on the Solway but this has kind of put me off. Anyone else climbed in this area experienced this?

In reply to fmck:

Did you report it? https://www.gov.uk/report-an-environmental-incident

In reply to fmck:

I've climbed down there a lot over many years, including Thursday past, and never had a problem with sewage.
Do you think it definitely came out a pipe into the sea... I'm asking because there is a long term problem with irresponsible camping there, and it wouldn't surprise me if the irresponsible campers left a pile of "sewage" in the cave that got sloshed about by the next high tide.
John

In reply to Andes:

No I walked through earlier and it was clean albeit a faint smell like it had been used to piss in. The sea itself was amass soup of sewage. No sign of turds n stuff just this thick green soup that stank.
I meant my boy to stay put so I could drop the gear off and return to carry him out. As I turned back he was already making his way through. I had to use all the available water to clean him while I stank the car out before reaching public toilets along the coast.

I talked to the guy who rented us the lodge we were staying in who told me of past complaints regarding the caravan site.

In reply to James FR:

No but maybe I should. I think this will be SEPA website though being in Scotland.

In reply to fmck:
'No sign of turds n stuff just this thick green soup that stank.'

For my sins I get to assist in emptying a number of treatment plants, seen plenty turds but they are never green, you sure this isn't some horrible stinky sea gunge, algae could be a contender
Report it anyway

In reply to John Kelly:

I know the smell of sewage as you know its very distinctive. As a civil engineer/construction manager I do come into situations where we are in close proximity. I now work decommissioning a former nuclear plant and one of the jobs I have to get the guys to do is clear the outlet pipes into a reed bed filtration bed. ( Reeds grow thick there, lots of food)

Yip it smells just like that soup.

In reply to fmck:

Bow to your experience

In reply to John Kelly:


^ This. Never seen green sewage, nearly always a very distinctive grey, (plus turds and rags if its from an overflow). Farm slurry maybe? Whatever it is, best to ring SEPA and report it.

In reply to Ridge:

Its a bad day when UKC cant even agree the colour of S***e!

Maybe there was floaters as you can imagine I didn't hang about to check. Green possibly from algae living off the stuff.

In reply to fmck:


I'd be more worried if we did!

In reply to fmck:

Have only been to Thirlstane maybe 4 times, last time in Nov, never noticed it being used as a toilet, or any sewage prob. Not much help, sorry. +1 for reporting it though.

In reply to fmck:

When I first saw the thread title, I thought it was about a shit 'British Sea Power' tribute band...