South London’s River Wandle has had a tough year so far: first a spill of red diesel into its headwaters at Croydon, next a persistent discharge of cooking oil and fat into the back carriers at Morden Hall Park…
… and now a spate of sewage from Thames Water’s Beddington sewage treatment works, triggered by a fire on Tuesday night that cut all power and burned out the plant’s control room.
Despite rapid response from Environment Agency and Thames Water teams, several hundred fish of 11 species are confirmed to have died (oddly, no trout have been found so far). Investigations into the cause of the fire and the effects of the pollution are still ongoing, and live news blogs are running on the Wandle Trust website.
