Sewage pollution alerts have been issued for beaches around the south west – including Burnham-On-Sea – after torrential rain on Sunday (September 17th).
Surfers Against Sewage, who monitor sewage discharges into the sea, issued warnings for scores of beaches after the weekend’s rain led to surface flooding.
The alerts, which are displayed on Surfers Against Sewage’s website, indicate that ‘storm sewage has been discharged from a sewer overflow in this location within the past 48 hours’.
The group says the use of the phrase ‘storm sewage’ refers to sewage expelled from storm overflow drains, which are designed to overflow when the sewerage system is at risk of being overwhelmed by excess water.
Surfers Against Sewage adds that while there are no sewer overflows discharging directly onto Burnham beach, there are several within the catchment area that discharge into local rivers.
