Bacterial Pollution of Marine Waters from the Disposal of Sewage and Sewage Sludge to Sea
The disposal of sewage and sewage sludge to marine waters takes advantage of the natural purifying powers of the sea and has been accepted practice for many years in this country and elsewhere. Since these wastes contain large concentrations of faecal micro-organisms these activities inevitably result in bacterial contamination of the receiving waters. It is therefore surprising that only scanty information of such microbial pollution has previously been available. Recent work has been undertaken to rectify this situation and in response to national decisions. Three situations in the North West have been investigated and reported. Interpretation of the bacteriological results supports previous findings that sewage sludge dumped in Liverpool Bay has little or no effect on the bacterial quality of coastal waters, that the provision of a long sea outfall on the North Wirral peninsula has greatly reduced sewage pollution of the adjacent beach and its waters; that the quality of bathing waters along the Fylde coast are greatly influenced by the discharge of raw sewage from outfalls along its length and the turbidity of the sea during and after discharging.