Summary
Dear Editor, - There was a nasty taste about Mick Cole's letter (Post, Aug 13) which owed little to its subject, untreated sewage polluting the River Thames at the beginning of August. His rampant xenophobia was clearly displayed in his blaming it on 'potential immigrants' and 'asylum seekers from anywhere.'
It would help if he had actually got a few facts right. The problem was not that 'the population (of London) was so crowded that the sewers could not cope,' but that an almost unprecedented downpour over a very short period of time resulted in the surface drainage system being overloaded. Fundamental to that was a problem which should have been addressed many years ago: the upgrading of the whole drainage system in London. We have to go back to the 'Great Stink' of 1858 to see why it happened. This brought to a head the recommendations of Edwin Chadwick's report of 1842, which identified drinking water contaminated by sewage as the main cause of cholera and typhoid outbreaks, especially in working class districts of London. This did not affect the ruling classes very much though and it took 16 years and the stinking Thames making the House of Commons uninhabitable for effective action to be taken.See the full content of this document
Extract
Letter: Untreated Xenophobia
Joseph Bazelgette was the civil engineer given responsibility for building 83 miles of 'interc...
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