Scottish Water have issued an update to our community in advance of some works on the site.
Also, please remember that each time you are affected by nuisance, intrusive or offensive odours or noise from Seafield to report it via our web form.
A number of months ago we introduced one handy web from on our website which allowed members of our community to report nuisance & intrusive odours from Seafield Waste Water Treatment Plan to City of Edinburgh Council, Scottish Water, Veolia, Scottish Government and the Scottish Parliament.
As we have recently received a significant number of complaints relating to nuisance noise from the plant, we have updated our form, allowing you to report smell and / or noise from the plant.
The form can be accessed by clicking here, and can be used any time, any day.
The next meeting of the Leith Links Community Council will be on Monday 29th April , at 6:30pm in the Leith Community Education Centre, New Kirkgate.
If you live in the area, you are warmly welcomed to attend.
Please find the Agenda for the next meeting here Agenda29.4.19
and minutes of our March meeting Monday 25 March 2019
For over a month now, local residents have been plagued (on and off, but mostly ON) by a distressingly loud, continuous noise, 24/7. It is driving people crazy, and making them angry. Many residents are especially distraught because they cannot sleep, even with earplugs. It is usually a continuous high pitched whine, although it can on occasion be accompanied by, or replaced by, a low pitched rumbling/pulsing.
Leith Links Community Council has been following this up vigorously, and has had (albeit slow to get started) good support so far from City of Edinburgh Council Environment Protection Dept.. Luckily noise – unlike smells – can be measured objectively, so they could not pretend it does not exist. It has been established definitively that the noise is emanating from Seafield Sewage Treatment Works, from a defective compressor on Primary Settlement Tank (PST)1, and to a lesser extent from PST Compressor 8, possibly with other ‘potential contributing factors which are being considered by the operator’.
Environmental Protection say (over a month after the first complaints) ‘I can confirm that this matter is already under investigation. We are in dialogue with Veolia at the Seafield Waste Water Treatment works in relation to the noise. … I can advise you that Veolia are treating this as a priority and are actively looking to put short term and longer term measures in place in order to address this concern.’
The Council has requested a full report from Veolia, who run the Seafield plant, detailing what exactly is wrong and what actions they will take to ‘minimise’ (hhmmm..) the noise in the community. They expect this soon and of course we (LLCC) are urging that pressure is kept up on Veolia, for swift action!
This is just one more sign that Seafield is not fit for purpose. Since January, via this LLCC website form, there have been 76 reports of bad smells (70 of which came in between 24 February and 31 March). It is still smelling, today. Reports of the noise have been coming in since 5th March, continuing steadily until now, from at least 20 different people.
John Telfer, Head of PFI, Scottish Water, says “In the first instance I apologise for the fact that …members of the community have been inconvenienced by recent odour and noise issues….Can I assure you that Veolia are working to address the noise related issues that you and other stakeholders have made reference to. Veolia are fully aware of the inconvenience this is causing and are looking at what could be done in the immediate short and longer term to deal with these noise emissions…. Again please accept my apologies for the inconvenience these issues have caused and be assured that Scottish Water is taking steps to address your concerns.”
How come Veolia / Scottish Water didn’t start dealing with the noise problem much earlier? Would anything have been done at all if the community had not kept on reporting this? How come the Council does not seem to treat this noise nuisance as non-compliance with the Code of Practice they are supposed to ‘police’ and hold Seafield to account on?
Now that the Council is finally ‘on the case’, there is no point in reporting the same noise repeatedly. That just means that the Environmental Protection Officer’s time is taken up replying to individuals, when we actually need him to spend his time keeping up the pressure on Veolia and Scottish Water. BUT we (LLCC) would like to ask you to report it anyway – only via the form on this website. We suggest that you report the noise when first you hear it, and at daily intervals if you can be bothered. Currently the form is really only set up for smell reporting (we ARE updating it asap) but there are boxes that you can complete anyway saying something like ‘Along with the smell’ (or, ‘Not smell but’) ‘continuous high pitched whining noise nuisance experienced’ & how loud, what effect it has on your quality of life.
Reporting via the form (see top of this page, or sidebar) means we can keep an accurate record of all complaints and compile these at intervals to keep the Council updated, without wasting their time on an hourly/daily basis.
However, just in case you want a personal response, or want an officer to visit your house, these are the correct contact points for Environment Protection:
Email – asknoise@edinburgh.gov.uk
Or use the general help lines on Tel: 0131 200 2000 or Twitter – @edinhelp
During 2017 the local community continued to suffer noxious smells and it was clear that the reporting system set up by Edinburgh City Council was ineffective. Difficult to use and response times poor.
In 2018 the CC introduced a reporting tool for the community to quickly report nuisance smells when it became clear that system set up by Edinburgh City Council (COEC) was ineffective, difficult to use and resulted in poor response times.
The link the CC set up is easy to use and we know that our locally elected politicians and public servants are aware of reports. More importantly the public servants we expect and trust with policing our complaints can’t ignore public concerns.
Between 09/07/18 and 19/08/18 there were 123 reports.
Then 09/09/18 to 23/11/18 19 reports.
During the most recent incident between 15/02/19 to 18/03/19 we received 57 reports
Scottish Water issued an update on 15/02/19 alerting the community to urgent work being carried out at Seafield due to build up of sludge. This was followed by an apology issued by Scottish Water on 26/02/19.
SEPA told the community they only received 1 complaint passed to them from COEC and they were not aware that there had been so many.
SEPA said to Leith Links Residents Association
Thanks for your email. I am sorry to hear the community have been experiencing odours. I have logged your email as an environmental event. The event reference number is ENV/0897328 and I can provide the update below.
SEPA did not receive any complaints about the site during the month of February 2019. We received one complaint on Friday 1 March 2019. Two officers attended the site on Friday 1 March and undertook an odour assessment on site and at two offsite locations.
Offsite the officers detected a faint whiff of sewage odour from the site. This was not deemed to be offensive. The odour detected offsite matched the odour detected on-site near the picket fence thickeners, which are unrelated to the activities covered by the Waste Management Licence and located outwith the Waste Management Licence boundary. Our findings were passed to City of Edinburgh Council Environmental Health on Monday 4 March.
The City of Edinburgh Council said
We can advise that we received a total of 83 Seafield odour complaints in February 2019, with 77 of these received between 24 and 28 February. Officers carried out 14 visits to the area, between 24 and 28 February, as a result of these complaints. In addition, four proactive assessments within the community were also carried out during the month and a plant inspection was carried out on 26 February.
We can confirm that mostly no or faint odours and occasionally moderate odours were witnessed on the visits made to the community during February 2019, which would not amount to what you refer to as a smell nuisance.
So although we received 57 complaint reports COEC didn’t think there was a problem. There is a problem for the local residents who have taken the time to report it.
I estimate that for every report made through the CC website there are probably 10 households who don’t
During February the CC has also been contacted by local residents because of noise which appears to have started about the same time that the most recent smell incidents were being reported. Veolia had to bring in mobile centrifuges to deal with sludge levels.
Leith Links CC received the response below from the City Council investigating noise
I refer to your emails below concerning a miscellaneous noise, causing disturbance over a wide area around Seafield / Restalrig. I’m sorry you had not received a reply, however we do not appear to have received your original email. We have now logged your complaint on our system.
With regard to the noise, I have two ongoing complaints in the
Seafield / Prospect Band area and received another from a resident in the Restalrig area yesterday. However, so far it has not been possible to witness the noise being complained off. Seafield Sewage Treatment Works (STW) were also contacted last year, however their investigations did not identify any unusual noise issues from machinery. A noise survey visit to one of the residents had been scheduled for last night, but was cancelled due to the high wind speed; as it affects noise measurements. The noise survey has been re-scheduled for next week.
Information provided from the original two residents who had complained and the fact that another two complaints have been received suggests that the noise is becoming louder and more persistent. Therefore it should make it easier to investigate the noise and determine the source.
I’ll give you an update once I have carried out the noise survey visit next week.
The noise stopped before any further investigation could take place about the same time the work stopped at Seafield.
On a balance of probability these problems are linked to Seafield.
The infrastrucure at Seafield is old and it’s failing on a more regular basis to cope with excessive levels of sludge.
I also believe that during the most recent incidents there was a crisis at the plant that Veolia were trying to fire fight. Both SEPA and COEC have let the community down again by not investigating incidents properly.
We still have this mistaken belief by public officials that their noses and ears are better than those of the community.
Urgent action and investment at that the plant must be the way forward.
We haven’t even reached the normal smelly season during May.
Leith Links Community Council will continue to work together with the Residents Association and I promise to raise the communities concerns strongly at the next Seafield Stakeholders meeting scheduled for 260419
Jim
Happy New Year from LLCC
The next meeting of Leith Links Community Council will be on Monday, 28th January, in Leith Community Centre (Shore Room). Please remember the new start time is 6.30pm.
If you live in the Leith Links area, and have questions or concerns to discuss, we would be pleased to welcome you.
Please find Agenda and draft minutes of last meeting attached.
DraftAgenda 28.1.19,, LLCC Minutes Draft Nov 2018Jan21st-converted (1)
Happy New Year from LLCC
The next meeting of Leith Links Community Council will be on Monday, 28th January, in Leith Community Centre (Shore Room). Please remember the new start time is 6.30pm.
If you live in the Leith Links area, and have questions or concerns to discuss, we would be pleased to welcome you.
Minutes of our last meetng and the Agenda for 28th will be posted soon
The next meeting of Leith Links Community Council will be on Monday, 26th November, in Leith Community Centre (Shore Room). Please remember the new start time is 6.30pm.
If you live in the Leith Links area, and have questions or concerns to discuss, we would be pleased to welcome you.
LLCC Minutes Draft October 2018
Seafield WwTW site operators, Veolia, will be undertaking their annual planned inspection and maintenance works of the Thermal Hydrolysis Plant (THP) which forms part of the sludge treatment area. This will involve the partial shutdown the THP to permit the required inspection and statutory certification to take place.
Work will commence on Saturday 29th September 2018 and whilst Veolia shall endeavour tocomplete this work as soon as possible it is estimated that the work will take until Thursday 4thOctober 2018 before the plant will be returned to normal operation. We shall inform stakeholders when this activity has been completed.
Leith Links Community Council and Leith Links Residents Association received the following excellent news yesterday from local MSP Ben MacPherson that Scottish Government now realise that something has to be done at the Seafield plant. You just have to travel round the city to see the number of new housing developments and villages like Wallyford doubling in size. All these new houses feed into the same sewage network which ends at Seafield. Leaving out politics this is good news for Leith residents who for years have had to put up with the great stink from the sewage treatment plant
Although we welcome this news Leith Links Community Council will continue to monitor the situation and we ask that you play your part by reporting odour incidents through our website.
The next meeting of the Seafield Stakeholder group takes place on 28th September when we will hear directly from Scottish Water on their plans for the future.
Ben said in his email
I’m writing to make you aware, if you aren’t already, that Seafield has been referenced in the Scottish Government’s Programme for Government 2018-2019.
https://news.gov.scot/news/delivering-for-today-investing-for-tomorrow-1
On page 58 it states:
We have identified that the sewerage systems serving Edinburgh and the surrounding area are facing particular challenges which will be exacerbated by the prospective population growth in the area and climate change. A recent study has shown how the performance of the main treatment works at Seafield is impacted by events elsewhere on the network. It is vital that a sound strategy is developed to meet these challenges and ensure that in future the networks operate efficiently and support the continuing economic growth of the area. We have therefore asked Scottish Water to work with local authorities in the area and SEPA to review future waste water treatment needs in the area in order to guide future investment planning.
This is testament to all the work that you and the community have put in to press the issues with Seafield.
While together we will keep pressing for short-term action too, this commitment from government will develop medium-to-long term strategies and solutions.
I also believe it is an opportunity for Edinburgh to consider Seafield within the wider Waterfront vision and opportunities.
We can discuss more on the 28th but I wanted to write to congratulate you both as soon as possible.
