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Bridge Street, Pinner and the Borough boundary. Under this the Conservators
will pay the Corporation £200 per year and the Council will clear
that length of the River Pinn from time to time and so often as may be
necessary. This agreement is terminable at the expiration of the third or
any subsequent year.
During the year, complaints were received about the condition of the
Edgware Brook. Enquiries showed that a hitherto unknown pipeline had
become obstructed and broken, with the result that polluting matter was
finding its way via a contributary into the brook. The matter was remedied
by the pipeline being connected by a short drain to the soil sewer.
Early in July, complaints were received about the pollution which
was noticed in the half-mile of the open section of the Wealdstone brook
in Kenton. The pollution being intermittent made its origin more difficult
to detect. The watercourse, which rises in Harrow Weald, receives the
surface water drainage from a large area of the Borough. It is liable to
pollution from the road surfaces and from any surface water gulleys
which are mis-used. In parts of the Wealdstone area the surface water
drains flow through the same inspection chambers as the soil drains with
the result that obstruction in one can result in the effluent flowing into the
other. Investigations of possible sources of pollution were carried out and
a number of sources dealt with. With the onset of the wet weather, no
further complaints were received. The Public Health Committee at their
meeting in September, recommended that the Highways and Cleansing
Committee be asked to consider the question of concreting the bed of the
open section of the brook and providing along both banks of these open
sections concrete walling which would prevent debris from the banks
being washed into the water course, and also enable the stream to be
more easily cleansed.
Sewage Contamination of Bathing Beaches
Probably because of the greater incidence of poliomyelitis and
because it has become generally known that the virus of poliomyelitis is
excreted in the faeces of sufferers and carriers, there has in the last few
years been much concern about the arrangements for sewage disposal at
seaside places, the fear being that there is danger of contracting infection
by bathing in contaminated sea water.
Even before this period though there was an appreciation that
typhoid fever might be contracted in this way. In regard to this, the Royal
Commission on Sewage Disposal which reported in the early days of this
century said—"It does not appear that any serious injury to public health
is to be feared from pollution of bathing grounds by sewage if reasonable
care is taken in selecting positions for outfalls." Since that time of course,
because of the increase in population and the greater ease of travel,
sewerage systems of many coastal towns have now to bear a far greater
than they did when they were first installed.