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8
Sewerage and Drainage—Its sufficiency in all parts of the District
— Condition of sewers and house drains — Method, or methods of
disposal of sewage—Localities where improvements are needed.
The sewerage and drainage of the town is good on the
whole. Some parts of the District are flat and trouble occasionally
arises during heavy rain storms. This difficulty is
gradually being got over by laying separate surface water
drains, and it is hoped that in a year or two a double system
may be in force throughout the Borough.
The house drains in modern property are in good condition.
Many of the older houses have been brought into
accord with the By-laws and opportunity is taken from time
to time to get this done. Some trouble arises from the system
of combined drains in certain districts. It is to be hoped that
the law on this matter will be amended shortly, so that the
present difficulties may be done away, thus obviating
expensive law processes.
The Sewage is treated by the A.B.C. process, under contract
with the Native Guano Co. Six filters have recently
been added to bring the effluent up to the standard of the
Thames Conservancy. Five of these filters are 100-ft. sq. by
3-ft. 9-ins. in depth and one is 100-ft. sq. by 3-ft. in depth. There
is vacant land available for still further increasing the filtering
area, and six new settlement tanks could be provided without
difficulty. The process is satisfactory and the filtered effluent is
as good as can be desired, being often under 0.5 per million of
albuminoid ammonia, clear, sparkling, free from odour, and not
liable to putrefaction on keeping either at the natural temperature
or in an incubator. There is no doubt that the process is
effective, and as regards other systems the only dispute is
with regard to the cost.
At the Sewage works the sewage of Surbiton (13,000),
Hampton Wick (4,000), and Kingston (38,000) is dealt with.
The effluent amounts to about 3,000,000 gallons daily flow,
and there would be no difficulty in dealing with double the
amount on the area. The Surbiton District Council recently
proposed to break away from this central drainage area, and
establish works in another district where they must cause