[Report 1897] / Medical Officer of Health, Tipton U.D.C.

  • Tipton (England : Parish). Urban District Council.
Date:
1897
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1897] / Medical Officer of Health, Tipton U.D.C. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    3.—From direct pollution by sewage or drains from proper¬ ties immediately adjacent to the stream. With regard to the first complaint, there is nothing directly insanitary in the waste water from galvanizing works, but it destroys all vegetation and fish life, and so is a nuisance to districts below us. It also acts in some way as a precipitant to the organic impurities which are dissolved and suspended in sewage and so forms deposits of heavy sludge which tend to block up the the streams. As a rule this suspended organic stuff partially becomes deposited on the banks of the streams, and partially is acted upon by the microbes in the atmosphere and so in time disappears as sludge leaving as a deposit the earthy or inorganic matter. This condition holds best in running streams, sluggish or stagnant water cannot carry away the heavy sludge- It was however known that the County Council were making analyses of our streams both above and below the inset of the acid water, so that, combined with a desire not to interfere unnecessarily with a staple trade of the district prompted the Council not to interfere further than calling manufacturers attention to the nuisance and calling upon them to abate it. 2. —The neighbouring towns have undertaken to provide what catch-pits are necessary in the course of their sewage tributaries, so as to purify the sewage as far as it is possible by precipitation before it reaches our streams. 3. —In several instances the direct pollution of streams from riparian dwellers has been stopped. In a thickly populated district like Tipton, it is impossible to have a stream with pure water, but we are endeavouring to make our stream as free from preventive impurity as it is possible to be. GENERAL SANITARY WORK. We have had most trouble from some property in Park Lane, where Cows, Pigs and Horses were kept in a very insanitary condition, and it seemed at one time as if we should be defied successfully. The complaints however were so great and so numerous that stringent measures had to be taken, and although the nuisance has not yet been entirely removed, we have a report that plans will be presented to the Council at once, and that the nuisance will be abated without delay. The keeping of fowl in the cellars is becoming a growing nuisance and one not easy of detection, except from the reports of talk¬ ative neighbours. I have inspected and reported upon 27