A Country Diary: South Yorkshire

The legacy of our out-of-sight, out-of-mind approach to dealing with waste water and drainage came to a head this week. Raw sewage flowed into a goit for nearly a week, polluting a site where there are water beetles not found elsewhere in the borough, where several species of dragon and damselfly breed, where smooth newts return after winter hibernation. It is also right next to the public footpath and the canal towpath. A footbridge crosses the goit here, and sewage had spilled onto the towpath. Don't let your children paddle in it to catch tadpoles, and keep your dog out.

The environment agency acted quickly after I telephoned; their officer was soon on the spot, and got the water company out to check its system straight away. The culprit was a length of orange netting, the sort used to screen off roadworks or other building works, blocking the combined sewer and road drainage chamber, diverting sewage down the overflow. How on earth did it get there?

Once this was removed, the discharge to the goit ceased, but we are left with 50 yards of heavily polluted water. We had visited the site following a phone call the previous evening. Returning a couple of days later to check progress, people we met told us how long it had been polluted. Had they known that they could ring the environment agency hotline on 0800-807060, the problem could have been halted sooner.

We decided to check a few other sewer overflows. In the next village, we found streamside hedgerows festooned with the paper and plastic detritus which we flush out of mind. The grids covering the end pipe of the overflows were plastered with like material. These combined sewer overflows, which are only meant to operate when heavy rainfall overloads the system, are not working. Even in this circumstance, the paper and plastic should not reach the watercourse. The countryside is literally littered with them - often hidden out of sight, but often polluting.