[Report 1953] / Medical Officer of Health, Denbighshire County Council.

  • Denbighshire (Wales). County Council. no2004062613.
Date:
1953
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1953] / Medical Officer of Health, Denbighshire County Council. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    74/88 (page 74)
    SANITARY CIRCUMSTANCES Water Supply and Sewerage. Throughout the year, at re,s?ular intervals, samples have been collected from the various water sup])lies m the County for bacteriolo!:»ical lexamination. Copies of the reports arc lorwarded to me by' the Public Health Laboratory Service. With few ex- ce])tions, these have been most satisfactcjry, but it has been neccssar\’ in a lew instances to invi?st.’s^ate the reason for a piped supply not being up to the requisite standard. Defective mains or inadequate supervision of chlorination is more often than not the cause for an unsatisfactory bacteriological report. The inde- pendent sampling of water supplies ensures unbiased information and a more stringent supervision of the supply. With improved water supplies, the disposal of sewage be- comes more of a problem. Sanitary Authorities have constructed disposal plants, which if properly supervised and serviced, would operate satisfactorily; but this is not fully realised, with a re- sultant lowering in the standard of the effluent. The growth of towns increases the demands on the various services. The efficienev of disposal plants when used to full capacity rapidly decreases and a nuisance may result. This state of affairs had been reached at Denbigh, where the methods employed were un- able to deal with the considerably increased amount of sewage. The position was further aggravated by the use of the land by a dairy herd. Plans for a new sewage disposal works have been accepted and the position will be rectified in the near future. The County .Sanitary Officer reports as follows : “ Water Supply.—The County Council have now completed a comprehensive survey of all the existing water supply conditions in the County. They have also considered the extent to which future works will have to be carried out to enable all the County District Councils to meet their domestic and industrial needs. “ The inadequacy of the water supplies provided by the exist- ing sources through the County has been forcibly demonstrated during the drought periods. It became abundantly clear that although some more important water undertakings could be en- larged and improved, the full needs of the whole County could only be met by the development of some new major source or sources. Numerous small sources would only serve isolated areas and supervision difficulties would make then uneconomical to maintain.