| Topic: | Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Thames Tunnel - quid pro quo | |
| Posted by: | Roland Gilmore | |
| Date/Time: | 15/10/10 22:13:00 |
| I have just caught up with more recent postings. I am surprised that some want to welcome it. They have evidently never lived close to a major civil engineering project or is it that we have H&F guests on the SW15 forum? Who split the topic - Bernard L; a newbie. If road were used, on an approximation, there would be at least 120 lorry loads a day and possibly many more. The question would then have to be, where would they dispose of those millions of tonnes of material? Build a brick works on the Barn Elms site perhaps? Once tunnelling starts, it is a continuous process. If the tunnelling machine were left to rest for any length of time, the clay the tunnel is to go through would move enough to seize it. 840 lorry loads a week could be accommodated in 3 shallow draught barges, twice a day; on the tides. The barges would settle into the foreshore mud at low tide; no wharf required. One tug could handle three barges easily; 3 empty in, 3 full out. Consideration should be given to using the spoil as fill material for the Thames Estuary Airport IF both proposals were to go ahead. I don't think we are giving the proposal for separation of foul from surface water a fair enough review here. This would negate the need for the tunnel and reduce sewage treatment costs. It could take longer to achieve and may cost more eventually but it is the very best long term solution. Progress could be geared to the general economy rather than by squeezing billions out of us, TW’s monopoly customers, over a relatively short period. The proposed tunnel would be of very little benefit to Putney (an intercept near Putney Bridge). A far greater impact on Putney is from the West Middlesex/Mogden Sewage Treatment Works discharges that often kill those 120 species of fish by suffocation and 18 sick rowers are only the reported and linked illnesses. (What is the definition of a "mild" illness; one that doesn't kill you immediately?) The proposed tunnel does nothing to stop or reduce these all too common incidents. The Thames was an open sewer for centuries before Bazelgette but to trumpet a meaningless placing on someone’s TOTP for urban river comparative cleanliness is hardly a substitute for a cleaner river and a better environment for us and other forms of life to enjoy. We really do need to revisit earlier proposals for avoiding EU fines (..such as leaving the EU). |