More than one year on, locals still cleaning up after ‘serious’ Ellon sewage plant pollution incident

Scottish Water held a public information event at the Meadows Sports Centre to give locals an update on the cleanup and what has been done to stop an event like this from happening again.

By Lauren Taylor

March 1 2024, 11:54 am

Local people like Gordon and Trisha Benton have been helping clean up their beach after the incident. Image: Lauren Taylor / DC Thomson

Locals are still picking up thousands of sewage filters from beauty spots across the north-east after they were dislodged from the Ellon sewage plant.

During severe flooding in November 2022, a vast number of the filters were dislodged from the Ellon Waste Water Treatment Works and ended up in the River Ythan.

And now, 16 months on these tiny plastic filters keep being washed up between Ellon and Newburgh — and are even being found further afield now.

Scottish Water carried out a significant clean-up in the aftermath, spending over £315,000, and investigated what exactly led to the ‘serious incident’.

The filters can still be found hidden in the grass and reeds down by the River Ythan just outside the sewage plant. I counted 73 from where I was standing before I gave up. Image: Lauren Taylor / DC Thomson

The company held a public information event at the Meadows Sports Centre yesterday to give locals an update on the cleanup and explain what actions have been carried out since to stop a similar event from happening again.

The plastic filters have been carried down the River Ythan to Newburgh Beach, the Forve National Nature Reserve and the Ythan Estuary. Image: Lauren Taylor / DC Thomson

One local brought a bin bag full of filters she picked up herself

Concerned locals are still combing their much-loved beaches and riverbanks to try pick up as many of these filters as possible.

Shelly Mountain brought a plastic bag full of the filters she picked up one day at Newburgh Beach to hand over to Scottish Water.

She said she had spent up to seven hours clearing up a spot near the old lifeboat station and thinks she managed to pick up over 8,500.

The concerned local handed over this bag filled with biofilters to Scottish Water, but says shes filled three more bags since the incident happened. Image: Lauren Taylor / DC Thomson

Shelly, who is from Foveran, says she often picks up the filters while out walking her dogs — and she notices a lot of other people collecting them and “trying to do their bit”.

She said she came to the event to find out more about how the incident happened and what Scottish Water has done to clean it up.

“I think locally it hasn’t really been felt that there was much effort put into the cleanup,” she explained. “So I wanted to get some information from Scottish Water themselves as to what has been done already and what will continue to be done.”

While Shelly enjoyed the tour of the plant and found it helpful to hear how it happened explained, she said she is “not convinced” the cleanup effort has been “quite to the extent that they said”.

Sighing she said: “It’s not something that’s going to be cleaned up, we’re going to be finding these things forevermore.”

There is no way to tell how many filters have been released, and they will continue to be washed up over time. Image: Lauren Taylor / DC Thomson

‘No matter how many filters you pick up the next tide brings more’

Trisha and Gordon Benton also spot the plastic filters when they’re out on their daily dog walks.

The pensioners from Newburgh told me that they try to clean up the plastic from the beach and around the river as a “community gesture”.

Gordon and Trisha Benton spend their dog walks combing the beach and riverbank for the tiny plastic filters. Image: Lauren Taylor / DC Thomson

However, they both enjoyed their visit to the Waste Water Treatment Works and were happy with the effort from Scottish Water.

Trisha said: “It’s worrying when you think how widespread all these filters have gone, they’re still on the beaches, no matter how many you pick up the next tide brings more.

“But I think they’re doing their best.”

Gordon agreed and added: “I think the measures they took were the correct measures, and that’s the best they could do but we’re going to still have the filters for the next 10,000 years.”

Seals at Newburgh Beach, Aberdeenshire. Image: Blair Dingwall/DCT Media

Scottish Water say impact on environment is ‘not one we would ever want’

Ellon Waste Water Treatment Works was the first in Scotland to use the biofilters to keep up with the town’s growing population.

And, the company has found there were several reasons that the filters were dislodged during the major river spate in November 2022 — and there is no way to tell just how many were released into the environment.

However, in the immediate aftermath, the remaining filters were removed from the treatment process and the site was recovered.

Gavin Steele, corporate affairs manager of Scottish Water, said the public event had been positive, but there were some “difficult” conversations with concerned locals.

Scottish Water’s Gavin Steele and Sharon Dunbar were at the event speaking to locals. Image: Lauren Taylor / DC Thomson

He explained the company wanted to share what they were doing in the hope that it would give locals “confidence” and that people have a lot of questions about the incident.

Gavin finished: “Scottish Water recognises the seriousness of what happened and we have apologised before — but we are sorry this has happened.

“The impact on the environment is not one that we would ever want. What we come to work every day to do is to protect the environment, particularly in wastewater operations.

“So we need to learn the right lessons, but we understand the disappointment people feel when they’re finding plastic in the environment and they know that it originated here.”