Water Wells in Cornwall

Richard made this Environmental Information Regulations request to South West Water Limited
You only have a right in law to access information about the environment from this authority
This request has been closed to new correspondence. Contact us if you think it should be reopened.

South West Water Limited did not have the information requested.

Dear South West Water Limited,

I need to know the location of water wells (old and new) within Cornwall, and which ones are contaminated, and whether they are open wells, covered with hand pumps, dry wells or are in use by South West Water.

Thanking you in advance for your efforts

Yours faithfully,

Richard King

Marshall, Geoff,

I am out of the office until Thursday 28th October.

For anything urgent, please contact Kevin Boult.

Regards

Geoff

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Marshall, Geoff,

Dear Mr King
My apologies for the delay in providing this information.

We are in the process of collating and checking the information we hold and will provide it by Friday 19th November 2010.

Regards

Geoff Marshall
Regulatory Reporting Manager
01392 443534
South West Water, Peninsula House, Rydon Lane, Exeter EX2 7HR

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Dear Geoff Marshall,

I am still waiting for the information on water wells in cornwall, as requested.

Hopefully you can reveal the answers swiftly, as requested by FOI.

Yours sincerely,

Richard

Marshall, Geoff,

Dear Mr King
My apologies for the delay in providing this information.

We are in the process of collating and checking the information we hold and will provide it by Friday 19th November 2010.

Regards

Geoff Marshall
Regulatory Reporting Manager
01392 443534
South West Water, Peninsula House, Rydon Lane, Exeter EX2 7HR

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Marshall, Geoff,

Dear Mr King
Thank you for your enquiry. I can now provide the following information:

Our records show that we have four groundwater sources in Cornwall; all are disused.

They are:

Barn Park Borehole at Boscastle

Kilkhampton Borehole at Kilkhampton

Tremail Borehole at Tremail

Trewollack Shaft at Newquay.

Since all of these sources are disused, and we have no plans to re-commission them, we have not carried out any sampling for a number of years so we cannot say whether any are contaminated. All of the sources are covered; none have hand pumps.

Please let me know if you require any further information.

Regards

Geoff Marshall
Regulatory Reporting Manager
01392 443534
South West Water, Peninsula House, Rydon Lane, Exeter EX2 7HR

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Dear Geoff Marshall,

Thankyou for your reply.

However I had hoped for a more comprehensive list of water sources in Cornwall, more than 4 boreholes!

A simple search on the internet reveals dozens of wells and springs yet unable to find info on water contents and contaminants of Cornish water sources.

Does South West Water know of these wells and water springs and hand-pumps which have been tested, including previous assessments?

I ask, as I have seen a few hand pumps in Cornwall that have been closed by South West Water.

Thus I still seek to clarify the locations of all hand-pumps, wells and springs in Cornwall that you have tested (and untested), and which ones are clear and clean and which ones are contaminated and if so, with what?

I trust that locating this information is easy as opening a file, and does not impede your day.

Thanking you in advance

Yours sincerely,

Richard

Marshall, Geoff,

Dear Mr King
Thank you for your further request. The information that I provided is the records that we have on South West Water’s current assets; all of the sites are disused. We do not have easily accessible records on historic assets formerly belonging either to South West Water Ltd or the previous organisations responsible for water supply in Cornwall. As I have said, on our four assets, we have no recent sampling that could give an indication of the current state of water in these resources.

Any information that we have on assets that we no longer own will therefore relate to assets that are now likely to be owned by someone else. It would not be appropriate for us to release any such information for publication on the Internet as we believe that this could be a breach of commercial confidentiality and, if the assets are now owned by an individual, the Data Protection Act.

Your web site is incorrect in asserting that South West Water is subject to the Environmental Information Regulations (EIR) or the timescales that apply to EIR requests, we are not, and this position has been supported by both the Information Commissioner’s Office and a recent decision of the Information Tribunal (Upper Tribunal - Administrative Appeals Chamber).

If you wish to look elsewhere for information you could ask the Environment Agency, who licence water abstractions, and Cornwall Council, who have responsibilities with regard to private water supplies.

Regards

Geoff Marshall
Regulatory Reporting Manager
01392 443534
South West Water, Peninsula House, Rydon Lane, Exeter EX2 7HR

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