environment

Vol. 11 No. 1 2004
The dirtiest river of England
By P.M. Maurenbrecher
It was a case of taming the River Tame. Yes,”Tame” and
not “Thames”. The River Tame is one of the few rivers
that become contaminated at its source. Birmingham
lies at the heart of England on the watershed between
the west and east. The name Birmingham is synonymous
with industry, heavy industry and lots of pollution. The
Tame is an upper and main tributary of the River Trent
whose estuary is the Humber.
My colleagues in the London office of Binnie and
Partners commiserated with me when they heard I was
the unfortunate to act as “resident engineer” on a site
investigation for a project to clean up the river. This
was in the days when the word “environment” or in the
Netherlands “milieu” was just starting to make a
tentative impact. Possibly it was because it was the
winter of 1973/74 when I was to go up north. Going
north of London was like being banished to Siberia, as
the north was ugly and was ravaged by industry
meaning mining, steel works, heavy machinery and lots
of chemical installations.
I was not disappointed when I settled into “The Swan”
at Coleshill Warwickshire. Coleshill was a typically rural
Midlands English town which could support the cast
of a Englands most favourite English serial/soap “The
Archers”. Coleshill had seen better days and could
emulate towns to the south if its buildings were
renovated and restored. Two pictures show “The Swan”
as an inn one would expect from the English tourist
brochures as well as Colehill’s parish church. But that
was all that Coleshill had to show off: it had views of
Figure 1a Proposed dried/caked sludge disposal
location in disused clay pit. Now filled with water and
used as diving recreational facility.
Figure 1b Cross-sections on westside of pit showing
mono-cline type structure consisting of
Carboniderous shales and coal seams. These overlie
Cambrian Merevale shales. Interpretation of geology
based on borehole and publications.
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