FAMILIES were faced with a sewage overflow emergency at a beach after a blockage at a pumping station.

Waste flowed from an emergency overflow pipe into a stream above the beach at Osmington Mills, near Weymouth, on Saturday.

The sewage was forced into the overflow pipe after a blockage at a nearby pumping station caused by a large number of wet wipes being flushed down a toilet.

Wessex Water cleared the blockage, cleaned up the beach and took water samples to make sure the water was clean afterwards.

Osmington Mills resident Kevin Sheehan reported the problem to the Environment Agency at 10am on Saturday.

He said: “It’s disgusting. I feel angry and saddened.

“Two years ago they dug up the road here and put in new pipe work.

“We were assured that this six-inch diameter pipe would be able to cater for any kind of overflow from the number of people who come here and would be able to cope with the summer season.

“I questioned it at the time.”

Mr Sheehan went down to the beach to warn families not to go near the stream.

Ian and Vicky Williamson from Holmfirth, West Yorkshire, were having a day on the beach with their boys Ben, five, and Ted, three.

Mr Williamson said: “It’s horrible and it’s such a beautiful spot.

“If we hadn’t been warned we would have crossed the waterfall thinking it was clean.”

The Environment Agency referred the issue to Wessex Water and said that with tides, any effluent would quickly be dissipated.

Wessex Water said that the incident was due to the wet wipes being flushed down the toilet and nothing to do with the capacity of the pumping system or pipes.

Spokesman Ian Drury said: “We believe the blockage at a sewage pumping station was caused by someone wrongly disposing of items, thought to be wet wipes, down the toilet.”

“The blockage caused a small amount of waste water to be discharged into a stream that leads on to the beach at Osmington Mills.”

He added: “We would urge people to properly dispose of items such as wet wipes with their household rubbish to help ensure incidents such as this do not occur.”

Paul Gainey, spokesman for the Environment Agency, said: “We were told about this by a member of the public and immediately contacted Wessex Water through their emergency incident line.

“They went out and diagnosed the problem as a blocked pipe.

“They sorted out the blockage and then cleaned up the debris on the beach pretty promptly.

“So as far as we are concerned the matter has been sorted out.”

n catherine.bolado@dorsetecho.co.uk