Mathematician Stephen Hawking calculates complete destruction due to man-made pollution of the ecosystem 100-200 years hence; when our only chance of survival will be to colonize other planets.

On your behalf we in the FEA are doing our little bit by demanding of Southern Water Services Ltd and governmental regulatory authorities that a stripping unit of man-made chemical pollutants in sewage is installed at the proposed new sewage works for Margate's catchments.

The recent and final planning decision taken ( on appeal) was that a similar sewage works for Telescombe Cliffs (peacehaven, Sussex) cannot be allowed because of failure in disposal and dispersion of the chemical pollutants through a long sea outfall (LSO). This problem is much worse in our estuary than in the Channel at Sussex. The only difference is that Sussex County Council refused the sewage plan, but Kent County Council approved the plan for F oreness !

Has your nose witnessed the foul stench of the rotting seaweed off Margate main sands and off Epple Bay? Why is this a relatively new phenomenon? It is that the North Sea has become highly polluted. Chemical pollutants from sewage and farnl run-offs discharged into the Thames/Medway (including Foreness Point, Broadstairs and Ran1sgate sewage works) provide much nutrient (fertilizer) for the seaweeds colonies beyond the foreshore, when this dies the fronds are washed in toward the foreshore where it rots, and it becomes infected with flies (have you noticed their prevalence this summer?). An additional or alternative cause is that the sewage/farmland run-offs plant nutrients reach a critical level in the estuary and so produce massive blooms of microscopic floating algae. These both exhaust the oxygen and reduce the light to the seaweeds growing beneath. So they are killed and a rot cycle begins.

The Seal population of the North Sea again is being decimated by an outbreak of distemper virus derived from crude sewage discharges (last occurred in 1986). Shellfish at Foreness Point are not found on scientific investigation (by TDC) to be a food hazard. The commercial cocklefisheries off the Essex coast of the estuary is badly affected by poisonous algae (causes diarrhoea and vomiting).

Margate beach again failed the standard bacteriological test in June 2002. The reformed EC Bathing Water Directive 1976 is now promised for August 2002.

KCC had passed the plans for the Foreness works extension, but on appeal by the FEA have now absolved their responsibility by assertion that now the "main regulatory role falls to the Environment Agency ", This is not consistent with the opinion of the Government Office of the South East. We are left in limbo: our request to meet with the County Solicitor has virtually been refused.