This flood was from a burst water main in Queens Drive London N4. It overloaded drains and sewers and ran over and through gardens carrying sewage contamination into 400 homes.
After 12 months my client Gerrard White became ill with possibly related respiratory and heart infections and was hospitalised. Building Forensics undertook a survey and found the property still wet, and contaminated, and nominated contractors had failed to follow normal restoration protocol, and legal requirements such as CDM, CoSHH, or normally expected clearance requirements for any let alone a black water flood event.
After my client wrote with concern regarding contamination presumed and later confirmed to be present, Elliot Bromley a director of DFW Law LLP (boss solicitor) representing Thames Water stated he wasn’t interested in the IICRC “Black Water” category of water damage (ISO & British standard ) and wrote in his simple terms to convince my client :
“Accordingly, while the water will inevitably have picked up some minor contamination from the surface of streets or gardens as it traveled from the site of the burst to affected properties, it is denied, if the same be alleged, that the water would have become contaminated to the same level of contamination as flood waters which originated from the sewage system, groundwater, the sea, or rivers.” This statement is axiomatically true: as the originating source of the water was potable (i.e. not contaminated and safe to drink), then the only contamination in the flood waters inside affected properties would be the contamination that was picked up by the flood waters on route to, or from within, the affected properties.
“Said otherwise, if the source of the flood water was clean when the flood started, the overall level of contamination will, all other things being equal, be less than if the source of the flood water was already contaminated when the flood started”
So here we have a lawyer, obviously believing he is qualified to comment, telling a sick person why his home can’t be contaminated despite visible sewage products floating in his basement bedroom and that he ignores ISO and British standards regarding the health and safety effects of a black water flood. Sadly, I have several other sick residents in the same road and all suffered similar incompetence and apparently related health issues. There doesn’t appear to be accountability?