⟡ The Sewer Gas Defence and the Goodwill Denial ⟡
“The children inhaled methane. The budget inhaled discretion.”
Filed: 17 June 2025
Reference: SWANK/THAMESWATER/EXPOSURE-DISMISSAL-33550028
📎 Download PDF – 2025-06-17_SWANK_ThamesWater_FinalResponse_SewerGasComplaint.pdf
Thames Water issues final refusal regarding sustained sewer gas exposure and flooding, denying responsibility and goodwill remedy.
⟡ Chromatic v Thames Water: On the Domestic Gaslighting of Environmental Harm ⟡
Thames Water, sewer gas leaks, flooding, exposure of children, final complaint response, goodwill refusal, regulatory optics
I. What Happened
On 17 June 2025, Pamela Elvin, Customer Relations Manager at Thames Water, issued a formal letter in response to a complaint regarding repeated sewer gas exposure and water ingress at the former home of Polly Chromatic and her children.
Despite documented risk and a history of reports since 20 May 2025, the company declared the matter “a private issue,”absolving itself of all responsibility. Thames Water further denied any goodwill payment, citing “strict discretionary criteria” and “customer money stewardship.” A final decision had allegedly already been issued on 9 April 2025, though exposure continued well beyond that date.
II. What the Response Establishes
⟡ Harm reframed as ineligibility — no rebuttal of exposure, only bureaucratic disassociation
⟡ Gas leaks rebranded as private property mishaps
⟡ Gesture withheld as a policy virtue — not because it didn’t happen, but because it doesn’t qualify
⟡ Sewer gas, but no systemic liability
⟡ Children’s exposure bracketed in fiscal courtesy — “we’re careful how we spend”
This is not resolution. It is reputational deflection signed in chlorinated ink.
III. Why SWANK Logged It
Because nothing defines infrastructural neglect like refusing to acknowledge airborne toxicity as actionable. Thames Water did not deny the gas. It denied the criteria. The family inhaled methane. The company inhaled regulation.
SWANK does not record this to appeal for action.
We record it because it already occurred — and they already refused.
IV. Structural Failures and Denials
No invocation of Section 82 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990
No investigation into impact on disabled children despite clear notice
No meaningful dispute of facts, only jurisdictional denial
Gesture refusal based on discretionary optics, not material reality
V. SWANK’s Position
This wasn’t complaint resolution. It was customer containment.
This wasn’t apology. It was procedural misdirection.
SWANK does not accept regulatory outsourcing of harm.
We do not accept “goodwill” frameworks that dismiss exposure as private inconvenience.
And we certainly do not accept sewer gas as neutral.
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