Sewerage dumped in rivers

bluebell

Member
the TV programme showed that the water companies were discharging sewage into rivers when there had been no rain for weeks ? the govt minister was a joke ? so if its illegal to do it and the evidence shown was over welming why is not anything done ? my view on this from my own local area is that the truth is the amount of development, housing etc thats going into the sewage system has increased so much that the infrustructure that is their just cant cope and its easier to let it out into the rivers ?
 
the TV programme showed that the water companies were discharging sewage into rivers when there had been no rain for weeks ? the govt minister was a joke ? so if its illegal to do it and the evidence shown was over welming why is not anything done ? my view on this from my own local area is that the truth is the amount of development, housing etc thats going into the sewage system has increased so much that the infrustructure that is their just cant cope and its easier to let it out into the rivers ?
As regards developments making things worse and again comparing to farming within an NVZ, if I wish to keep more cows then legally I need to construct more storage.
Of course at farm level it’s quite straightforward, the man wanting more cows is the man responsible for constructing extra storage.
With houses there is no direct connection between the developers and the sewage companies so they all seem to shrug their shoulders, say not my problem and nothing gets done
 

holwellcourtfarm

Member
Livestock Farmer
Surely most cities have separate surface water and sewage drains though?
No. Most old British cities still have large numbers of "combined systems" (where foul and clean drainage water uses the same pipe) and/or CSOs (Combined Sewer Overflows - Chambers where the foul sewer is able to overflow into the clean drainage system if it gets too full). These are slowly being addressed under the AMP process (Asset Management Plans - drainage upgrades to you and me). We are now in AMP 7, the 7th round of these. AMP 6 started in 2015, lasted 5 years and involved spending £15Bn!

The biggest problem is the base infrastructure was all started in Victorian times so in the big towns and cities the main sewage system is old. Also in the UK we mix rainwater run off with our sewage so with the increase in paved areas, driveways, housing new and extensions and add to that the increase in large rain events our sewage system cannot cope. In London there are now building the Thames Tunnel all the way from Hammersmith to Beckton sewage treatment plant (diameter the size of a London bus). Which will capture all the storm event sewage which currently flows into the Thames and stock it until Beckton Sewage Plant can process it. Beckton was/ is the largest sewage treatment plant in Europe.

In alot of new housing developments they are now required to have ponds to take the rain water run off instead of putting into the sewage system.

Unfortunately spending on a national large scale sewage infrastructure is not a priority for any government as it is a long term project which none will reap the benefits for attracting voters. All Governments of what ever colour only want to spend money on ideas projects which will come to fruition in the 4 year term. That is why we lag behind all the major economies in terms of all types national infrastructure, no Government wants to make a decision or commitment and always leave it to the next one who does the same. Just look at fibre optic broadband, railway infrastructure, power generation and road infrastructure all suffering from the same.
Actually the companies responsible are all private. The limit comes from OFWAT, the regulator. It's they who decide how much the water companies are allowed to add to bills and thus spend on each AMP cycle.

It COULD all be done in 10 years but your water bills would quadruple.

Thanks to the way the water companies were privatised we have the crazy system where they answer to 2 masters: OFWAT for customer pricing and business planning and the EA / NRW / SEPA / DAERA for water quality.

The EA etc. know that massive extra investment is essential but can't force it to happen unless OFWAT agree to the resulting rise in water bills which they refuse to do.

Maybe the new OEP (Office for Environmental Protection) created under the new Environment Act, once it's passed, will be able to sort it out. 🤞
 
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holwellcourtfarm

Member
Livestock Farmer
You have to wonder where the heck the Environment Agency are in all this.
Farming in an NVZ I have to keep records and have had an inspection to check everything is as it’s supposed to be.
If Panorama can get access to this information then surely the Environment Agency could too


I did note a comment in that programme that one sewage works was investing money and should be compliant by 2025. I very much doubt that approach would be deemed acceptable in agriculture it would be do something immediately along with fines for any pollution caused.
The farmer would be expected to find the money to comply or be put out of buisness, yet for the sewage companies I don’t see the share holders stumping up the cash nor the directors taking a cut in their probably quite significant salaries and putting them out of buisness just isn’t an option
It's EA figures they are using!

The EA are now so short of staff in the "Land and Water" teams that most of the sewage works monitoring is actually contracted back......

....... to the companies running them! You really couldn't make this up!
 

holwellcourtfarm

Member
Livestock Farmer
we have a sewer main going across some of our land with some manholes coming up, the main sewer pipe is about 6ft down in the ground, but when it rains heavy, the sewer soon rises and sewage pours out of the manhole covers then overflows into the river? been looked at a few times but getting more common as more and more properties are built and connected on ?
The extra capacity should theoretically be being paid for by the developers.......


Theoretically.
 
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holwellcourtfarm

Member
Livestock Farmer
I've said before when NVZ's were reviewed a few years back: It's all a big fiddle, farming is getting the blame for water quality in our rivers when really it's the water companies ruining them.
Snouts in the trough no doubt.
Farming isn't blameless.

The water companies are much worse though.

You Really don't want to see the big London overflows running in a storm event! :oops::eek:
 

bluebell

Member
well well if you have a look around my neck of the woods and the major housebuilding thats going on and will go on thats got planning permission for and the future needs ? the roads they cant cope with the traffic now ? anyone on here going out to hullbridge or burnham, fambridge way the road is just a ordinary country road with no lights ? look at the housing being built and will be built their for starters, i remember in my youth in the late 1960s up to the early 1970s my village had no mains drainage then it was put threw in the mid 1970s, now my areas population at a guess has more than tripled, in my village many houses where there was once one there are now 2 or 3 ? the infrustructure has not kept pace with the growth of population same as the policing has not, in fact we have less police now then when i was a youngster ? work that out ?
 

holwellcourtfarm

Member
Livestock Farmer
well well if you have a look around my neck of the woods and the major housebuilding thats going on and will go on thats got planning permission for and the future needs ? the roads they cant cope with the traffic now ? anyone on here going out to hullbridge or burnham, fambridge way the road is just a ordinary country road with no lights ? look at the housing being built and will be built their for starters, i remember in my youth in the late 1960s up to the early 1970s my village had no mains drainage then it was put threw in the mid 1970s, now my areas population at a guess has more than tripled, in my village many houses where there was once one there are now 2 or 3 ? the infrustructure has not kept pace with the growth of population same as the policing has not, in fact we have less police now then when i was a youngster ? work that out ?
Maybe we need a better planning system? :unsure::cautious::banghead:
 

Foxhollow

Member
Location
Bury St Edmunds
No. Most old British cities still have large numbers of "combined systems" (where foul and clean drainage water uses the same pipe) and/or CSOs (Combined Sewer Overflows - Chambers where the foul sewer is able to overflow into the clean drainage system if it gets too full). These are slowly being addressed under the AMP process (Asset Management Plans - drainage upgrades to you and me). We are now in AMP 7, the 7th round of these. AMP 6 started in 2015, lasted 5 years and involved spending £15Bn!


Actually the companies responsible are all private. The limit comes from OFWAT, the regulator. It's they who decide how much the water companies are allowed to add to bills and thus spend on each AMP cycle.

It COULD all be done in 10 years but your water bills would quadruple.

Thanks to the way the water companies were privatised we have the crazy system where they answer to 2 masters: OFWAT for customer pricing and business planning and the EA / NRW / SEPA / DAERA for water quality.

The EA etc. know that massive extra investment is essential but can't force it to happen unless OFWAT agree to the resulting rise in water bills which they refuse to do.

Maybe the new OEP (Office for Environmental Protection) created under the new Environment Act, once it's passed, will be able to sort it out. 🤞

The work to bring the sewage infrastructure upto standard would take much more than ten years. I worked on the Lee Tunnel and Thames Tunnel storm water schemes 15 years ago and only the Lee Tunnel has been constructed the Thames Tunnel is being constructed and they are only part of the solution to splitting the storm water runoff to normal sewage. Essentially all these two schemes do is stop combined storm water and sewage being dumped into the Thames during "high" rainfall events.

The biggest problem is that planners/ local authorities do not even think of the impact of a housing scheme on the sewage treatment side of things. The developer may have to pay to connect to the nearest sewer but the link of the extra housing/ commercial offices does not get factored into the sewage infrastructure at all at development stage. The water/ sewage companies to not have a say in the planning consultation process and if they may do their voice is never heard at planning stage.
 

jg123

Member
Mixed Farmer
Scottish Water is fined £19,000 for allowing untreated sewage into the Clyde for 3 weeks due to a faulty valve.
They released 650,000m3 which is 130 million gallons.
Put another way, that is 250 farms like ours releasing a year of stored slurry in 3 weeks. Not just onto the ground, directly into the river.
And we worry about a cow standing in a burn?

I don't do much with slurry so I might be wrong but you'd have a job to export and spread 130 million gallon much cheaper than 19k?? Especially if it needed processing
 

bluebell

Member
thats it, its much easier, cheaper for the water companies to dump the sewage into the rivers then process it ? are these companies private and paying out massive dividends to investors? are they foreign owned ? these are some of the questions that should be asked, they keep saying about investment but how much dividends are paid out ?
 

holwellcourtfarm

Member
Livestock Farmer
The water/ sewage companies to not have a say in the planning consultation process and if they may do their voice is never heard at planning stage.
Actually they do, on the bigger schemes at least.

Several very large developments are being proposed around here (2000+) and the promoters have had to show whether Thames Water have the capacity to accept their waste. In one case (Harlow North) the cost of upgrade is so high that the developer proposes to build a new sewage works on site serving the development. The other (Birchall Garden Suburb) has to contribute to an upgrade at Rye Meads Sewage Works before they can begin.

Drinking water, on the other hand... :banghead: I raised the issue at the local plan examination that Affinity Water would struggle to supply the extra 16000 houses proposed in our district (plus the 24000 in neighbouring East Herts plus the many 1000's in their supply area in West London) and the Inspector said it was "outside the scope" of the planning system although he agreed it was mad.
 

holwellcourtfarm

Member
Livestock Farmer
thats it, its much easier, cheaper for the water companies to dump the sewage into the rivers then process it ? are these companies private and paying out massive dividends to investors? are they foreign owned ? these are some of the questions that should be asked, they keep saying about investment but how much dividends are paid out ?
Yes.
Yes.
And yes.
Agreed.
 

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