General Discussion
The beach polluters of Britain.
From The Sunday Times
August 3, 2008
Revealed: the beach polluters of Britain
3,500 pipes pump sewage into sea
Jon Ungoed-Thomas
The water quality of Britain’s beaches is being jeopardised by thousands of unregulated overflow pipes that dump raw sewage into coastal waters and rivers, an investigation has revealed.
The Sunday Times has obtained details of 3,500 overflow pipes operated by water companies that allow them to dump unlimited amounts of raw sewage in more than 80 rivers and along sections of the coast.
“There is no limit on the amount of sewage that can come out of these overflows,” said Thomas Bell, coastal pollution officer of the Marine Conservation Society (MCS), which has obtained details of the locations of the sewer pipes under freedom of information laws. “They represent a licence to pollute.”
Among the overflows are:
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* Water industry free to poison beaches
* Time to fight them on the beaches
— More than 60 operated by South West Water, including pipes on the River Torridge, which flows to a popular Devon beach.
— More than 250 outlets operated by Yorkshire Water, including sewage flowing into the North Sea.
— Sewage overflows on the River Don, where thousands of fish were killed by sewage pollution in 2006.
— An overflow operated by United Utilities near Manchester, which was blamed for polluting a fishery in 2005.
The 3,500 sewage overflows were among more than 20,000 identified when the water industry was privatised. Most had environmental conditions imposed on them but these are still outstanding.
There are also about 500 regulated sewer overflows on Britain’s beaches that are supposed to operate only after heavy rain. Swimmers and surfers complain that these are operating more regularly to relieve pressure on sewage systems said to be “at bursting point”.
Despite a £10 billion investment programme by water companies since privatisation, about one in four beaches still fails to qualify for the European Union’s top category.
The investment has ensured that 96% now meet the lower mandatory standard, but this still means that a swimmer has a 14% chance of contracting a bacterial or viral infection.
The MCS last week called for tighter controls and improved monitoring of sewer overflows. It said the Environment Agency had failed in its duty by not imposing strict environment conditions on the 3,500 sewage overflow pipes.
The agency said that it had concentrated its resources on dealing with sewage overflows that had been the subject of complaints or had known problems.
New restrictions were now being planned on the 3,500 overflows, it said.
The water industry says it is replacing many of the sewage overflows that cause problems and added that they are used only when necessary to expel sewage and flood water.
* Have your say
The answer is adequate treatment - very expensive for water companies - so overflows would not be routine as in Carmarthen Bay Illegal Pollution is ignored by EA Does UK gov approve in the push for development? EU will impose mega fines and taxpayers will end up with the bill!
Del Phillips, Llanelli, Wales
propostion: you cannot trust or rely on privatised utilities:PROVED
peter c, devizes, wessex
martin, go and visit you local sewage works itsvery interesting and very educational- buy some good compost while you are there
peter c, devizes, wessex
We eat food from that ocean. Something must be done about this immediately!
William, Ocean City, Maryland, USA
A lot of good work was done in the 1950's connecting outflows to the rivers to sewage treatment plants.Looks as if it was all for nought,but they cleaned up the Thames.
Back to the 1950's Or is it these Liberal ideas of turning a blind eye to things that really matter these days.
C.Smith, Burlington, Canada
Condoms should be banned.Disposal is a health hazard !
derek bevan , huntingdon , england.
As demonstrated by Thames Water - the trick is, to avoid the expensive job of improving your capacity to match the ever growing number of rate payer, just don't! Let the sewage store up, wait for a bit of rain, shout "overload" and dump the lot into the Thames! Works for them...
Chris Sorensen, stockport,
Nothing new. Storm overflows still discharge after a few drops of rain into Ouse at York. Tourists can be treated to the sight of a mixed bag of sewage items draped along the bushes and banks as they float bye on a pleasure trip. The solution was another course of bricks. Then they built more houses
John Skelton, Banska Bystrica, Slovakia
sewage falls into 2 parts, liquid and solid, the latter can be broken down and turned into the former by the ordibary processes of biology- the rest of the liquid you filter through cliker and expose to sunlight which kills the bacteria thereafter it does not matter
peter c, devizes, wessex
No wonder we have whales and other marine life beaching themselves, or dying off our coasts.
Also to Martin . . . your point is valid, except why do we pay a charge for the treatment of sewage in our water bills, if all that is happening is that it is being pumped out into our seas.
Paul Moxon, Birmingham,
there used to be private sewage outfalls on the river teign in devon, from private houses and possibly a couple of villages,but think these were on the tidal sections below newton abbot.the woolen mills in that town also used to be huge poluters but they are long gone.
john haydon rowe, javea,
The Amount of Money they are "Extracting from the Public" plus their "Bonus's for "Successfully acheiving their charges", they should be "Immediately Stopped"! Furthermore I hope a "Class Action" will follow the "Revelation" for "Poisoning!"
Paul, Newtown, Powys, UK
Whenever I took my friends for a walk along Rhossili Beach, if we managed to walk one way in pristine water, on our way back we waded in the unmentionable substance, toilet paper and sanitary napkins from the huge caravan park beyond the dunes. Photographic evidence available at request.
Mariusz Kuklinski, London,
If you want a sewerage system to contain all of the storm flows within it then I hope you have a lot of money to waste. No one will be able to pay the extortionate cost of this. There are in fact some rivers polluted by acid mine waste that would benefit from some organic loading.
Andy, Cornwall,
To be honest, if they dont pump it out of there then where is it supposed to go? Are they meant to make it vanish magically? Or is it meant to all store up in the drain systems so as we get sh...errr sorry i mean sewege blasting out of drains all over the place?
Martin, UK,
Simply not an issue. Water quality around here is generally excellent. It will always deteriorate during times of high rainfall, SWW discharges or not. Look no further than the wildfowl of Dawlish for starters.
SWW have invested countless millions in improving their assets to make water quality on the beaches about a good as it can reasonably be - the reason for the sky high water charges in the SW. We could of course beat up SWW to spend an astronomical sum on storage facilities of storm overflows (with a consequent doubling of water rates) for no discernable benefit.
I'm all for the negative publicity though as it may deter tourists from coming which for the future of this town, can (contrary to the widely espoused but erroneous view)only be a good thing.
Somebody has read article with a Dawlish Carnival bias. Read again and consider the evidence.
As for Dawlish Wildfowl, the corruption of that subject has been discussed on this forum before.
There are posters on this website who are trying to suppress information in an attempt to promote the carnival (namely Joey Deacon, carnival committee member).
Can a person be trusted who is willing to stop tourists being informed of important issues, all for the sake of making as much money as possible from those tourists during carnival?
You surely meant anti-Dawlish carnival bias young man?
Fact: Wildfowl seriously impact on the WQ of the stream and stream bed which in high flows become mobile, and transfer the massive bacterial loading to the beach.
He can't be trusted and he has a lot to hide!
To confirm this, you will see he is trying to keep relevant water and coastal pollution information from tourists and residents by posting threads of articles from around the world.
Why would you do this unless you wanted to hide certain information to protect your vested interests.....namely, fleecing tourists of money?
Shame on this Dawlish Carnival Committee Member.
Dawlish Carnival Committee cannot be trusted when one of its members is dismissing relevant water and coastal pollution articles (by national and local newspapers), which have been posted on this website to inform both tourists and residents. This information is important in ensuring the health and safety of tourists and residents alike, and the person responsible for such mockery should be ashamed in making light of serious reporting and subject matter.
Why would this person do this? To hide certain information to protect their vested interests.....namely, collecting money from tourists? Would those same tourists give their money if they knew they were being treated with such contempt by those seeking their donations?
Shame on this Dawlish Carnival Committee Member. I trust Dawlish Carnival Committee will act swiftly and ensure this member acts responsibly.
