2y ago

Water firms illegally spilled sewage on dry days - data suggests

www.bbc.co.uk

3 comments

Thames, Wessex and Southern Water appear to have collectively released sewage in dry spills for 3,500 hours in 2022 - in breach of their permits.
Shareholder dividends paid 2009-2019
Thames Water £1.8 billion
Wessex £1.1 billion
Southern £900 million
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/01/england-privatised-water-firms-dividends-shareholders
- In related news
  In a little over three decades, Thames Water, the biggest water and sewerage company in England, serving 15 million people, has transformed from a debt-free public utility into what critics argue is a privately owned investment vehicle carrying the highest debt in the industry.
  Over those years – as admitted by Sarah Bentley, the firm’s departing CEO – its executives and the shareholders and private equity companies who own it have presided over decades of underinvestment, aggressive cost-cutting and huge dividend payments.
  https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/jun/30/in-charts-how-privatisation-drained-thames-waters-coffers
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Without rainwater the sewage is likely to be less diluted - leading to build-ups of algae which produce toxins "that can be fatal to pets and pose a health risk to swimmers", says Dr Linda May, a water ecologist at the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology.
Collectively throughout 2022, Thames, Southern and Wessex illegally started releasing sewage on dry days 388 times - research by the BBC's climate and data teams suggests - including during last summer when these regions were in drought.
Across the Wessex Water region - from the Dorset coast to the Bristol area - BBC analysis identified 68 sites where sewage may have been discharged illegally last year.
One of the agency's officers - who works in environmental regulation - told the BBC anonymously there was a "firm link" between the EA's failure to identify and investigate dry spills, and budget cuts and staff losses.
In March 2022, Robert Bailey from the Clean Harbours Partnership noticed his local chalk stream, the River Lavant near Chichester, had become "discoloured for many miles and was starting to fill with a white plume".
John Penicud, head of wastewater operations at Southern Water, told the BBC that "so-called 'dry spills' are a complex issue" and said discharges in dry weather can be caused by groundwater entering pipes.
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