Southern Water – Another Day, Another Mess
KATE SHAW
There is real public outrage about the sewage pollution in our seas and rivers. Last Saturday (18 May) communities around the UK came together in a national day of protest to send a message to water companies that enough is enough. Surfers Against Sewage (SAS) were amongst them.
Most sewage systems in the UK are combined, carrying both sewage and surface water run-off. During periods of intense rainfall, sewer capacity can become overloaded. When it does, treatment plants cannot cope with the increased volume of wastewater, and so are bypassed. and an untreated mix of sewage and water is released via combined sewer overflows (CSOs).
Although the sewage is heavily diluted, the effluent is untreated and can pose a serious health risk.
Last year these CSOs discharged 824 times a day around the UK. Originally intended to release during periods of heavy rainfall, many of these discharges were when there was no rainfall at all, and it has become clear that water companies are using them far beyond their original use.
Along the East Sussex coastline, the company responsible is Southern Water. Jemima Gibbons, protest lead for SAS (Hastings), says that it has failed for 30 years or more to invest in an infrastructure which needs maintenance that it’s just not providing.
At the time of writing, Hastings alone has had 139 sewage alerts so far this year; St Leonards tops that with 181. Add to those the 150 alerts that Bexhill has suffered and you get a whopping 470 along our little stretch of coastline alone. The story continues around the rivers and coastline of the UK.
Over the next month, Ofwat, the financial regulators of the water industry, will be reviewing the water companies’ business plans for the next five years. SAS want them to end sewage pollution in popular bathing spots by 2030.
And, with a general election looming, Jemima argues that this is the perfect time to shout about it.
On the day I wrote this, I went to meet my friend Will for a swim below the seafront at St Leonards. We got up to our knees and I can only describe the feeling as like standing in soup. We looked at each other and he said to me “I don’t think I fancy this.” I had to agree, and returned home to a hot shower.
Of course, two weeks ago I wouldn’t have been able to do this, as ours was one of the 30,000 or so homes left completely without water for days. Who was responsible for that? Southern Water, again.
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