Government warns water firms to stop letting sewage damage our rivers
Government warns water firms to stop letting sewage damage our rivers
- Storm overflows are sewer safety valves to release sewage into rivers or the sea
- Population growth and more storms have increased pressure on the system
- There will be a crackdown on when water companies can use storm overflows
Water companies are to be forced to eliminate the harm caused by the release of sewage into the environment, it was announced last night.
The Government has promised to ‘revolutionise’ how companies tackle thousands of cases of untreated sewage being leaked every year.
This is expected to lead to 70 per cent fewer discharges into bathing water by 2035 and a reduction of 160,000 discharge incidents by 2040.
The proposals in the Storm Overflows Discharge Reduction Plan, which will be laid before Parliament in September, follow dozens of Environment Agency prosecutions brought against water firms since 2015.
The Government has promised to ‘revolutionise’ how companies tackle thousands of cases of untreated sewage being leaked every year
Southern Water was hit with a record £90million fine last year.
Storm overflows are safety valves in sewers that release sewage into rivers, lakes or the sea when rainfall exceeds capacity. Population growth, a rise in hard surfaces and more storms have increased pressure on the system, leading to an unacceptable number of discharges.
There will now be a crackdown on when water companies can use storm overflows.
Environment minister Rebecca Pow said: ‘Water quality is a top priority for me.
‘We are the first government to set out our expectation that water companies must take steps to significantly reduce storm overflows and we are consulting on the single biggest programme in history to tackle storm sewage discharges.
‘We are setting ambitious targets and cracking down on those water companies that are not playing their part in delivering the clean water the people of this country want to see.’
The announcement follows a report from the Commons environmental audit committee, released in January, that highlighted the ‘chemical cocktail’ of sewage, agricultural waste and plastic that pollutes many of the country’s rivers.
Chairman Philip Dunne said: ‘In 2021, sewage poured into our waterways over 370,000 times.
‘This is simply unacceptable. I welcome moves to improve significantly monitoring, to hold water companies to account and to better understand the dangerous chemical cocktail coursing through our waterways
Source: Read Full Article