Stop Sewage Dumping

Water firms are failing to disclose how much raw sewage is being discharged into rivers, lakes and coastlines.

Environmental Information Requests by the Liberal Democrats revealed that water firms could be guilty of a scandalous cover up.

The staggering admission follows public outrage at water companies destroying the environment with raw sewage discharges. Currently, water firms only provide the length of sewage discharges, broken down by time. However, many of the monitoring stations are not working or were never installed, and so do not record all the discharges.

Meanwhile large profits are being made and paid in dividends to shareholders and bonuses to the senior management whilst our rivers and seas become polluted.

Untreated sewage is being dumped in South Derbyshire

Untreated sewage has been discharged into the streams and brooks in several parts of South Derbyshire. Such as for almost 300 hours last year into Scotts Brook at Ticknall that feeds into the Staunton Harold reservoir where many leisure activities take place. Almost 1800 hours of discharge at Milton and these are just the outlets with working monitors.

Raw (untreated) or partially treated sewage is harmful when it's released into the environment. It needs to be properly treated before it can be safely disposed of. Otherwise it can contaminate water, cause pollution, harm wildlife, and even result in the spread of disease. Non-biodegradable items discharged leave litter in our waterways.

Meanwhile the water utilities (in our case Severn Trent Water) continue to pay shareholders and senior executive bonuses rather than investing in the facilities needed to treat sewage rather than dumping it. The pattern of sewage dumping shows that this is not just a storm overflow problem and continued through the dry spells.

Hatton Hilton and Etwall sewage map for 2023

Sewage is continuing to be dumped into our environment. Whilst all the water companies have added more monitoring to know when discharges have occurred, it seems little effort has gone in to preventing the discharges.

In this area, untreated sewage was discharged for 1236 hours into the Etwall Brook and for 617 hours into the Hilton Brook at Hilton Valley Woods near the end of Stowe Lane with a further 42 hours of discharge upstream near Hilton Brook Park. The untreated sewage discharge at Hatton for 438 hours went into a tributary that ends up in the Hilton Brook. 

We continue to be frustrated with the slow progress in improving the infrastructure to treat our waste water, in the meantime more houses are being built that will contribute to the problems.