The UK Sewage Crisis: What's Happening and Practical Solutions
Publication Date: 17/02/23
Last update: 18/02/23
The UK Sewage Crisis: What's Happening and Practical Solutions
By Philip Richard Greenwood, Founder, Waterways Protection.
Contents:
1. Introduction
2. The Problem of Sewage Pollution
3. Viable Solutions to the Sewage Crisis
4. Proper Sewage Management
5. Water and Sewage Network Maintenance
6. Recognising Negative Tactics Used by Polluters
7. Eliminating All Water Pollution
8. Buy Back and Rebuild Reservoirs
9. Raising the Final Effluent Standard
10. Conclusion
Introduction
The issue of sewage pollution in UK's inland rivers and freshwater supplies is a critical problem that demands immediate attention. Despite the efforts of the government, water companies, and farming sectors, the situation remains dire, posing a threat not only to our health but also to the environment.
However, there are viable solutions to this issue, including sewage management through proper storage capacity and maintenance of water and sewage tunnel and pipe networks. It is crucial to recognise the negative tactics used by polluters and their supporters, including the blame game and inverted environmental logic. Instead, we need to focus on balancing the carbon cost of building with the environmental benefit and anticipating and managing predictable actions by the population. To achieve clean waterways, we need to focus on eliminating all water pollution rather than relying on partial solutions.
This paper proposes concrete solutions for the sewage crisis, including installing sumps and tanks, buying back and rebuilding reservoirs, raising the final effluent standard, and proper network maintenance, which requires government and agency intervention.
It is time to take action and address the pressing issue of sewage pollution in our inland rivers and freshwater supplies. It is not enough to make excuses for the government, water companies, and farming sectors. Failing to act now will result in irreparable damage to our waterways, threatening not only our health but also the environment.
The Problem of Sewage Pollution
Thankfully, the problem of sewage pollution has viable solutions that have already been successfully implemented in many countries worldwide. It is essential to acknowledge that sewage management requires every water plant to have adequate storage capacity on or off-site through the use of tanks or dug sumps for storing "storm and sewage overflow". This stored wastewater can then be gradually processed through the treatment plant at a controllable pace. This is a well-established practice adopted by numerous locations across the globe.
However, some water treatment plants, such as Portsmouth Treatment Centre, have insufficient capacity to handle storm overflow. The two tanks at the Centre can only hold 40 minutes' worth of overflow, which is inadequate considering the prolonged periods of rainfall. To prevent such overflow, sewage plants need at least three days' worth of storage capacity in tanks or sumps to hold the overflow, which can then be fed back into the system at a manageable rate of treatment.
Water and Sewage Network Maintenance
In addition to proper sewage management, it is crucial to maintain water and sewage tunnel and pipe networks to avoid negative environmental impacts and service disruptions. However, some water companies deliberately let these networks deteriorate to obtain more money from the government, worsening the condition of the network and increasing the case for receiving increased government funding. Advocating for new rules and laws that make proper network maintenance a requirement is necessary.
Recognizing Negative Tactics Used by Polluters
Polluters and their supporters in politics, media and beyond often use inverted environmental logic against environmentalists as a PR tactic. A common example of this is when polluters claim that building storage tanks or sumps is bad for the environment due to the carbon cost. It is essential to recognise this inverted logic and not let malevolent interests use the climate crisis as a cover for pollution. We must balance the carbon cost of building with the environmental benefit and not let polluters use false environmental logic to dissuade us.
Water companies and their owners often resort to blaming their users as a tactic, pointing out that people should not flush certain things down the toilet or pour chemicals down the drain, including wet wipes. While it is true that people should not do these things, when dealing with a large number of users, such as a million people in a water plant's catchment area, there will always be those who do not follow the rules. Therefore, the responsibility lies with the water companies to anticipate and manage these predictable actions by the population. Simply blaming the users and playing the "blame game" is not a sufficient argument.
Water companies often resort to blaming the capacity of the old sewage network of tunnels and pipes as a defensive tactic. They even point fingers at new housing developments, claiming that they create too much pressure on the old network, causing it to overflow and forcing the companies to dump sewage into the river or sea. While the network does require ongoing maintenance and monitoring, the fundamental issue lies with what happens to the water once it reaches the plant. Instead of addressing this problem, water companies try to shift the blame and conflate it with other factors, such as the capacity of the old network, even though it is not the root cause.
Water companies pay certain non-profits to promote false solutions like "Nature-based solutions" whilst it may sound appealing, it is essential to be cautious of river charities that promote it as a form of greenwashing. While nature can be helpful in specific processes, it cannot effectively treat all the chemical waste and microplastics that end up in our waterways. Rather than relying on nature, we should use human-made solutions and ingenuity to properly treat our waste.
Eliminating All Water Pollution
The designation of certain parts of the river or sea as pollution-free through campaigns such as "Bathing Water Status" should be viewed with scepticism. Giving a section of water this status will not protect it from the pollution that enters the water further upstream or up the coast. In fact, many waters that currently have this status are inundated with sewage pollution.
Therefore, there is no point in campaigning for "Bathing Water Status" as it does not solve the problem. Moreover, if a body of water receives this status, all it means is that once a year, someone from the water company will make a timed visit to a section of water, usually before any planned spills. They will only test for a narrow band of pollutants and bacteria, and to ensure a clean test result, they often flood that body of water with chemicals that kill all life and bacteria. Only after these steps will they make their annual test, declare the water clean, give themselves a blue star, and then continue to pollute as normal.
This approach does little to address the overall water pollution problem and can distract from the goal of zero water pollution. Current waters that have this status are already experiencing the problem. The PR machine of polluters is using it to their advantage by launching "Clean up bathing waters campaigns" to further confuse, conflate, and ultimately detract people from the problem at hand, which can only be solved when all sewage pollution stops. It is essential to educate people and organisations who campaign for these false solutions, as those who engage in these campaigns provide further cover to the polluters, which is the whole point of "Bathing Water Status" campaigns.
Buy Back and Rebuild Reservoirs
A shortage of clean water due to the selling off of water reservoirs has led to the over-extraction of our rivers and waterways, negatively affecting local nature and the area's temperature. To address this problem, water companies must buy back and rebuild reservoirs to store clean water, ensuring they have sufficient reserves for the future. Then strict rules and laws must be passed to ensure a minimum level of water to be held in reserve relative to the catchment areas' needs and ensure that our reservoirs can never be sold off again.
Raising the Final Effluent Standard
Another issue is the low final effluent standard set by the Environment Agency, which allows treated water to contain significant amounts of toxins and pollutants. To address this, the standard should be raised to that of drinking water quality to ensure that all treated water is free of pollutants before it is returned to the environment.
Conclusion
To address the sewage pollution crisis, we must take concrete actions such as installing sumps and tanks, rebuilding reservoirs, raising the final effluent standard, and maintaining and improving the sewage network.
However, even if all current campaigns to end sewage pollution are successful, it's important to note that the current final effluent standard is so low that treated water is still toxic.
Therefore, we need to demand that the final effluent standard is raised and maintained to protect our waterways and communities.
Campaigners and other groups who focus solely on the usual points, i.e water company financials, encouraging populations to be more responsible with what they flush down the toilet, campaigning for a small section of river to be designated as bathing water status etc, are playing directly into the hands of water companies and their PR machines.
These vague points can be conveniently used to hide the real issues. By purely focusing on these talking points, we are not addressing the amount of overflow storm and sewage storage each treatment centre has and any inefficiencies it may have. The last thing water companies want is for campaigners to understand the specifics of each treatment centre and request specific and exacting cost-based solutions.
It is through collective action from journalists, MPs, non-profits, and campaigners that we can truly solve the sewage pollution crisis. We need to invest time in acquiring knowledge about the inefficiencies of local treatment centres and campaign for specific changes based on logic. By doing so, we can avoid playing into the hands of the water companies and their PR machines.
Government and agency intervention is also required to ensure that standards are raised and maintained. While the water companies need to increase their capacity and start doing their job, they cannot solve this issue alone. It is only through collective action that we can protect our waterways and the communities that rely on them for years to come.
