Mersey Reporter - Merseybites News

THE problems with UK emergency dumping of raw sewage into rivers and the sea has hit headlines all over the world, following record amounts of the practice taking place in both 2021 and 2022. This record amount of releases resulted in dozens of beaches being closed to swimmers in the summer 2022. This was due to the high levels of toxic waste along parts of the UK coastline. The answers to this issue are not as clear-cut as politicians would like to make you think.

Currently, the UK sewer system often carries rainwater, along with wastewater from toilets, through the same pipes to the water treatment works. If the system has too much rainfall in the system, water companies are allowed to discharge the overflow from these pipes into our rivers and seas. This shouldn't be a major issue, but with more and more house building and increasing extreme weather events, this inevitably leads to the system becoming overloaded, and unable to cope; so we are seeing more polluted water being released.

Now the UK Government is looking at ways to stop the practice of discarding raw sewage through storm overflows, but it will not be an easy fix. Currently, the House of Lords is holding the 1st reading of the Sewage (Inland Waters) Bill [HL] . This is a Bill that is looking to place a duty on water companies to ensure that untreated sewage is not discharged into rivers and other inland waters. As the issue is being debated, the House of Lords recently heard a report that says that the UK's sewage system is dangerously overloaded and "relies on releasing polluted water." Solving these issues will require huge investments to build more infrastructure. This will undoubtedly lead to higher water bills. The report also blames successive Governments, as well as the regulator Ofwat, along with the UK's water supply companies for the increasing incidents of pumping sewage into rivers and the sea.

But, it isn't just the water industry that is at fault, but also bad practices when it comes to planning permission for new houses. Many new developments often get pushed through without consideration for soak-away land (flood plain) and also the impact on the water treatment works locally. This is due to the fact that such in water from a storm will lead to the amount of water being collected and transported exceeding the system's capacity, it then has to be released from the system or risk spilling over the ground and causing flooding in other areas of the system. A soak-away, as the name suggests soaks water back into the soil and retention, which holds and redirects the water to another place. It also slows down the rainwater and lessens overloading rivers and streams. Soak-away land also allows the dispersal of rainwater or surface water without its being contaminated with sewage. A good example is what is happening when you remove soak-aways and rely on drainage pipes can be seen more and more within Formby, Merseyside, where land, once soak-away land, is now being built on. This building is leading to the drainage system being overwhelmed easily when it rains and has already resulted in places that have never had flooding being flooded regularly. Many experts suggest to resolve issues like those in Formby, should be done with more thought being put into the building projects. This doesn't mean we can't build new homes. We should instead think of new ways to build. For example, in Germany, all new builds that are in areas that have been soak-away land must now have grass roofs, which will aid by slowing down water flow, and thus reducing pressure on treatment works. Yet, we do not see any requirement in planning rules to do this in the UK.

No matter what is done, we cannot as a nation continue to dump raw sewage into the environment around us. Yet, new regulations passed by Conservative MPs voted through in January 2023 will allow water companies to continue dumping sewage into our rivers and seas for another 15 years.

What are your thoughts? How should the UK Government take on this issue and can we ever get this problem resolved? Please email our newsroom:- News24@SouthportReporter.Com,, with your views on this issue, or send us a message on:- Facebook or Twitter.
Useful related link:- TheRiversTrust.Org.

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