Water companies have claimed they will cut sewage spills by 150,000 a year by the end of the decade, as they laid out a plan for tackling river pollution.

An online map published today shows where improvements will be made to curb spills in waterways, down to the level of individual storm overflow pipes. It will include new storm tanks to stop sewers being overwhelmed. [From the Times]

However, the map accompanying the National Storm Overflow Plan for England, ordered by the government, reveals that roughly 5,000 of about 14,000 overflows will not receive improvements by 2050. Water sector figures fear that risks a backlash from the public in areas that will miss out.

It also appears to fall short of a demand by the former environment secretary, Thérèse Coffey, 13 months ago who said all water companies must deliver “a clear plan for what they are doing on every storm overflow”.

[Owl -The interactive map is complicated and won’t win any prizes for using “plain English” but it does contain a lot of information. Here, by way of illustration are three screen shots. The first gives an overview of East Devon including the catchment areas of the Exe, Otter and Axe. This shows that the spills into our rivers will be the last to be cleaned up.

The second zooms in on our coast.

The third illustrates the history and projection of spills available for each outlet, in this case the Imperial Road CSO in Exmouth. From a baseline of 14 spills a year now, SWW estimate they won’t even halve that number by 2050! So you really need to read the “small print”.]

Update: see more details in this second post.

Back to the Times article…..

Adam Vaughan Environment Editor, The Times print edition 12 March.

The plan comes at a sensitive time for the water industry. Companies are braced for official figures this month that are expected to show a huge increase in sewage spills. That is because last year was wetter than normal, 2022 was drier than usual and the number of pipes being monitored rose to 100 per cent by last December.

The industry body Water UK said that it expected its new plan to cut 150,000 sewage spills by 2030, a 40 per cent reduction compared with the 372,000 that were recorded in 2020. The government’s plan had envisaged a cut of 64,000 sewage spills by 2030.

New infrastructure, which can vary from storm tanks to wetlands and “sustainable urban drainage systems” to slow the flow of rainwater into sewers, will be focused first on bathing waters and ecologically important waters including sites of special scientific interest. Great Britain’s longest river, the Severn, is set to have a 77 percent reduction in sewage spills.

Water companies are expected to spend in the region of £60 billion between now and 2050 to end the scourge of raw sewage being dumped when it rains, due to the way rainwater and sewage are collected in the same pipes.

The investment between 2025 and 2030 is expected to push up the average house-

hold water bill by about £13 a year. However, the amount will vary widely around the country. United Utilities, which covers northwest England, is expected to account for £3.1 billion of the water sector’s £10.2 billion slated for cutting spills between 2025 and 2030. On the flipside, it is expected to have the biggest reduction in spills, with the new map suggesting about 58,000 fewer spills by 2030. The Times Clean it Up campaign has

been urging regulators and politicians to sign off on new investment plans totalling £96 billion by 2030, with tariffs to protect the most vulnerable in society. A decision is expected by Ofwat this summer.

Water UK said the government could deliver on ten of its past commitments to help speed up the elimination of sewage spills. The list of ideas includes a 14-month-old promise to mandate ponds and other green drainage systems in new-build housing developments in England, and banning the sale of plastic wet wipes. The government said it was committed to banning wet wipes.

“The ban on wet wipes has now been announced in 2018, 2021 and then last April and yet they are still being sold by the millions, and are still clogging up our sewage system and polluting our rivers with microplastics,” Charles Watson, chairman of the campaign group River Action, said.

The water minister Robbie Moore said: “As part of our drive to improve transparency, we demanded these storm overflow action plans were created by industry and we will now closely scrutinise them to ensure significant action is taken to reduce harmful and unnecessary discharges.”