Thread by @docrussjackson

#THREAD

'Sewage pollution incidents' – many legal – increased 29-fold between 2017 & 2022 and countless urban rivers are now effectively extensions of the sewerage network.

Just 14% of rivers in England have “good” ecological status.

#TorySewageParty

manchester.ac.uk/discover/news/…

https://twitter.com/Conservatives/status/1659219125690855427

In the absence of effective regulation since the Environment Agency’s monitoring budget was slashed just over a decade ago, dumping sewage in rivers has contributed to a spectacularly profitable business model.

Water companies paid out £1.4BILLION in dividends last year.

There is something missing in existing data. Sewage discharges to rivers are recorded by sensors known as event duration monitors. These measure the start & end time of any flow, but are rarely set up to measure the volume of that flow. This leaves the data open to manipulation.

Was an “event” 100 litres or 1 billion litres? 1 billion might sound far-fetched, but Mogden sewage works next to Twickenham Stadium discharged over 1 billion litres of sewage directly into the River Thames on each of two days in October 2021.

theguardian.com/environment/20…

So a water company could in theory reduce the duration and frequency of discharge events – turning the above map from red to green – but still increase the total amount of sewage dumped into rivers.

The absence of reliable baseline data on sewage dumping is a major problem.

Research has shown that water companies have not reported the full scale of their discharges. The Environment Agency has a poor record of sewage pollution data scrutiny & several water companies routinely decline environmental information requests.

bbc.co.uk/news/uk-600401…

The 2021 Environment Act requires them to make near real-time data about the frequency & duration of sewage discharges publicly available no later than 2025.

But if the Govt’s plans to reduce sewage dumping are to be realised, we still need to know wastewater discharge volumes.

The Environmental Audit Committee made such a recommendation in its landmark 2022 report on river pollution, but the government argued it was too expensive.

If Thérèse Coffey is serious about tackling this scandal, she must reverse that decision.

committees.parliament.uk/publications/8…

In other aquatic news...

https://twitter.com/docrussjackson/status/1659529125470535680?s=20