10 Wednesday January 19 2022 | the timesNews
Water companies have illegally spilt
sewage from treatment works into
rivers more than 3,000 times in the past
five years, an analysis of industry data
has revealed.
The illegal spills polluted many rivers
popular with wild swimmers as well as
ten protected chalk streams that are
havens for otters, water voles, kingfish-
ers and trout, according to the report by
Professor Peter Hammond, of the
group Windrush Against Sewage
Pollution (WASP).
The report shows that illegal sewage
spills are occurring far more frequently
than official Environment Agency
records suggest.
Hammond said that the total number
of illegal spills nationally was likely to
be many times higher than the 3,000 he
had detected because he had been able
to analyse data obtained from water
companies for only 58 out of about
6,000 treatment works. He found ille-
gal spills at 56 of the 58, which suggest-
ed that the problem extended right
across the industry, he said.
The Environment Agency had failed
to request the relevant data from water
companies and had therefore grossly
underestimated the scale of the prob-
lem and allowed it to continue un-
checked, Hammond added.
“Any bright sixth-former could have
generated the charts we used to detect
illegal spills,” he said.
The River Wharfe in West Yorkshire,
which last year became the first river to
have a stretch designated as a bathing
water, received at least 93 illegal spills
between 2017 and 2021, the report says.
Chichester and Langstone harbours,
which are conservation areas, received
more than 300 illegal spills, and the
Test, a chalk stream prized by anglers,
had 48, according to the report.
Many of the spills lasted for long
periods, with Southern Water’s Chich-
ester sewage treatment works dis-
charging almost continuously between
December 2019 and March 2020.
The highest number of illegal spills
occurred at Thames Water’s Stanton
Harcourt works in Oxfordshire, which
discharged 266 times into tributaries of
the Thames. Dorking works, also
owned by Thames Water, discharged
into the River Mole 223 times.
Sewage discharges from treatment
works are permitted only when the
system is overwhelmed by rainfall and
they have reached a minimum level of
processing.
Hammond, a former professor of
computational biology at University
College London, compared data from
meters showing when works spilt and
how much they processed every 15
minutes. He also analysed weather
records and discounted any spills that
took place within two days of rainfall.
This allowed him to work out when
works had spilt illegally, either because
there had been no rain or because theyhad failed to meet the minimum proc-
essing level.
Hammond found that seven water
companies were regularly spilling ille-
gally: Southern Water, South West
Water, Thames Water, Welsh Water,
Wessex Water, Yorkshire Water andUnited Utilities. WASP was unable to
obtain relevant data from Anglian
Water, Northumbrian Water and
Severn Trent Water.
In November the Environment
Agency and Ofwat announced that
they had begun an investigation intosuspected illegal spills at more than
2,000 sewage works. Hammond said he
had first informed the agency and
Ofwat in 2019 that they were failing to
detect illegal spills and questioned why
they had taken so long to act.
Sir James Bevan, the agency’s chiefexecutive, said yesterday that the worst
corporate polluters should face fines
that put a “major dent” in their bottom
lines and their bosses should be jailed.
Water UK, which represents water
companies, said: “Although we don’t
agree with all aspects of the methodol-
ogy and conclusions in this report, in
highlighting the need for a new
approach to overflows it reflects what
water companies themselves have been
saying for some time.”
Southern Water said: “We know
there is more we need to do to improve
the health of our rivers and seas.”
Thames Water said: “We’ve received
the report and will be looking at it care-
fully in the coming days. We regard all
discharges of untreated sewage as
unacceptable.”
Wessex Water said: “We are working
through Professor Hammond’s de-
tailed modelling to verify the data he
has calculated for overflow use.”
United Utilities said: “We take our
environmental responsibilities very
seriously. The issue of wastewater dis-
charges is now the subject of a national
regulatory investigation and as a result
we cannot comment any further.”
Yorkshire Water said the data had
been misinterpreted and “overwhelm-
ingly shows these works are operating
within their permits”. Welsh Water said
the report contained inaccuracies but
“improving the performance of our
CSOs [combined sewer overflows] is
already a key priority for us”.
The Environment Agency said:
“Where there is evidence of non-com-
pliance we will not hesitate to pursue
the water companies concerned, and
take appropriate action — as is evi-
denced by the conclusion of seven pros-
ecutions against water and sewerage
companies in 2021.”Professor Peter Hammond, right, monitoring pollution in the Windrush, Oxfordshire, with fellow campaigner Ashley SmithThousands of sewage spills ruin rivers
Ben Webster Environment Editor Dirtiest rivers
The worst of those analysed for
illegal sewage spills1 River Tame
308
2 River Thames
249
3 River Mole
223
4 River Wey
193
5 River Till, Avon
1916 River Rother
156
7 River Lavant
147
8 River Culm
129
9 River Wharfe
93
10 River Usk
87
Source: Windrush Against Sewage Pollution910(^85)
1
2
4
3
6
7
Number of spills
TIMES PHOTOGRAPHER RICHARD POHLE
P
rofessor Peter
Hammond is the
clean rivers
campaigner
most feared by
water companies (Ben
Webster writes).
Anglers, canoeists and
wild swimmers have
complained for decades
about sewage pollution,
but companies bat away
their petitions and
protests.
Hammond, 71, takes a
different approach,
attacking companies with
their own data. He and
other campaigners use
transparency rules to
obtain millions of lines of
data, and Hammond
writes software to make
sense of it.
The retired
mathematician, who
spent the last part of his
career at Oxford
University’s Big Data
Institute, starts work at
5am, collating
information from
campaigners around the
country. He typically
spends eight hours a day,
seven days a week, on his
river campaign work.
He helped to form
Windrush Against
Sewage Pollution (Wasp)
after witnessing the slow
death of wildlife in a
tributary of the Thames
that runs through the
garden of his mill house
in Oxfordshire.
Until about a decade
ago the Windrush was
teeming with trout and
grayling feeding on
abundant mayflies.
He often saw otters,
herons, swans and grass
snakes. But the wildlife
gradually disappeared as
the crystal-clear water
turned grey, and golden
gravel on the riverbed
and swirling fronds of
river weed became
choked with sewage
fungus.
Hammond says that the
decline started about ten
years ago, soon after the
start of self-monitoring
by water companies of
their sewage works.
The government and
water industry have been
taking much more
interest in Wasp’s work
since Hammond gave
evidence on it last April
to the Commons
environmental audit
committee. Rebecca Pow,
an environment minister,
invited him to a meeting,
and Sarah Bentley, chief
executive of Thames
Water, travelled to
Oxfordshire in July to
meet him and other
campaigners.
Ash Smith, 64, a
retired detective
superintendent and now
a Wasp campaigner,
said: “If the water
companies had invested
enough to prevent the
extensive illegal activity
we have detected, it is
questionable whether
they would have made
any profit.
“Therefore it seems
to me that the bonuses
and dividends they
have given to executives
and shareholders could
be considered the
proceeds of crime.”
Profile
Scourge of polluters fought back after falling sick windsurfing
Case study
M
ike Owens
founded
Hayling
Sewage
Watch after
repeatedly becoming sick
after windsurfing off
Hayling Island in
Hampshire (Ben Webster
writes).
Owens, 62, a firefighter,
suspected that the cause
was raw sewage spilling
into the sea, but struggled
to get information from
Southern Water. He has
been contacted over the
past six years by many
other people who also fell
ill after swimming,
paddling or taking part in
water sports.
Pressure from
campaigners prompted
Southern Water to
introduce Beachbuoy, an
online map that was
launched in 2018 and
since 2020 has been
giving near real-time
information about sewage
releases.
Several sewage works
spill directly into
Langstone and Chichester
harbours on either side of
Hayling Island. They are
meant to be protected as
conservation areas and
sites of special scientific
interest. The works are
allowed to spill after
heavy rain but Professor
Peter Hammond’s report,
which used data gathered
by Owens, has revealed
they have spilt illegally
into the harbours more
than 300 times since 2017.
“It’s completely
unacceptable to be
pumping so much crap
into our harbour,” Owens
said. “I know a lot of
people who won’t even go
into the water because
they fear being poisoned.”
In October a video
taken by a drone captured
a huge plume of sewage
spewing from a pipe into
Langstone Harbour. The
spill lasted for 49 hours
and the video went viral.
The company said the
spill was not illegal and
that the brown colour was
from silt on the harbour
bed being stirred up.
Southern Water was
fined £90 million last July
for illegally spilling
billions of litres of sewage
into protected seas from
2010 to 2015. Ian
McAulay, its chief
executive since 2017,
apologised for “historic
incidents”, adding: “We
have changed the way we
operate.”
Katy Taylor, chief
customer officer for
Southern Water, said in
response to Hammond’s
report: “Transparency
about our performance is
really important to us.
Any release of sewage,
whether permitted or not,
is reported to the
Environment Agency and
published on our own
website. While we are
proud of our contribution
towards 78 of 83 of the
bathing waters in our
region being rated as
good or excellent, we
know there is more we
need to do.
“To improve our
performance we are
investing £2 billion over
the next five years, with a
commitment to cut 80 per
cent of our pollution
incidents by 2025 and
80 per cent of storm
overflows by 2030.”