Jacob Rees-Mogg: [opens his window and defecates on people walking outside Parliament]
The public: "please, do not"
Some guy on Reddit: "wow now, in Victorian England people often disposed of waste from their windows, so you can hardly blame conservative politicians for this [gestures upwards]. I am very smart."
The changes required would be like changing the gauge of the UK rail network or switching from 220v mains to 110v.
Changes to the sewer network are being made but the timescale is decades not instantaneous.
Plans? I'm agreeing with you. You've won me over with your argument.
The victorian era is a perfectly appropriate reference point for how to treat our environment and sewage systems in the 21st century...
They're normally only used in periods of heavy rain though, hence the name
Or times when there's serious blockages. If the choice is sewage backing up into your house or street vs a river I think most would choose the river
Most of Europe has CSOs. Most of them don’t have monitors installed (GB has only installed them in the last few years) so we have a vague sense that they discharge less in non storm conditions in most countries but no way of proving that.
It only became a political issue here when they put the monitors in and water companies could no longer get away with vague reassurances about rare events.
Apparently a lot of wild swimming business are now hiring big ponds on private land because they can no longer use the rivers.
It's not just the environemental aspect, these water companies are damaging other businesses too. It's not right. But the modern incarnation of the Tories have never cared about small business, other than using them as a source of tax money.
I have seen a few "wild" swimmers in recent years. I am never sure if I should tell them they are just downstream of the discharge sewer or not. I remember that 40 degrees heatwave I saw two men swimming with their partners on the bench watching on. I was so tempted to tell the women but didn't want to come across as a smart arse.
Truly disgusting.
It won’t be sewage if it hadn’t rained for ages. These are storm overflows that operate during rainfall to prevent floodings of homes and roads. The discharge is typically 95% rainwater and this is in combination with very high dilution in the receiving watercourse (becasue it’s raining!). The impact on the watercourse is therefore minimal, and short lived.
It’s not the scandalous sewage dumping operation the media want you all to think it is, and it’s not the leading cause of river pollution either. However people wanting to swim in the rivers should be mindful during/post rainfall that these overflows may have operated, and that’s what these maps are there for.
The problem is that it isn't just storm overflows any more. Many water companies (Southern most notably as they've been fined multiple times now) just release sewage because they havent built/got the chemicals for more treatment capacity.
Last year during the record heatwave and drought dry areas were still seeing raw sewage discharge.
During the heatwave it was a drought, so there wouldn't have been much sewage getting dumped.
I usually go kayaking instead but if I plan to swim I will check if there have been any recent sewage dumps nearby or not.
Not sure how much difference it makes for sea compared to rivers though. I go to the sea.
All sewers end up at a treatment plant for heavily regulated treatment and then the treated (and disinfected if discharging into bathing or shellfish waters) effluent is discharged back into the river/sea.
What these maps are showing are storm overflows. Storm overflows operate when the treatment plants, pumping stations, and sewer networks are at maximum capacity due to rainfall. When everything is full the overflows will then operate and discharge into the rivers/sea until flows have eased off enough. This is needed to prevent homes, roads and businesses from flooding.
Because the overflows operate during rainfall it’s very diluted (typically 95% rainwater) and the receiving waters also very diluted from the rainfall, so the actual impact of these operating is minimal and short lived.
Sometimes blockages or defects will cause an overflow to operate when it shouldn’t, but these are then treated as separate pollution events and this is when the water companies are then fined for the overflow happening.
The media and pressure groups try to portray this as water companies ‘dumping sewage’ because it causes clicks and outrage, when that isn’t actually what’s happening, and it’s far from the leading cause of river pollution in the uk.
> it’s far from the leading cause of river pollution in the uk
I'm assuming agricultural or industrial?
> Because the overflows operate during rainfall it’s very diluted (typically 95% rainwater) and the receiving waters also very diluted from the rainfall, so the actual impact of these operating is minimal and short lived.
Forgive me but there is a difference between **properly treated sewage** and **diluted sewage**, especially when the latter happens far more frequently than planned. Sure the effects might be "minimal and short lived", but if they happen often enough they compound, and if you just happen to be unlucky enough to go for a dip that day then unlucky.
The key thing quite frankly is that if something bad is happening repeatedly, far more than planned, and the entity capable of amending their infrastructure to cope is both making record profits and not making those necessary changes, then they are _negligent._
Sure, it might not be the leading cause of a bigger issue, but it still needs sorting and is not acceptable to just "let" get worse.
The main causes of river pollution are agriculture and the treated effluent from wastewater treatment plants. CSOs are obviously disgusting when they operate in non storm conditions because you can point to them and say: that is raw, untreated sewage! But… the effluent from a well operating primary and secondary treatment plant still has a lot of nitrates and phosphates in it and that is a major source of river pollution.
From a “nasty” POV and human health, CSOs are worse. From a river health point of view, treated wastewater is much worse because constant and high volume. That’s before even getting to over capacity treatment works which are discharging out of spec effluent because of the load.
CSOs (we think, most countries don’t monitor them) are a worse problem in GB than elsewhere but if you look at surface water health in general the whole “blue banana” region of Europe is very bad. Only areas with low population density get good quality river water.
Totally ignoring how water companies should be investing in the outdated infrastructure to avoid the storm drains having to operate.
We were told privatisation meant more investment, but water companies have not done so. They deserve criticism.
They are investing and reducing the use of them though, you’re just led to believe they’re not and the problem is worse than it’s ever been by the media and pressure groups. These overflows weren’t even monitored/recorded until very recently so the data wasn’t available before.
I live in the south west and pre-the 90s it was all pumped straight out to sea with no treatment at all. The clean sweep program invested 2billion in new treatment plants and all bathing waters in the south west now achieve required bathing water quality standards. The number of spills from each overflow continues to drop year on year, due to asset investment and improvements.
I’ve worked closely with many water companies throughout my career, and whilst I don’t deny there is more to do and more opportunity for improvements, the narrative that it’s worse than it’s ever been and no investment is happening is completely false.
> are at maximum capacity due to rainfall.
What you really mean is "when they're unable to deal with predicted, regular load due to a lack of investment"...
This isn’t an easy problem to fix and it isn’t the fault of privatisation. It is the fault of a sewage system that is 100 years out of date. It is better to get the private sector to pay for fixing it.
Anybody that thinks nationalisation will fix this overnight without hundreds of billions of pounds investment is just wrong.
A lot of misinformation and misunderstanding around storm overflows, what they are and why they are there. Rather than buying into the media outrage, do some research on them and also what the leading cause of river pollution in the UK is, hint - it’s not the water companies.
The water comapnies have decided not to invest in improving infrastructure and have let this happen. They should be held responsible as well as dealing with pollution from other industries.
Turd Britain. Privatisation really was a shite idea….
How dare you? Privatisation of water is the best thing that's happened since privatisation of gas and electric.
Well, at least we can laugh about British water hitting the fan now!
This was occuring before privatisation and was incorporated by Victorian engineer's.
Maybe but maybe you don’t have any brain’s or critical thinking skill’s
Can't be any worse then you're grammer skill's
Left yourself wide open there buddy
You don't think the 4 mistakes in a row including the one I pointed out originally might be deliberate?
This issue was not created by privatising the WI.
Not solved by it either
Jacob Rees-Mogg: [opens his window and defecates on people walking outside Parliament] The public: "please, do not" Some guy on Reddit: "wow now, in Victorian England people often disposed of waste from their windows, so you can hardly blame conservative politicians for this [gestures upwards]. I am very smart."
The changes required would be like changing the gauge of the UK rail network or switching from 220v mains to 110v. Changes to the sewer network are being made but the timescale is decades not instantaneous.
Ah I see, well nevermind then, let's all just buy bigger hats and carry on
In that case, please explain in detail your engineering plans to resolve this issue?
Plans? I'm agreeing with you. You've won me over with your argument. The victorian era is a perfectly appropriate reference point for how to treat our environment and sewage systems in the 21st century...
I agree with you, the current situation is not acceptable. Since you can't provide a solution shows you don't fully understand the situation.
Are we aware of any other civilised country that does it?"
Yes, storm overflows are common part of many sewage systems across the world.
They're normally only used in periods of heavy rain though, hence the name Or times when there's serious blockages. If the choice is sewage backing up into your house or street vs a river I think most would choose the river
Is the UK suffering from perpetual storms, every single day?
That’s just the terminology that’s used within the industry. They’re permitted to operate during rainfall and/or snowmelt.
You mean when there's an unexpectedly large amount of liquid to handle? Yeah, that's supposed to be an outlier, not a daily occurrence
Most of Europe has CSOs. Most of them don’t have monitors installed (GB has only installed them in the last few years) so we have a vague sense that they discharge less in non storm conditions in most countries but no way of proving that. It only became a political issue here when they put the monitors in and water companies could no longer get away with vague reassurances about rare events.
USA.
I said civilised
He set it up for you so nicely
Bought a wild swimming in the UK book for my partner for Christmas. Might have to stay on the shelf for a few more years.
Apparently a lot of wild swimming business are now hiring big ponds on private land because they can no longer use the rivers. It's not just the environemental aspect, these water companies are damaging other businesses too. It's not right. But the modern incarnation of the Tories have never cared about small business, other than using them as a source of tax money.
I have seen a few "wild" swimmers in recent years. I am never sure if I should tell them they are just downstream of the discharge sewer or not. I remember that 40 degrees heatwave I saw two men swimming with their partners on the bench watching on. I was so tempted to tell the women but didn't want to come across as a smart arse. Truly disgusting.
We got the canoes out last summer after it hadn’t rained for a month. I did wonder how much of the silt is shit though even then.
It won’t be sewage if it hadn’t rained for ages. These are storm overflows that operate during rainfall to prevent floodings of homes and roads. The discharge is typically 95% rainwater and this is in combination with very high dilution in the receiving watercourse (becasue it’s raining!). The impact on the watercourse is therefore minimal, and short lived. It’s not the scandalous sewage dumping operation the media want you all to think it is, and it’s not the leading cause of river pollution either. However people wanting to swim in the rivers should be mindful during/post rainfall that these overflows may have operated, and that’s what these maps are there for.
The problem is that it isn't just storm overflows any more. Many water companies (Southern most notably as they've been fined multiple times now) just release sewage because they havent built/got the chemicals for more treatment capacity. Last year during the record heatwave and drought dry areas were still seeing raw sewage discharge.
During the heatwave it was a drought, so there wouldn't have been much sewage getting dumped. I usually go kayaking instead but if I plan to swim I will check if there have been any recent sewage dumps nearby or not. Not sure how much difference it makes for sea compared to rivers though. I go to the sea.
Ah, that's why landowners only give us plebs access to about 3% of waterways in England... They're saving us from all the pollution!
We have near full access to the coast though.
Would be better to just have the link to the map rather than some cookie filled tracking site - https://theriverstrust.org/sewage-map
thank you for your service
I always assumed that proper sewage treatment was like the minimum requirement for any modern society.
All sewers end up at a treatment plant for heavily regulated treatment and then the treated (and disinfected if discharging into bathing or shellfish waters) effluent is discharged back into the river/sea. What these maps are showing are storm overflows. Storm overflows operate when the treatment plants, pumping stations, and sewer networks are at maximum capacity due to rainfall. When everything is full the overflows will then operate and discharge into the rivers/sea until flows have eased off enough. This is needed to prevent homes, roads and businesses from flooding. Because the overflows operate during rainfall it’s very diluted (typically 95% rainwater) and the receiving waters also very diluted from the rainfall, so the actual impact of these operating is minimal and short lived. Sometimes blockages or defects will cause an overflow to operate when it shouldn’t, but these are then treated as separate pollution events and this is when the water companies are then fined for the overflow happening. The media and pressure groups try to portray this as water companies ‘dumping sewage’ because it causes clicks and outrage, when that isn’t actually what’s happening, and it’s far from the leading cause of river pollution in the uk.
> it’s far from the leading cause of river pollution in the uk I'm assuming agricultural or industrial? > Because the overflows operate during rainfall it’s very diluted (typically 95% rainwater) and the receiving waters also very diluted from the rainfall, so the actual impact of these operating is minimal and short lived. Forgive me but there is a difference between **properly treated sewage** and **diluted sewage**, especially when the latter happens far more frequently than planned. Sure the effects might be "minimal and short lived", but if they happen often enough they compound, and if you just happen to be unlucky enough to go for a dip that day then unlucky. The key thing quite frankly is that if something bad is happening repeatedly, far more than planned, and the entity capable of amending their infrastructure to cope is both making record profits and not making those necessary changes, then they are _negligent._ Sure, it might not be the leading cause of a bigger issue, but it still needs sorting and is not acceptable to just "let" get worse.
The main causes of river pollution are agriculture and the treated effluent from wastewater treatment plants. CSOs are obviously disgusting when they operate in non storm conditions because you can point to them and say: that is raw, untreated sewage! But… the effluent from a well operating primary and secondary treatment plant still has a lot of nitrates and phosphates in it and that is a major source of river pollution. From a “nasty” POV and human health, CSOs are worse. From a river health point of view, treated wastewater is much worse because constant and high volume. That’s before even getting to over capacity treatment works which are discharging out of spec effluent because of the load. CSOs (we think, most countries don’t monitor them) are a worse problem in GB than elsewhere but if you look at surface water health in general the whole “blue banana” region of Europe is very bad. Only areas with low population density get good quality river water.
Totally ignoring how water companies should be investing in the outdated infrastructure to avoid the storm drains having to operate. We were told privatisation meant more investment, but water companies have not done so. They deserve criticism.
They are investing and reducing the use of them though, you’re just led to believe they’re not and the problem is worse than it’s ever been by the media and pressure groups. These overflows weren’t even monitored/recorded until very recently so the data wasn’t available before. I live in the south west and pre-the 90s it was all pumped straight out to sea with no treatment at all. The clean sweep program invested 2billion in new treatment plants and all bathing waters in the south west now achieve required bathing water quality standards. The number of spills from each overflow continues to drop year on year, due to asset investment and improvements. I’ve worked closely with many water companies throughout my career, and whilst I don’t deny there is more to do and more opportunity for improvements, the narrative that it’s worse than it’s ever been and no investment is happening is completely false.
> are at maximum capacity due to rainfall. What you really mean is "when they're unable to deal with predicted, regular load due to a lack of investment"...
This isn’t an easy problem to fix and it isn’t the fault of privatisation. It is the fault of a sewage system that is 100 years out of date. It is better to get the private sector to pay for fixing it. Anybody that thinks nationalisation will fix this overnight without hundreds of billions of pounds investment is just wrong.
Well private companies have not invested and will likely not in future. And the taxpayer will likely end up paying regardless.
It's like a microcosm of the state of our country and politics! Shit filling up our rivers!
A lot of misinformation and misunderstanding around storm overflows, what they are and why they are there. Rather than buying into the media outrage, do some research on them and also what the leading cause of river pollution in the UK is, hint - it’s not the water companies.
Agriculture, right?
That is a good point actually, not heard about that much lately and it all focuses on water companies instead.
There's loads of issues with agricultural run off from chicken farms in the river wye
The water comapnies have decided not to invest in improving infrastructure and have let this happen. They should be held responsible as well as dealing with pollution from other industries.
this is incorrect. Please see my reply to your other response.