How British lakes and rivers became sewage dumps

The "jewel in the crown" of the Lake District National Park, is "being used as an open sewer", in the words of one anti-pollution campaigner, as a BBC investigation revealed that, between 2021 and 2023, United Utilities illegally dumped more than 143 million litres of raw sewage into Lake Windermere.

Although wastewater is usually sent to a sewage treatment works, water companies are allowed to release untreated sewage at designated times when heavy rainfall threatens to overwhelm capacity and risk homes being flooded.

But Lake Windemere is just one of the cases where this has been done prematurely: according to industry regulator Ofwat, several water companies have been "routinely releasing sewage" into UK waterways outside times of heavy downpours - a practice known as dry spilling.

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

A 'dismal tale'

Under the terms of the company's environmental permit, United Utilities is allowed to discharge untreated sewage into Windermere during heavy rainfall, as long as it was pumping at least 245 litres of sewage per second to the treatment works.

That condition is supposed to "protect Windermere", said the BBC, but the broadcaster found that the company regularly released sewage into the lake at times when it was not sending the agreed amount for treatment. Instead, sewage that should have been going to the sewage works was being dumped directly into Windermere.

Although any permit breaches should be reported to the Environment Agency, the BBC found that at least 118 of the 165 hours of unauthorised dumping was not reported to the environmental regulator.

The "instinctive reverence for Britain's natural treasure", which has been "shared by so many visitors", seems "alien" to United Utilities, said The Times editorial board. The water company's disregard for the Environment Agency is a "dismal tale" of "rule-breaking and seeming cover-up".

'Great Stink'

Privatisation and the "pursuit of profit" have "lead to the devastation of England’s waterways", said Will Dunn in New Statesman. According to the Environment Agency, sewage spills into England's lakes, rivers and seas by water companies more than doubled in 2023, with 3.6 million hours of spills, compared to 1.75 million hours in 2022.

Although 69% of Britons believe water should be renationalised, none of the major political parties is committed to doing so. The "political implications" of the "new Great Stink" could become even more significant because the finances of Britain's privatised water industry, which has taken on debts of more than £60bn since it was privatised in 1989, are "if anything more putrid than the rivers it pollutes", said Dunn.

As efforts grow to tackle the issue, householders can expect to foot at least part of the bill. Last autumn, industry body Water UK announced plans to almost double spending to pay for upgrades and cut sewage discharges, in "most ambitious modernisation of sewers since the Victorian era".

The body warned that customer bills would have to rise by £156 a year to cover the cost and the exact increase for households over the next five year period is expected to be announced in December.