Ofwat in the dock over sewage discharge, says academic
- Scientist Jamie Woodward accuses regulators of being ‘asleep at the wheel’
- ‘Petty cash’ fines compared to huge dividends paid to shareholders
- Ofwat intervened until last week, despite being aware of illegal dumping ‘for years’
Disgraceful: Professor Jamie Woodward next to an outflow pipe on the River Tame
The scientist who exposed water companies illegally discharging raw sewage into rivers accused regulators this weekend of being “asleep at the wheel”.
Jamie Woodward, professor of physical geography at the University of Manchester, said the £168m fine imposed last week on three water companies – Thames, Yorkshire and Northumbrian – for failing to stop repeated discharges of untreated sewage into waterways was “small money” compared to the huge dividends they had paid to shareholders.
The academic added that Ofwat had only taken action last week, despite the company having known about the illegal discharge of sewage “for years”.
Water companies are allowed to discharge untreated sewage into rivers, but only in exceptional cases, for example after heavy rainfall.
According to the Environment Agency (EA), the number of discharges of sewage into English rivers and seas by water companies more than doubled last year to a total of 3.6 million hours. It is not known how many of the 464,000 discharges from storm overflow pipes occurred illegally on dry days, as water companies are not required to report a link between discharges and the weather.
Woodward’s groundbreaking research linked the huge amounts of microplastics found in a local riverbed near Manchester to discharges of untreated sewage that fell outside permitted conditions.
Microplastics are small particles found in everyday items such as synthetic clothing or wet wipes that enter the wastewater system when they are washed or flushed.
They are harmful to aquatic life, but existing sewage treatment processes can remove the vast majority. Fragments that settle on riverbeds are normally washed out to sea after flooding.
Their presence therefore implies that there has been a spill of untreated sewage on dry days, when this is illegal. Woodward and his team from the university’s geography unit found that huge concentrations of microplastics remained in the River Tame beneath the sewage treatment works of United Utilities, the local water monopoly, even when it had not rained. The presence of these microplastic hotspots, which can form in dry weather and low water levels, “provides very clear evidence that untreated sewage is routinely being discharged outside the conditions permitted by EA permits,” Woodward told colleagues investigating the scandal.
In addition to the three companies fined last week, eight other companies are being investigated for sewage discharges. Ofwat recently expanded its investigation to include four more suppliers, including United Utilities and Severn Trent.
“The regulators should have done what we did,” Woodward told the Mail on Sunday.
‘Instead, water companies reported (sewage discharges) themselves and essentially checked their own homework, while the supervisors simply ticked it off.
‘Ofwat and the Environment Agency have been asleep at the wheel. What on earth have they been doing for the last ten years?’
Information on the date and time of sewage discharges is not yet available in a consistent format. It should be available later this year as a single national live feed. Regulators also do not record the volume of sewage discharges.
“We need full transparency, but the water companies have tried to block it,” Woodward said. According to experts, water regulators’ budgets for overseeing water companies have been slashed since 2010, while money has been pumped into improving flood protection instead.
Ofwat said it shared “the public’s anger at the environmental performance of water companies”.
A spokesman said: ‘Our investigation into the remaining companies continues and if we find any shortcomings we will take action.’ United Utilities said treated wastewater and rainwater were a ‘pathway for microplastics’ but there were ‘many other sources’ of plastic waste that were part of ‘a wider societal problem’.
The EA said it first became aware of the scale of non-compliance in 2021, due to increased monitoring.
“Since 2015, we have completed 61 prosecutions against water and sewerage companies for pollution offences, resulting in fines of more than £150 million,” a spokesperson said.
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