As long as the shareholders don't suffer.

[Psamathe]

Why should the Government be spending money fixing the issue for private companies and their shareholders? The shareholders have been paid billions over the years. I know they did it for banks but they really had no option there. The real question is how the privatisation was dealt with that allowed profits to be taken without the required works being carried out for so long.

I agree but also bottom line becomes we need to try and convert some of our open sewers back into rivers and the shareholders won't do it.

But the aspect you raise to me does justify the Government taking ownership of the water companies without compensating the shareholders (in effect forcing them to pay through loss of their investment).

In effect (some of) the water companies are already bankrupt (were their financial liabilities to comply with the law included on their balance sheets they'd no longer be viable) so Government has the option to just tell shareholders they "invested unwisely". And as raised earlier, we, the public are paying for the needed works anyway either through taxation or through our water bills to private companies (with added mega bonuses for senior staff as a reward for failure).

 

[Pross]

I agree but also bottom line becomes we need to try and convert some of our open sewers back into rivers and the shareholders won't do it.

But the aspect you raise to me does justify the Government taking ownership of the water companies without compensating the shareholders (in effect forcing them to pay through loss of their investment).

In effect (some of) the water companies are already bankrupt (were their financial liabilities to comply with the law included on their balance sheets they'd no longer be viable) so Government has the option to just tell shareholders they "invested unwisely". And as raised earlier, we, the public are paying for the needed works anyway either through taxation or through our water bills to private companies (with added mega bonuses for senior staff as a reward for failure).

Yes, I agree completely. I just don’t see how they were allowed to take dividends from profits that were gained by failing to hit what you would assume to be legally required improvements to the network. Was it badly written legislation or failure by the regulator?

 

[Psamathe]

Thames Water faces row over £1m payment to finance chief
Thames Water has paid its chief financial officer, Steve Buck, a £1m signing fee despite intense scrutiny of Britain’s biggest water company’s finances as it tries to avoid being taken into public control.

The utility revealed that it made the payment last month, in a letter sent last week by Adrian Montague, its chair, to MPs on the environment, food and rural affairs select committee, Sky News first reported.

So they are all but bankrupt, repeatedly breaking pollution laws and regulations, failing to invest and yet them manage to give £1m to a senior employee!

And I guess ultimately that £1m will be coming from public's water bills.

 

[Dorset Boy]

Yes, I agree completely. I just don’t see how they were allowed to take dividends from profits that were gained by failing to hit what you would assume to be legally required improvements to the network. Was it badly written legislation or failure by the regulator?

Almost certainly a combination of the two in bold.

 

[Psamathe]

Given the ongoing drought, everybodies grass lacking any green, etc. I find the number of current sewer discharges quite shocking

from https://www.sewagemap.co.uk from data released by the Water companies under disclosure regulations (ie official data not from activist reporting)

The data provided on the Hub ... is near real-time data detected via Event Duration Monitors (EDM) and sent to each company’s cloud storage system, where it is then transmitted to the map. Companies aim to transmit data on a discharge within an hour of the outfall operating. (https://www.streamwaterdata.co.uk/pages/storm-overflows-data)

 

[Pross]

Given the ongoing drought, everybodies grass lacking any green, etc. I find the number of current sewer discharges quite shocking
View attachment 16945

from https://www.sewagemap.co.uk from data released by the Water companies under disclosure regulations (ie official data not from activist reporting)

Is it live data? The brown seems to coincide with where there were heavy thunderstorms overnight which may explain it as those sudden, heavy downpours are where systems struggle more than under consisent rainfall (not offered as any kind of excuse, just a suggestion for why it is happening).

 

[Psamathe]

Is it live data? The brown seems to coincide with where there were heavy thunderstorms overnight which may explain it as those sudden, heavy downpours are where systems struggle more than under consisent rainfall (not offered as any kind of excuse, just a suggestion for why it is happening).

If you go to the online map, each "discharging" site has one icon for currently discharging and a different one for "Recent discharge" within the last 48 hrs and the details info on the site gives start and end times. I suspect the "in last 48 hrs" is relevant as the moment a discharge stops the pollution does not immediately stop but slowly travels down the river for a fair time hence 48 hrs is in effect "live pollution".

I recognise the recent thunderstorms but our rivers are very very empty, drainage systems not seen much use for ages so I'd nope that starting from such a low level anywhere should be able to cope with a thunderstorm (given thunderstorms are hardly "extreme" weather unknown in the UK).

 

[Pross]

If you go to the online map, each "discharging" site has one icon for currently discharging and a different one for "Recent discharge" within the last 48 hrs and the details info on the site gives start and end times. I suspect the "in last 48 hrs" is relevant as the moment a discharge stops the pollution does not immediately stop but slowly travels down the river for a fair time hence 48 hrs is in effect "live pollution".

I recognise the recent thunderstorms but our rivers are very very empty, drainage systems not seen much use for ages so I'd nope that starting from such a low level anywhere should be able to cope with a thunderstorm (given thunderstorms are hardly "extreme" weather unknown in the UK).

But the discharges will be from overflows into the river system. Basically, once the normal sewer taking flow to the treatment works can no longer cope it goes into an overflow that discharges into the river so the flow in the river and recent longer term rainfall isn't relevant. It all comes down to the capacity of the pipe network to cope with what is flowing into it at the present time i.e. rain that is falling or still draining into the system from the catchment. It's like running the taps into a bath at a faster rate than the plug can allow the water to drain, eventually the bath will overfill - it doesn't matter if you haven't used the bath taps for months.

As the systems are generally historic the pipes haven't been designed to take the level of surface water they are taking both in terms of the impermeable area they are draining and the rainfall intensity that we are starting to get. New surface water systems are designed to accommodate heavier rainfall based on predicted climate change and flows are attenuated so they don't exceed greenfield rates (it is also very unusual that they will be allowed to connect to foul or combined systems).

 

[Psamathe]

But the discharges will be from overflows into the river system. Basically, once the normal sewer taking flow to the treatment works can no longer cope it goes into an overflow that discharges into the river so the flow in the river and recent longer term rainfall isn't relevant. It all comes down to the capacity of the pipe network to cope with what is flowing into it at the present time i.e. rain that is falling or still draining into the system from the catchment. It's like running the taps into a bath at a faster rate than the plug can allow the water to drain, eventually the bath will overfill - it doesn't matter if you haven't used the bath taps for months.

As the systems are generally historic the pipes haven't been designed to take the level of surface water they are taking both in terms of the impermeable area they are draining and the rainfall intensity that we are starting to get. New surface water systems are designed to accommodate heavier rainfall based on predicted climate change and flows are attenuated so they don't exceed greenfield rates (it is also very unusual that they will be allowed to connect to foul or combined systems).

I regard the purpose of the map as being to identify water courses subject to recent pollution. And that pollution from a discharge will continue for an extended time after the discharge has stopped as that sewage flows downstream.

Recent thunderstorms are far from "exceptional" but more pretty standard UK weather. For years we've all been paying the water companies to provide adequate sewage systems ... but they've been taking that money and instead passing it to shareholders. It is reasonable for us to demand what we've been paying for ongoing for years.

 

[Pross]

I regard the purpose of the map as being to identify water courses subject to recent pollution. And that pollution from a discharge will continue for an extended time after the discharge has stopped as that sewage flows downstream.

Recent thunderstorms are far from "exceptional" but more pretty standard UK weather. For years we've all been paying the water companies to provide adequate sewage systems ... but they've been taking that money and instead passing it to shareholders. It is reasonable for us to demand what we've been paying for ongoing for years.

I don't disagree with any of that, just pointing out the likely reason why it is happening despite being in a drought. Sewers work most efficiently with longer term steady flow rather than the sudden heavy downpours and for most systems I've design it has been a short duration summer storm that has been the critical one for sewer capacity. It's a bit like a staircase in Wembley Stadium after the final whistle, it gets clogged more than if you had 5 times the amount of people using it over an hour. The lack of investment in drainage and water infrastructure by companies that have paid out billions in dividends since privatisaion is scandalous.

 

[matticus]

Is it live data? The brown seems to coincide with where there were heavy thunderstorms overnight which may explain it as those sudden, heavy downpours are where systems struggle more than under consisent rainfall (not offered as any kind of excuse, just a suggestion for why it is happening).

In Oxfordshire Thames Water snuck out some discharge a few weeks ago - there'd been less than a mm of rain as I recall.

 

[Psamathe]

Whilst we had a bit of rain last night, local river bed still dry, fords not even got water flowing in ducts under roads, etc. but local sewage works still discharging.

And through a formally declared drought and with a hosepipe ban

 

[Pross]

Again, the capacity of the sewer system isn’t related to how full the rivers are or what the weather trend has been over the longer term. It’s much more immediate based on rainfall in the previous minutes or hours at most.

In an ideal world surface water would be separated into a completely separate system to foul and in these days that would be the case with virtually all new systems but unfortunately large amounts of development in the 19th and 20th centuries went into combined systems that also wouldn’t have been as well engineered. There should be more effort being made in rectifying this but it is a huge task.

 

[dutchguylivingintheuk]

Again, the capacity of the sewer system isn’t related to how full the rivers are or what the weather trend has been over the longer term. It’s much more immediate based on rainfall in the previous minutes or hours at most.

In an ideal world surface water would be separated into a completely separate system to foul and in these days that would be the case with virtually all new systems but unfortunately large amounts of development in the 19th and 20th centuries went into combined systems that also wouldn’t have been as well engineered. There should be more effort being made in rectifying this but it is a huge task.

No but if it's raining too much they need to dump it in the rivers and if it's not raining enough they need to dump it in the rivers, yet they charge more every year for services they don't really seem to provide, i wonder how fast they would come up with working solutions if the government simply says "You dump it in the rivers you don't get to charge your costumers" Then they either go bankrupt which would be an great oppoetunity for the goverment to fix this by then taking control, do the investments and resell the company but keep an controlling stake so we dont have the same problem 10/15 years on. and if they don't go bankrupt they are forced to make the investments to create enough capacity to not needing to dump raw sewage.

 

[Pross]

No but if it's raining too much they need to dump it in the rivers and if it's not raining enough they need to dump it in the rivers, yet they charge more every year for services they don't really seem to provide, i wonder how fast they would come up with working solutions if the government simply says "You dump it in the rivers you don't get to charge your costumers" Then they either go bankrupt which would be an great oppoetunity for the goverment to fix this by then taking control, do the investments and resell the company but keep an controlling stake so we dont have the same problem 10/15 years on. and if they don't go bankrupt they are forced to make the investments to create enough capacity to not needing to dump raw sewage.

Sure, I've already said several times that the lack of investment in favour of profits for investors is scandalous (and borderline criminal you would think). My posts have just been trying to explain why we are getting discharge from overflows despite being in a drought with very low river levels i.e. the capacity of a combined sewer isn't related to how much water there is in the river (unless the outfall becomes choked by high river levels).