Unlimited fines for dumping sewage

[dixi188]

I accept that a lot of the drainage infrastructure in the UK is old, but, why isn't there a rolling program of replacement that splits rainwater from sewage so that heavy rain does not overwhelm the sewage works. Alternatively, why aren't sewage works expanded to cope with the excess? I know, cost.

There are a lot of new houses being built around here but I don't see the sewage works getting bigger. In Wimborne there is a new estate that seems to have slusge tankers taking sewage away on a regular basis, so I assume the sewage system cannot cope.

At my last house we had a septic tank that had a lot of rainwater going into it as some lazy builder didn't dig a soakaway. We had a lot of problems as the field below our garden would flood with smelly effluent bubbling up through the ground. I solved the problem by digging around the house to divert all the rainwater from the gutters into new waste pipes that led to a garden pond. The pond would overflow when there was a lot of rain but no more smelly stuff.

[matty40s]

16 minutes ago, dixi188 said:

I accept that a lot of the drainage infrastructure in the UK is old, but, why isn't there a rolling program of replacement that splits rainwater from sewage so that heavy rain does not overwhelm the sewage works. Alternatively, why aren't sewage works expanded to cope with the excess? I know, cost.

No, not cost, it's because the companies are far more interested in paying dividends to shareholders and announcing record profits.

Doing something about it would involve a change of company direction and strategy.

[Alway Swilby]

If everyone had composting toilets we wouldn't need a sewage system. (If I could find a tongue in cheek emoji it would go here)

[GUMPY]

7 minutes ago, Alway Swilby said:

If everyone had composting toilets we wouldn't need a sewage system. (If I could find a tongue in cheek emoji it would go here)

When we got this house I was told NO to a composting bog. In lhe last house I wasn't allowed to build an underground water storage tank to feed the toilets 

[Victor Vectis]

1 hour ago, matty40s said:

No, not cost, it's because the companies are far more interested in paying dividends to shareholders and announcing record profits.

Doing something about it would involve a change of company direction and strategy.

And paying their chief execs (like the twat I went to school with) £1,000,000+ salaries.

 

(And yes, if given enough beer, I can name names!)

 

ETA A while back a school reunion was organised. All who could be contacted either directly or indirectly were contacted. This individual shot back an email saying 'Who do you think you are? How dare you contact me. If you try to contact me again you will be hearing from my solicitors'

 

What an onanist.

Edited April 1, 2023 by Victor Vectis

[magnetman]

16 minutes ago, Victor Vectis said:

And paying their chief execs (like the twat I went to school with) £1,000,000+ salaries.

 

(And yes, if given enough beer, I can name names!)

 

ETA A while back a school reunion was organised. All who could be contacted either directly or indirectly were contacted. This individual shot back an email saying 'Who do you think you are? How dare you contact me. If you try to contact me again you will be hearing from my solicitors'

 

What an onanist.

Did he have an Onan generator on his yacht?

[ditchcrawler]

The only thing that will work is holding individuals to account, just like they should with the NHS, what is the point of fining them, we pay the fines at the end of the day and they have less money to provide a service. The people who cause the problem still get paid. 
I think it was Dupont who when they wanted to tackle the problem of explosions in their chemical refineries house the refinery manager in the refinery, an almost immediate improvement in site safety, so if the water treatment boss had the discharge running through a stream in his back garden you would soon see a change

[Mad Harold]

23 minutes ago, Victor Vectis said:

And paying their chief execs (like the twat I went to school with) £1,000,000+ salaries.

 

(And yes, if given enough beer, I can name names!)

 

ETA A while back a school reunion was organised. All who could be contacted either directly or indirectly were contacted. This individual shot back an email saying 'Who do you think you are? How dare you contact me. If you try to contact me again you will be hearing from my solicitors'

 

What an onanist.

'ere, Mister , what's an Onanist?

It's not in my Collins dictionary, but on the web it says summat about it being Spanish or Portugese.

[Victor Vectis]

From an online dictionary:

 

ONANISM , term derived from the biblical narrative of Onan, son of Judah (Gen. 38, 7–10), who "spilled" his seed "on the ground."

 

Hence, one who onanises.

 

You didn't go to the same school as me did you Mr Magnetman?

[magnetman]

35 minutes ago, Victor Vectis said:

From an online dictionary:

 

ONANISM , term derived from the biblical narrative of Onan, son of Judah (Gen. 38, 7–10), who "spilled" his seed "on the ground."

 

Hence, one who onanises.

 

You didn't go to the same school as me did you Mr Magnetman?

Mine was about five grand a term in the 80s. Non boarding. 

 

[MtB]

15 minutes ago, magnetman said:

Mine was about five grand a term in the 80s. Non boarding. 

 

 

Your parents was had over a treat. Mine found a skool that was FREE! 

 

 

 

 

 

[ditchcrawler]

Some were even approved, they took boarders 

[Victor Vectis]

24 minutes ago, magnetman said:

Mine was about five grand a term in the 80s. Non boarding. 

 

OK.

 

I'm state grammar, went comp in the 1970s.

[magnetman]

49 minutes ago, MtB said:

 

Your parents was had over a treat. Mine found a skool that was FREE! 

 

 

 

 

 

I managed this with my own children. 

 

The terrible (words removed) that I encountered at Stoke Brunswick put me off private school for several lifetimes. 

[Mad Harold]

1 hour ago, Victor Vectis said:

From an online dictionary:

 

ONANISM , term derived from the biblical narrative of Onan, son of Judah (Gen. 38, 7–10), who "spilled" his seed "on the ground."

 

Hence, one who onanises.

 

You didn't go to the same school as me did you Mr Magnetman?

Oh I now understand.

Why didn't you just describe him as a Wanker what does it standing up.

Much easier to understand.🐵

 

[Victor Vectis]

1 hour ago, Mad Harold said:

Why didn't you just describe him as a Wanker

 

I wouldn't dream of being so rude, even though the chap in question undoubtedly is.

😀

Besides, it pays to increase your word power.

[Jerra]

1 hour ago, magnetman said:

The terrible (words removed) that I encountered at Stoke Brunswick put me off private school for several lifetimes. 

Interestingly my son-in-law who was also private school educated flatly refused to send the grandkids to private schools.

[Jen-in-Wellies]

22 hours ago, Higgs said:

Unlimited fines for water companies dumping sewage (msn.com)

 

 

So going by the figures from that article, last year averaged 825 sewage spills a day. At the limited maximum fine of £250,000, that could have brought in over £75 billion. Clearly that didn't happen and the water companies weren't bankrupted by fines and carried on dumping. So the existing fines are not being imposed. If there is no drive to actually prosecute and fine water companies, then potentially unlimited fines are going to have no effect, other than a good looking headline before the upcoming local government elections. Dumping raw sewage in to rivers and coasts is something that many regular conservative voters are having trouble supporting, so a quick headline grabber that won't actually make any difference was needed.

[MtB]

8 minutes ago, Jen-in-Wellies said:

Dumping raw sewage in to rivers and coasts is something that many regular conservative voters are having trouble supporting, so a quick headline grabber that won't actually make any difference was needed.

 

 

Its a curious thing but I bet if the water companies stopped allowing the excess raw sewage to overtop the settlement ponds into the rivers and allowed it to just back up into people's houses, those regular conservative voters you mention would pretty rapidly decide they preferred the sewage to be in the rivers. And so would the Labour voters I'd suggest.

 

 

[Jen-in-Wellies]

1 minute ago, MtB said:

 

 

Its a curious thing but I bet if the water companies stopped allowing the excess raw sewage to overtop the settlement ponds into the rivers and allowed it to just back up into people's houses, those regular conservative voters you mention would pretty rapidly decide they preferred the sewage to be in the rivers. And so would the Labour voters I'd suggest.

 

 

It's the better choice, if actually treating the sewage before releasing it in to rivers and coastlines is discounted as the clearly ridiculous idea it is.

[Alan de Enfield]

A few years ago our local village put a moritorium on all new developments either commercial or residential as the sewage systems was already over maximum capacity.

 

On the edge of the village a giant (house sized) hole was dug and made into a huge concrete 'holding tank' grassed over and you'd never know it is there.

 

The idea being that the sewage works can process as much effulent as it can during the day, and any excess (above capacity) is stored in the holding tank, then when it is quiet at night time and the toilets, washing machines, etc etc are not in use, the sewage works can catch-up and pump out from the holding tank and do what they do.

 

House building has recommenced with a vengance - I'd guess it won't be long before we are above maximum 24 hour capacity again.

[MtB]

1 minute ago, Jen-in-Wellies said:

It's the better choice, if actually treating the sewage before releasing it in to rivers and coastlines is discounted as the clearly ridiculous idea it is.

 

The real problem as I understand it, is that the settlement ponds are sized to cope with the regular sewage output of a population of about 50m people but even then, the occasional freak weather event causes them to over-fill, in which case this supposedly rare overflow volume is designed to be handled by directing it into rivers or the sea. It has to be, or a right mess would result in the fields around the sewage works or backing up into houses would result. 

 

But the government is always interested in growing the population (think of all that lurvely extra tax and people to boss about) and has managed to get it up to 68m now with virtually no new sewage infrastructure being built, and the result is highly predictable. More frequent over-topping into rivers. 

 

So the solution is to build more settlement tank volume to cope with the peaks in sewage volume, but who here wants one in a field near them? So getting planning for them is a headache, and paying for them with the current stupid administration arrangements (i.e. owned by profit-oriented companies) is another, and both need changing in the long term. 

 

Point being, that fining the sewage companies rather assumes they are discharging into rivers as a voluntary choice when it isn't. You can fine them as much as you like but it won't stop the excess sewage volume arriving at the sewage works so how does fining the companies help? What needs to be done is express bypassing of the planning laws and building of new treatment plants immediately, not dicking about fining the administrative structures we voted to be put in place. 

 

 

[Tony Brooks]

But modern sewerage works do not seem to have settlement ponds, and such tankage that you can see seems more like digesters than for settlement.

[Jen-in-Wellies]

Any further root cause discussion of this problem is going to veer even further in to areas that should be in the Politics section, rather than General Boating, so I'm not going to do that while the topic is in its current location.

[magnetman]

People should eat less.