Unlimited fines for dumping sewage

[Arthur Marshall]

13 minutes ago, MtB said:

 

 

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. 

 

 

Fining the companies huge amounts helps because it would cut down their profits and so the amount they could pay in dividends and bonuses. Once that happened on a consistent basis, they might just as well spend the money by investing in new plant (increasing profit in the long run) as in paying fines. If the same was applied to leakage etc,  they might sort the pipes out and dig the odd resevoir.

[magnetman]

It is interesting that Thames water are building a massive tunnel under the River to intercept the CSOs which usually discharge directly. 

 

Branch tunnels including one under Limehouse Cut to the sewage works. 

 

This is an upgrade on the old Basil Jet sewers. 

Why did they spend all that money? It is a very large infrastructure project. 

[MtB]

4 minutes ago, Arthur Marshall said:

Fining the companies huge amounts helps because it would cut down their profits and so the amount they could pay in dividends and bonuses. Once that happened on a consistent basis, they might just as well spend the money by investing in new plant (increasing profit in the long run) as in paying fines. If the same was applied to leakage etc,  they might sort the pipes out and dig the odd resevoir.

 

I disagree. I think they would still sit on their fat butts doing not much about it and complaining about the fines.

 

But unlike you, I'm not really wanting to wait for the decade or two such an experiment would take. Nor have you addressed the NIMBY planning problem that would delay for years any attempts to build more capacity.

 

 

[Alan de Enfield]

We only need to look back into history to see the answer ....................

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 2, 2023 by Alan de Enfield

[oboat]

Not to take away from genuine Chem/Agro/Sewage pollution which would seem to be very easy targets for the EA and local press to dine out on. Why do we in the UK not have some form of national deposit system for recycling Plastic and Glass bottles, Tin Cans and similar containers, where the user pays up front then claims the cost back. It works extremely well in Oz.
Off the boat for the winter, I was staggered by the stuff on the road through the New Forest (no foliage) and we all know about the floating stuff behind lock gates. However we don't see the stuff on the bottom until after CRT re fill a section of drained canal and it re-floats (L&L 2019).

1lt water bottles must be one of the most unnecessary wast pollutants in the world.

Not to mention that resulting from the manufacturing and transporting of the full bottles.
If the RSPB, angling organisations, CART, IWA and other so called concerned environmental organisations were genuinely interested in the environment and not just fund raising they would be actively promoting the abandonment of such unnecessary packaging items. 

[MtB]

6 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

We only need to look back into history to see the answer ....................

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Come on now Alan, own up.

 

You've just bought this, haven't you? 

 

🤣

 

 

[oboat]

9 minutes ago, MtB said:

 

I disagree. I think they would still sit on their fat butts doing not much about it and complaining about the fines.

 

But unlike you, I'm not really wanting to wait for the decade or two such an experiment would take. Nor have you addressed the NIMBY planning problem that would delay for years any attempts to build more capacity.

 

 

Or they could just cut the dividends they pay into our pension funds!

 

[David Mack]

44 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

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.

A holding tank like that can store the waste to smooth out daytime and nighttime variations in flow, if you have separate drains for waste water and stormwater. But if you have a combined sewer system which carries waste and stormwater, then a few days solid rain will fill the tank, and inevitably there will still be overflow discharges, albeit less frequent.

45 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

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

It was probably provided, and paid for, by the developers specifically for that purpose.

Edited April 2, 2023 by David Mack

[MtB]

2 minutes ago, oboat said:

Or they could just cut the dividends they pay into our pension funds!

 

 

I think the alternative of public ownership is probably better despite its drawbacks. When Mrs Thatcher privatised the utilities it always struck me as a step too far. 

 

 

 

1 minute ago, David Mack said:

A holding tank like that can store the waste to smooth out daytime and nighttime variations in flow, if you have separate drains for waste water and stormwater. But if you have a combined sewer system which carries waste and stormwater, then a few days solid rain will fill the tank, and inevitably there will still be overflow discharges, albeit less frequent.

 

 

This is another cause, which fining the water companies won't fix. 

 

A good start would be to ban new planning applications from draining surface water into the mains drainage system. It should be a condition of planning that surface water is handled separately from sewage, with soakaways within the site boundaries. There are probably endless technical reasons why this can't be done...

[David Mack]

46 minutes ago, MtB said:

 

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.

Modern sewage treatment plants use far less space than the old gravity filter beds, so there is plenty of space at treatment works to provide storage capacity as works are upgraded, and such additional storage tanks are provided when upgrading takes place. But that doesn't help if the problem is restricted capacity in the sewer network - storage capacity may also be needed upstream - as in AdeE's example above.

[Jon57]

25 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

We only need to look back into history to see the answer ....................

 

 

 

 

 

 

Could be the solution to CRT problem with the compost toilet brigade. 🚽👍

[David Mack]

1 minute ago, MtB said:

A good start would be to ban new planning applications from draining surface water into the mains drainage system. It should be a condition of planning that surface water is handled separately from sewage, with soakaways within the site boundaries. There are probably endless technical reasons why this can't be done...

Newer built up areas have had separate drainage systems for storm water (which outfall to watercourses) and waste water (which goes to sewage treatment works) for decades. But older built up areas have a single combined sewer system which carries both waste and storm water. It is these which overflow in wet weather, and the problems have increased both due to climate change bringing more intense wet periods, and an increase in hard surfaced areas, particularly in built up areas as buildings are extended (more roof area), gardens paved over, new developments squeezed between existing buildings etc.

The planners are ahead of you. New developments are increasingly required to provide for storm water to be kept out of sewers, with soakaways and permeable paving for hardstandings now frequently specified in planning conditions.

36 minutes ago, magnetman said:

It is interesting that Thames water are building a massive tunnel under the River to intercept the CSOs which usually discharge directly. 

 

Branch tunnels including one under Limehouse Cut to the sewage works. 

 

This is an upgrade on the old Basil Jet sewers. 

Why did they spend all that money? It is a very large infrastructure project. 

Why did they spend all that money?

 

Because much of London was built up a long time ago when single combined sewers were the norm. It would be impractical to reconstruct the whole of London as separate sewers, so the new tunnel connects up to the existing sewer overflows into the Thames through London, and takes the water to be treated at Beckton before discharge.

The project echos the original Bazalgette Northern and Southern Outfall Sewers which were built in the 18th century to intercept the completely untreated sewage outfalls into the Thames which existed previously.

[Pluto]

Nightsoil and street sweepings (horse manure) was a major traffic on the L&LC, reaching 150,000 tons annually at one stage. The traffic lasted until the early 1950s, when Bootle had converted/demolished the last houses not connected to mains drainage. The manure was used for improving wetlands and bringing it into agricultural use, with the improvement of wetlands in Lancashire being linked to the opening of a canal or railway. You can still see the manure wharfs at many bridges in West Lancashire. The quality of manure declined in the 20th century, and I have copies of some of the reports written by a canal employee on what was actually on the boats. Manure was toll free, but rubbish was charged at one half-penny per ton per mile.

I see the current problems stemming from the sale of a system which had not been given sufficient to the private sector. It was sold on the cheap, and those investing in water companies should have invested further money in up-grading facilities, and they could then charge customers a suitable rate, rather than expecting customers to pay excessively up-front for a poor service.

[Alan de Enfield]

18 minutes ago, Jon57 said:

Could be the solution to CRT problem with the compost toilet brigade.

 

C&RT do not have any problem with Composting toilets.

 

 

 

[magnetman]

Did they have day soil as well as night soil? 

31 minutes ago, David Mack said:

 

 

Because much of London was built up a long time ago when single combined sewers were the norm. 

I know what the project is for. 

 

What I was getting at was IF privatised utilities are not obliged to upgrade infrastructure why would they be doing it.

Maybe the publicity was bad?

 

In which case maybe things can improve elsewhere. 

 

It seems to me that putting tonnages of untreated sewage into a large tidal commercial river is a lot less damaging than putting tonnages of untreated sewage into rural non tidal watercourses. 

 

Maybe the expensive riverside residents didn't like the smell and got organised. 

[Alan de Enfield]

19 minutes ago, magnetman said:

Maybe the expensive riverside residents didn't like the smell and got organised. 

 

Climate Change, or, Global Warming ?

 

The Great Stink was an event in Central London during July and August 1858 in which the hot weather exacerbated the smell of untreated human waste and industrial effluent that was present on the banks of the River Thames. The problem had been mounting for some years, with an ageing and inadequate sewer system that emptied directly into the Thames. The miasma from the effluent was thought to transmit contagious diseases, and three outbreaks of cholera before the Great Stink were blamed on the ongoing problems with the river.

 

 

"The Silent Highwayman" (1858). Death rows on the Thames, claiming the lives of victims who have not paid to have the river cleaned up.

 

In June 1858 the temperatures in the shade in London averaged 34–36 °C (93–97 °F)—rising to 48 °C (118 °F) in the sun. Combined with an extended spell of dry weather, the level of the Thames dropped and raw effluent from the sewers remained on the banks of the river. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert attempted to take a pleasure cruise on the Thames, but returned to shore within a few minutes because the smell was so terrible. The press soon began calling the event "The Great Stink"; the leading article in the City Press observed that "Gentility of speech is at an end—it stinks, and whoso once inhales the stink can never forget it and can count himself lucky if he lives to remember it". A writer for The Standard concurred with the opinion. One of its reporters described the river as a "pestiferous and typhus breeding abomination", while a second wrote that "the amount of poisonous gases which is thrown off is proportionate to the increase of the sewage which is passed into the stream". The leading article in The Illustrated London News commented that:

"We can colonise the remotest ends of the earth; we can conquer India; we can pay the interest of the most enormous debt ever contracted; we can spread our name, and our fame, and our fructifying wealth to every part of the world; but we cannot clean the River Thames".

Edited April 2, 2023 by Alan de Enfield

[Arthur Marshall]

1 hour ago, MtB said:

 

I disagree. I think they would still sit on their fat butts doing not much about it and complaining about the fines.

 

But unlike you, I'm not really wanting to wait for the decade or two such an experiment would take. Nor have you addressed the NIMBY planning problem that would delay for years any attempts to build more capacity.

 

 

You're probably right with your first sentence,  as it would be a lot less work.

I'd rather not wait a decade or two either,  but as nothing will happen without nationalisation, it won't make a lot of odds.

I don't think planning permission would be a problem. A quick bung here and there and there it is,  sorted, just like in most other big money cases.

[David Mack]

Some big treatment plant upgrades are happening, but for many of the smaller discharges of untreated sewage it is cheaper for the companies to pay the (occasional) fines than to upgrade the system. As long as this is the case, then the shareholders whose dividends would be affected by these costs aren't incentivised to call for improvement. The EA is tasked with monitoring and enforcing the rules, but has too few resources to do so effectively. A bolstered EA resource, and a commitment to be harder on the main offenders would soon have an impact. 

[magnetman]

14 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

 

 

 

"The Silent Highwayman" (1858). Death rows on the Thames, claiming the lives of victims who have not paid to have the river cleaned up.

 

 

 

One of my favourite pictures of all time that one. It is brilliant. 

7 minutes ago, David Mack said:

The EA is tasked with monitoring and enforcing the rules, but has too few resources to do so effectively. A bolstered EA resource, and a commitment to be harder on the main offenders would soon have an impact. 

I read a well constructed theory that the defunding of the EA may be arranged by people who gain financially from activities which they (EA) would otherwise be enforcing against. 

 

It could be a simple case of vested interests and money. Would not be at all surprising. 

[ditchcrawler]

3 hours ago, Jen-in-Wellies said:

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.

The question is, how many of those discharges were illegal 

[Jen-in-Wellies]

5 hours ago, ditchcrawler said:

The question is, how many of those discharges were illegal 

Exactly If most discharges are perfectly fine and splendid as far as the law is concerned, then giving the courts the option of unlimited fines for the small proportion that aren't, coupled with the water companies marking their own homework for monitoring discharges and the budget cuts at the EA makes the whole thing even more of a policy formulated for headlines, rather than actual effect.

[ditchcrawler]

1 hour ago, Jen-in-Wellies said:

Exactly If most discharges are perfectly fine and splendid as far as the law is concerned, then giving the courts the option of unlimited fines for the small proportion that aren't, coupled with the water companies marking their own homework for monitoring discharges and the budget cuts at the EA makes the whole thing even more of a policy formulated for headlines, rather than actual effect.

This was the best I could find 

How much raw sewage was released even when there was no rain to legitimate a storm overflow?

Surfers Against Sewage’s latest report has identified 146 occasions on which raw sewage was released at popular surf and swim spots during periods of dry weather. 

Not every dry spill is illegal. Water companies are issued permits by the Environment Agency that classify what counts as a consented release in individual cases, with factors such as location and dilution coming into play. But SAS’s campaigns and policy lead, Amy Slack, told Spotlight that the above statistic is also probably just “the tip of the shit-berg”. The charity’s app only tracks releases at about 450 bathing locations, and not all the sewage discharge points across the country, which she estimates comes to around 21,000 points. 

[magnetman]

There is a song about this "everybody's gotta shit somewhere, hey hey hey, everybody's gotta shit somewhere"

 

Or something. 

 

It still amazes me how much agro and complication humans have managed to develop around something you do once a day which would fit into a tea cup. 

 

 

[oboat]

On 02/04/2023 at 11:19, MtB said:

 

I think the alternative of public ownership is probably better despite its drawbacks. When Mrs Thatcher privatised the utilities it always struck me as a step too far. 

 

 

 

 

This is another cause, which fining the water companies won't fix. 

 

A good start would be to ban new planning applications from draining surface water into the mains drainage system. It should be a condition of planning that surface water is handled separately from sewage, with soakaways within the site boundaries. There are probably endless technical reasons why this can't be done...

It is normal standard practice for Soakaways or some form of holding pond to be installed and had been for as long as I was in practice over 50 years. 

On 02/04/2023 at 11:38, Pluto said:

Nightsoil and street sweepings (horse manure) was a major traffic on the L&LC, reaching 150,000 tons annually at one stage. The traffic lasted until the early 1950s, when Bootle had converted/demolished the last houses not connected to mains drainage. The manure was used for improving wetlands and bringing it into agricultural use, with the improvement of wetlands in Lancashire being linked to the opening of a canal or railway. You can still see the manure wharfs at many bridges in West Lancashire. The quality of manure declined in the 20th century, and I have copies of some of the reports written by a canal employee on what was actually on the boats. Manure was toll free, but rubbish was charged at one half-penny per ton per mile.

I see the current problems stemming from the sale of a system which had not been given sufficient to the private sector. It was sold on the cheap, and those investing in water companies should have invested further money in up-grading facilities, and they could then charge customers a suitable rate, rather than expecting customers to pay excessively up-front for a poor service.

This was also a huge trade down the Thames out of London. Night soil out, fresh milk, butter & cheese back and all in the same boat. The last of the old farm creeks which had been in this trade in the 19th century, were all blocked off, when the Thames Barrier was built.

I have no evidence to support it, however I suspect that this type of trade also existed along the R Witham and the WND's from Lincoln and Boston but on a much smaller scale.

[Pluto]

1 hour ago, oboat said:

It is normal standard practice for Soakaways or some form of holding pond to be installed and had been for as long as I was in practice over 50 years. 

This was also a huge trade down the Thames out of London. Night soil out, fresh milk, butter & cheese back and all in the same boat. The last of the old farm creeks which had been in this trade in the 19th century, were all blocked off, when the Thames Barrier was built.

I have no evidence to support it, however I suspect that this type of trade also existed along the R Witham and the WND's from Lincoln and Boston but on a much smaller scale.

The Thames trade was slightly different as it involved all types of refuse. There were manure boats, but there were others which carried general refuse. This was mixed with brick clay, and the bricks then burnt. The refuse mixed in would also burn, ensuring a good burning temperature throughout the bricks. The down side was that the bricks were very light as there were spaces inside where the refuse had burnt away, so they were not good at repelling water. I can just see politicians today promoting a return to such brick making - a highly-polluting method which produces an inferior product, but which can be suggested as an 'environmentally-friendly' way of getting rid of refuse.