Updated in 2025: In 2023, we published this article on our website and many of our followers added their support to a letter to our then MP, Steve Brine, on the subject, to encourage greater action to tackle the pervasive pollution problem. It was wonderfully heartening to see how many people signed the letter. We continue for better water quality.
Sorry, I missed all the furore around the national sewage issue, what’s been going on? Sewage is being dumped into rivers and seas across England in record amount. (1). A damning report by a parliamentary committee labelled England’s rivers as a dangerous ‘chemical cocktail’ of sewage, agricultural waste, and plastic. Poor water quality damages nature. Sewage can cause huge algae blooms, starving water of oxygen resulting in the death of many species. (2)
This pollution puts water users at risk of contracting harmful illnesses including viruses and antimicrobial resistant bacteria too. The UK is ranked last in Europe for bathing water quality. Poor water quality also prevents individuals enjoying the mental and physical wellbeing benefits associated from engagement with their natural environment.
Why is there raw sewage in England’s rivers and seas? Our sewer system carries rainwater, and wastewater from toilets, along the same pipes to the water treatment works. When there is too much rainfall, water companies are allowed to discharge overflow from these pipes into our rivers and seas to prevent them backing up into people’s homes. This should happen rarely, but data reveals it is happening in shocking amounts. In 2022, there were more than 300,000 discharges from storm overflows (3) – amounting to some 824 spillages every day.
What’s the situation in the River Itchen around Winchester?Shockingly, the River Itchen like every single English river fails the pollution test (7). You can view the Environment Agency published classification data for the River Itchen reports here but in summary mercury, flame-retardants and a carcinogenic chemical are all to blame. Most frustratingly, the plan for recovering the health of the River Itchen is woefully inadequate. Currently the Environment Agency reported objective is to achieve good chemical status for the River Itchen by 2063!
Within Winchester one storm overflow discharge point in 2022 spilled sewage for a total of 6 hours into the River (see Map 1). This makes us lucky relative to some parts of the country. Still, that doesn’t make it ok. The Rivers Trust recommends avoiding entering stretches of water with storm overflows, especially after it has been raining. So don’t go swimming, or take your pets swimming near stretches of water with storm overflows. Obviously, sewage impacts the ecological health of the River Itchen too, which is especially worrying since as a chalk stream it is a globally rare habitat that supports exceptionally high numbers of species (4).
Map 1: Extract from Sewage Map | The Rivers Trust showing storm overflow locations (brown dots) around Winchester. The size of the dot corresponds to the number of counted spills where the larger the dot is, the higher the number of counted spills is.
Unfortunately, it is not just untreated sewage we should worry about. Penny Johnes, Professor of Biogeochemistry at Bristol University says “Treated sewage too is significantly damaging river ecosystems”. There are 10,000s of pollutants contained in sewage and the vast majority of them are not removed through treatment (5). These include a host of chemicals and microplastics from farming, synthetic clothes washing (6). as well as contaminants from roads and development. There are a number of sewage discharge points around Winchester (Map 2). The Rivers Trust recommends avoiding entering the water immediately downstream of treated discharges.
Map 2: Extract from Sewage Map | The Rivers Trust showing treated sewage discharge points (yellow squares). As you can see there are a number of sewage discharge points around Winchester. The Rivers Trust recommends avoiding entering the water immediately downstream of treated discharges.
This isn’t ok but what can I do about it? Wilder Hyde is coordinating a letter to local MP (Steve Brine) asking the government to urgently take steps to reduce pollution. We know a huge number of people care about this issue and we want to help people stand up for healthy waterways. Add your voice to our Wilder Hyde coordinated letter to local MP (Steve Brine) asking the government to urgently take steps to reduce pollution.
Want to do more?
Find out about the amazing work of the The Rivers Trust and how you can get involved.
Want to learn more about the pollution crisis plaguing our rivers and what can be done about it?
BBC Radio 4 Costing the Earth episode Water Pollution Solutions Released On: 25 Apr 2023. Sewage is now discharged into our rivers and seas on a regular basis. It’s joined by agricultural pollution and a host of microplastics. In this special debate programme, Tom Heap asks what’s gone wrong with our water system. How did we get into this situation, what will it cost to put it right, and how can we go about sorting out the mess we seem to be in?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001l97c
- [1] Sewage spills by water firms have risen 29-fold over the last five years (telegraph.co.uk)
- [2] ‘Chemical cocktail’ of sewage, slurry and plastic polluting English rivers puts public health and nature at risk – Committees – UK Parliament
- [3] Environment Agency publishes Event Duration Monitoring data for 2022 – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
- [4] Chalk streams: why ‘England’s rainforests’ are so rare and precious (theconversation.com)
- [5] https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001l97c
- [6] Your Laundry Sheds Harmful Microfibers. Here’s What You Can Do About It. | Wirecutter (nytimes.com)
- [7] Shocking state of English rivers revealed as all of them fail pollution tests | Rivers | The Guardian