Water
Why is there sewage in our rivers and the sea?
In the last few years, we’ve been subjected to shocking images of sewage being pumped into our rivers and coastal waters on a disturbingly regular basis. Like you, we are horrified by the unacceptable damage being done to our precious freshwater and marine wildlife.
Why is this happening?
The excuse we’re given for most ‘sewage overflows’ is surface water flooding caused by heavy rainfall, which overwhelms an inadequate sewage system. Instead of being absorbed by a healthy, functioning landscape, rainwater rushes straight off the land, down the drain and into the sewers. Here it combines with whatever has been flushed down the toilet and rushes towards the sewage treatment works, rapidly filling up the storage tanks. When the tanks are full, the only way currently to stop sewage backing up into our homes and streets is to release it directly into our rivers and seas, smothering them in untreated sewage.
This poses a clear hazard but the full impacts of these discharges, which are all too frequent, are not yet known. They serve as yet another example of how water companies are failing both their social and legal responsibilities to wildlife and people.
What is the impact?
None of the major rivers in Sussex are in ‘good ecological status’, primarily due to big problems with both water quality (due to various sources of pollution) and quantity (due to drought and over-abstraction). This has knock-on impacts for our most important coastal and marine areas, affecting fisheries, recreation and our health.
As a result of climate change, we are already experiencing heavier bouts of rain on a more frequent basis, as well as more frequent and prolonged periods of drought. So, as well as being polluted during periods of heavy rain, our rivers and streams are drying up especially in the summer. Dried out rivers cannot support the wildlife that depends on them or deliver the ecosystem services that a healthy ecosystem provides – including the water we need to drink.
Clearly, a long-term solution is urgently required.
Who is responsible?
Water companies have a lot to answer for but are not solely to blame. While there is no arguing that their many years of failing to invest in the sewage system are now coming home to roost, it is not just the failure of hard infrastructure. The lack of a truly integrated land-use planning system from our government, and a reliance upon inadequate regulatory systems, have resulted in a failure to plan for the environmental capacity society needs to function healthily.
What is Sussex Wildlife Trust doing?
We are working to influence every water company in our area, promoting a focus on nature-based solutions that work holistically to restore wetlands and improve the landscape’s ability to store water and slow the flow during heavy rainfall, while protecting and enhancing our most precious sites for wildlife. We do this by influencing the many strategic plans that water companies are required to produce, including Drainage and Waste Water Management Plans, Water Resources Management Plans and Drought Plans.
We also lobby the government on the proper regulation and enforcement needed to solve the problem, working with other NGOs through partnerships such as Wildlife and Countryside Link and Green Alliance.
We provide practical advice to farmers and land managers to help look after, create and restore waterways and wetland habitats.
And we provide our own evidence on the effectiveness of natural flood management by delivering nature-based solutions, as demonstrated by the Wilder Ouse project, Gatwick Greenspace Partnership and Wilder Horsham District.
