The issue of water quality and combined storm overflows (CSO’s) has shot up the agenda in recent years.
As a result, I have worked really hard educate myself - and in-turn I hope constituents when they get in touch - about the subject.
If it were easy CSO’s would never have been a thing in the first place so anyone who tells you it’s a simple fix is deceiving you and I think most reasonable people know that.
Also, and I find very few people genuinely know this, it’s essential to understand why overflows are not simply switched off by Ministerial decree.
It all goes back to a Victorian sewerage system which was never built for this level of development or indeed rainfall.
This Conservative Government has done more than any other (including the coalition or throughout every one of Labour’s 13 years in power) on the issue of water quality.
We could have ignored the subject but we decided to face it and set about turning things around; starting with proper monitoring so we know the extent of the problem.
That has given great publicity to the issue – and therefore opportunities for our opponents – but that’s the serious business of Government not the luxury of opposition.
The ‘Storm overflow discharge reduction plan’, brought about by the Environment Act I voted for while opposition MPs voted against, requires water companies to make their largest infrastructure spend in water company history to increase capacity. It is backed by up to £56 billion capital investment.
The Environment Agency and Ofwat have launched the largest ever criminal and civil investigations into waste-water treatment works and we’ve dramatically increased funding for EA inspections via the ‘Plan for Water’.
And we’ve ringfenced now unlimited fines from water companies so that they don’t go to HM Treasury but stay in DEFRA for environmental projects.
Wet wipes will be banned. Sounds like a trivial issue doesn’t it but the UK uses 11 billion of them each year and they block sewers and harm waterways; increasing the possibility of a discharge.
And this Spring, the Secretary of State announced the storm overflow target will be enshrined in law.
Last year I visited Southern Water’s water treatment works at Morestead Lane to really understand how the waste-water process works. I wish they’d run open days.
And I visited Thruxton (near Andover) see what how their ‘Pathfinder’ project is pioneering a way to tackle groundwater infiltration into sewer systems; which adds to the pressure that triggers a discharge. I had to understand how this pilot project works as part of the complicated CSO jigsaw.
I am staying close to Southern Water to understand how they are interpreting the Environment Act and urging them to go faster.
No-one is pretending this is easy. Did you know before 1997 the ‘poo barge’ was sailed out to sea which is how we disposed of foul water?
Our Victorian sewerage system combines storm / ground water with that produced by toilets, dishwashers and bathtubs. Without a discharge it would literally come back up your loo and plug hole. We want to change that which is why we’re facing up to the problem and acting.
That is painstaking work but I’d rather be part of the solution than carping about the problem from the sidelines with un-costed games that get us nowhere.
Far from ignoring the situation, the Government and I are taking it extremely seriously and taking action to provide better water quality in this country. You can find more on this, and links to all I’ve mentioned here, at stevebrine.com/factorfake-waterquality
