Water pollution: the bigger picture

admin
, 25 October 2024
Water pollution: the bigger picture
Kingfisher © Darin Smith

By Laura Brook

Head of Nature Recovery

Sewage is being pumped into our rivers and coastal waters on a disturbingly regular basis, causing unacceptable harm to our precious freshwater and marine wildlife.

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 these tanks are full, currently the only way to stop raw sewage backing up into our homes and streets is to release it directly into our rivers and seas.

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 our water companies are failing both their social and legal responsibilities to wildlife and people.

Not one Sussex river is in 'good ecological status,' primarily due to big problems with both water quality and quantity. This has knock-on impacts for our most important coastal and marine areas, affecting fisheries, recreation and our health. We're already seeing heavier bouts of rain more frequently because of climate change, and with existing sewage systems unable to cope with the sheer volume of water rushing into them, it's clear that urgent action is needed.

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 we as a society need to function healthily.

Sussex Wildlife Trust is working to influence every water company in our area, promoting a focus on nature-based solutions and demonstrating how to deliver this on the ground; and we will keep demanding meaningful action and genuine government leadership to ensure that our natural environment is rightfully restored and respected, for wildlife and people.

We’ll be joining thousands of people at the March For Clean Water on Sunday 3 November to demand government action to end pollution of our rivers, lakes and sea. Please join us if you can – register here: 

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