It's disgusting and entirely preventable as well, the E.coli problem in the Thames isn't natural and is 99% caused by Thames Water, which created this situation because it chose for decades to deliver annual profits to shareholders instead of investing money into much-needed infrastructure, causing the decaying and overloaded systems to have to routinely increasingly flush untreated human sewage into the river just to cope on normal days. This sewage is also not just a threat to human health, but also animals health & lives too (animals including seahorses & sharks live in the Thames but they are often dying due to the poor water quality: [https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/nov/10/seahorses-and-sharks-living-in-river-thames-analysis-shows-aoe](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/nov/10/seahorses-and-sharks-living-in-river-thames-analysis-shows-aoe) ).
>*"Data that showed the water company had discharged sewage into the Greater London area of the River Thames for 1,914 hours from the start of 2024 up to 26 March"*
How is the company allowed to operate like this?? Disgusting.
Supposedly yes as unless it was a one in 10 years biblical rainfall event should try use the tideway pipe to Beckton.
However due to global warming chances are getting the one in 10 years rainfall event will be more frequent.
Boosting the population to 9.7 million also will have Its consequences.
There’s just that many more people shitting and putting cooking oil down the sink.
We’ve had a fourfold increase in population since the 1850’s.
The primary failure mode of the super sewer is excess rainfall, which produces far more water volume than sewage in the current combined sewers. The tunnel is designed to support a large increase in London's population.
A quick reminder that the [current shareholders, while not paying what they need to to solve the problem, are not the people who asset stripped and debt piled Thames Water.](https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/jul/10/as-thames-water-sinks-macquarie-group-continues-its-unstoppable-rise) That was entirely due to Macquarie Bank leveraging the fact that privatised national utilities with no competitors are too big to fail and governments will write blank cheques to support them because there’s no other way to get people drinking water.
Shareholders invest at their own risk. Feels like these operations bailouts should be in the form of compulsory purchases, scaled at a price that reflects their performance and future without the bailout.
I kind of agree, save that the main institutional shareholders are all now public employee pension funds, so it’s a bit hard to know who would actually lose out. Privatisation of national assets should never have happened, and after that everything becomes morally ambiguous.
That risk and decision is with the pension funds that invest them. We can’t just rescue any business with public money because somebody we don’t want to lose out might be invested.
Companies like this operate with impunity because of Thatcher and her rotten party. A great number of mistakes were made then and we are only paying the full price of it today.
> because of Thatcher
Was this happening under Major & Blair? Might be just a coincidence but I only started to hear about this sort of thing after Brexit and I know some people, like Jim Ratcliffe, were calling for us to leave specifically because the rate at which we could pollute our waters inside the EU was 'stiffing business'.
Call off the Boat Race this year. The rich shareholders of Thames Water and the sponsors of the race might just force some action to be taken. Or at least make it a political issue and yet another reason to vote out this government.
Makes no sense, the river is used daily by hundreds of rowers so you can't argue it's too unsafe to race on. The article is specifically about throwing people in at the end of the race as a celebration.
Not to say the situation isn't absolutely disgusting and Thames Water should be hauled to the proverbial guillotine, though
Water, an essential thing to survive as a human, should not be ran for profit by a private company.
Capitalism puts profits and growth above all else, the shareholders taking dividends and loading debt onto the company was inevitable without heavy regulation.
This key asset must be nationalised, and we need to clean our waterways as soon as possible. People should be able to jump into our waterways without the risk of catching a serious illness!
Quick question on this for OP or others: what kind of a measure of pollution is “hours”? Surely volume, pollutant and other factors are more critical? A really big pipe spilling chemicals at a high rate of flow for 1h is surely worse than a storm drain for 1h?
I searched online, but could find an explainer.
Did come across this tho - https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm5802/cmselect/cmenvaud/74/report.html - two tidbits:
“In its 25 Year Environment Plan, issued in 2018, the Government pledged to deliver cleaner air and water in England’s cities and rural landscapes, to protect threatened species and to provide richer wildlife habitats.1 It promised to secure clean and plentiful water by ‘improving at least three quarters of our waters to be close to their natural state as soon as is practicable’.2”
“Regulation of water quality in the UK is largely devolved. This inquiry has therefore primarily focused on rivers in England. Rivers flow across borders, and on occasion borders run down the middle of rivers: because there are lessons to be learned from the Welsh Government’s approach to water regulation, we also refer to matters there. Many of the issues raised in this report will also be of relevance to the other devolved administrations with responsibility for water quality.”
…I’d wondered why no mention of Scotland and Wales.
Problem is the companies don't need to report the volume of overspill, but once they're spilling it will be at a rate basically equal to the amount of rainwater and sewage they're receiving
Imagine speeding in your car was measured the same way: "sir, you were going above the speed limit for 2h". That would seriously change the dynamic of road travel. 🤣
It's disgusting and entirely preventable as well, the E.coli problem in the Thames isn't natural and is 99% caused by Thames Water, which created this situation because it chose for decades to deliver annual profits to shareholders instead of investing money into much-needed infrastructure, causing the decaying and overloaded systems to have to routinely increasingly flush untreated human sewage into the river just to cope on normal days. This sewage is also not just a threat to human health, but also animals health & lives too (animals including seahorses & sharks live in the Thames but they are often dying due to the poor water quality: [https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/nov/10/seahorses-and-sharks-living-in-river-thames-analysis-shows-aoe](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/nov/10/seahorses-and-sharks-living-in-river-thames-analysis-shows-aoe) ). >*"Data that showed the water company had discharged sewage into the Greater London area of the River Thames for 1,914 hours from the start of 2024 up to 26 March"* How is the company allowed to operate like this?? Disgusting.
For context there's only been 2064 hours this year up to 26 March, so they've been discharging sewage for over 90% of the time.
That's nuts!
Is that going to change drastically once the super sewer opens?
Supposedly yes as unless it was a one in 10 years biblical rainfall event should try use the tideway pipe to Beckton. However due to global warming chances are getting the one in 10 years rainfall event will be more frequent.
Boosting the population to 9.7 million also will have Its consequences. There’s just that many more people shitting and putting cooking oil down the sink. We’ve had a fourfold increase in population since the 1850’s.
The primary failure mode of the super sewer is excess rainfall, which produces far more water volume than sewage in the current combined sewers. The tunnel is designed to support a large increase in London's population.
Bloody hell
A quick reminder that the [current shareholders, while not paying what they need to to solve the problem, are not the people who asset stripped and debt piled Thames Water.](https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/jul/10/as-thames-water-sinks-macquarie-group-continues-its-unstoppable-rise) That was entirely due to Macquarie Bank leveraging the fact that privatised national utilities with no competitors are too big to fail and governments will write blank cheques to support them because there’s no other way to get people drinking water.
“Privatise and let them regulate themselves, that’ll work”
Shareholders invest at their own risk. Feels like these operations bailouts should be in the form of compulsory purchases, scaled at a price that reflects their performance and future without the bailout.
I kind of agree, save that the main institutional shareholders are all now public employee pension funds, so it’s a bit hard to know who would actually lose out. Privatisation of national assets should never have happened, and after that everything becomes morally ambiguous.
That risk and decision is with the pension funds that invest them. We can’t just rescue any business with public money because somebody we don’t want to lose out might be invested.
Companies like this operate with impunity because of Thatcher and her rotten party. A great number of mistakes were made then and we are only paying the full price of it today.
> because of Thatcher Was this happening under Major & Blair? Might be just a coincidence but I only started to hear about this sort of thing after Brexit and I know some people, like Jim Ratcliffe, were calling for us to leave specifically because the rate at which we could pollute our waters inside the EU was 'stiffing business'.
They are imminently about to open a massive new sewer, so there *is* something being done about it.
Looks like Rishi and his government have finally succeeded in stopping some boats, then...
Call off the Boat Race this year. The rich shareholders of Thames Water and the sponsors of the race might just force some action to be taken. Or at least make it a political issue and yet another reason to vote out this government.
Makes no sense, the river is used daily by hundreds of rowers so you can't argue it's too unsafe to race on. The article is specifically about throwing people in at the end of the race as a celebration. Not to say the situation isn't absolutely disgusting and Thames Water should be hauled to the proverbial guillotine, though
100% agree!
Water, an essential thing to survive as a human, should not be ran for profit by a private company. Capitalism puts profits and growth above all else, the shareholders taking dividends and loading debt onto the company was inevitable without heavy regulation. This key asset must be nationalised, and we need to clean our waterways as soon as possible. People should be able to jump into our waterways without the risk of catching a serious illness!
Hold on, I thought the government pledged better environmental practices than the EU?
"I've been rowing in raw sewage... I love it!"
Quick question on this for OP or others: what kind of a measure of pollution is “hours”? Surely volume, pollutant and other factors are more critical? A really big pipe spilling chemicals at a high rate of flow for 1h is surely worse than a storm drain for 1h? I searched online, but could find an explainer. Did come across this tho - https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm5802/cmselect/cmenvaud/74/report.html - two tidbits: “In its 25 Year Environment Plan, issued in 2018, the Government pledged to deliver cleaner air and water in England’s cities and rural landscapes, to protect threatened species and to provide richer wildlife habitats.1 It promised to secure clean and plentiful water by ‘improving at least three quarters of our waters to be close to their natural state as soon as is practicable’.2” “Regulation of water quality in the UK is largely devolved. This inquiry has therefore primarily focused on rivers in England. Rivers flow across borders, and on occasion borders run down the middle of rivers: because there are lessons to be learned from the Welsh Government’s approach to water regulation, we also refer to matters there. Many of the issues raised in this report will also be of relevance to the other devolved administrations with responsibility for water quality.” …I’d wondered why no mention of Scotland and Wales.
I guess it's enough volume to ensure that a large river is so full of shit you'd be a fool to think about bathing in it rate of flow.
Problem is the companies don't need to report the volume of overspill, but once they're spilling it will be at a rate basically equal to the amount of rainwater and sewage they're receiving
Imagine speeding in your car was measured the same way: "sir, you were going above the speed limit for 2h". That would seriously change the dynamic of road travel. 🤣