United Utilities said its ambitious £200 million plan to reduce sewage spills in Windermere was moving at pace – but is it going fast enough?
The firm issued a statement this week to say that the Windermere catchment monitoring recorded a 28% reduction in spill duration – equating to 2,460 fewer hours of spills.
However, campaign group Save Windermere said because United Utilities measured the success of its storm overflow reduction efforts on the number of spill events rather than the total volume of sewage discharged, it failed to provide a rigorous assessment of the overall environmental impact.
It said data it had obtained revealed that there were still 6,327 hours of spills into the lake from six sites around it.
And it said, the company’s investment investment remained insufficient to ensure the lake’s long-term protection.
It is demanding a long-term infrastructure investment plan to completely eliminate sewage discharges into Windermere, given to the lake’s cultural, environmental, economic significance nationally and internationally.
The group said: “Whilst the next round of investment will deliver limited reductions in inputs, it falls far short of what is needed to ensure Windermere is resilient to the growing threat of climate change.
“To date, short term investment to mitigate nutrient inputs has failed to secure the future of England’s largest lake.”
Official figures are due to be released by the Environment Agency later this month.
The firm said that its extra investment in Ambleside and Windermere wastewater treatment works to create an additional 2.6 million litres of storage across the two sites – the equivalent of around 33,000 bathtubs or just over an Olympic-sized swimming pool – was also a success.
It added: “The additional storage has increased the amount of storm water the sites can store and then return for full treatment, reducing the number of times the storm overflows need to operate during periods of heavy rainfall.”
Matt Hemmings, chief operating officer at United Utilities, said: “We totally understand concerns about storm overflows. That’s why we have the largest overflow investment programme of all companies over the next five years.
“Our teams right across Cumbria and the North West are working extremely hard on projects such as increasing storage on sites, designing bespoke solutions such as sustainable drainage schemes and using the latest innovation to treat wastewater to even higher standards. This investment is making a real difference.
“We are extremely ambitious about delivering change quickly, and we’re making good progress as we embark on the largest ever investment programme in our infrastructure that will see the biggest overhaul of the region’s sewer network in a century.”
Matt Staniek, founder of Save Windermere, said: ““United Utilities’ current investment isn’t good enough. They have dumped sewage into Windermere and are merely tinkering at the edges with short-term fixes that will only offer slight improvements. This is not acceptable.
“Windermere must be protected for the people of this nation forever, and the only way to achieve that is to end sewage pollution in our lake once and for all. The
Government must address the root cause of this crisis and stop allowing the water company to pollute with impunity.”
