Water: affordable discharge

By Richard North - August 22, 2022

The papers have been full of news of the recent sewage spills, with the Telegraph telling us that sewage “now pollutes every single beach between Brighton and Hastings”.

The Sunday Times, on the other hand, paints the bigger picture, with the headline: “Sewage spills in UK waters since 2016 have lasted nine million hours” and, of course, Feargal Sharkey makes a big deal of the issue.

And, indeed, it is a big issue. The problem (illegal discharges aside) relates to the provision of storm overflows of which, apparently, there are 15,000 in England alone, discharging to either inland water bodies, estuaries or the coast.

As it stands, these storm overflows are a necessary part of the sewerage system. They were constructed because the combined system which predominates in the UK, carrying wastewater and storm water, could never affordably be large enough to convey all flows to treatment plants.

Nevertheless, Sharkey writes: “Can someone please explain to me why over the past two years we have allowed water companies to spend almost 6 million hours on 775,704 separate occasions dumping sewage into England’s rivers?”

Well, he has his answer there, but Sharkey argues that using this system is “an act of environmental destruction so wide reaching that not a single river in the country is currently listed as being in ‘good’ overall environmental health”.

In the view of this former punk rocker turned campaigner, we are witnessing “the physical manifestation of 30 years of underinvestment, 30 years of regulatory failure, 30 years of mismanagement and all of it topped off with 30 years of a political vacuum, devoid of oversight and scrutiny”.

In some respects, he’s not wrong, although the decision to adopt a combined system goes way back to Bazalgette and the building of London’s first sewerage system in the 19th Century. To remove completely the possibility of sewage leaks would require the installation of an entirely new, separate sewerage system, splitting the foul water from the surface water drainage.

But there’s a small catch – the cost. According a recent report produced by the Storm Overflows Taskforce, the complete separation of wastewater and stormwater systems (eliminating storm overflows) would cost between £350 billion and £600 billion.

This, according to best estimates, could increase household bills between £569 and £999 per year. And then there is also the slight problem of installing the new sewers which would be “highly disruptive and complex to deliver nationwide”.

However, if a reduced option is adopted, and the overflows discharging to inland waters are retained but limited in their operation, the costs could vary widely depending on how frequently the overflows operate.

Estimates for different scenarios range between £5 billion (allowing for 40 spills average) and £280 billion if no spills are allowed. Here, the impact on annual household bills could be between £9 and £495 respectively.

Various refinements have been considered, such as the idea that spill controls could be gauged according to river type. A general limit of 40 spills on average per year, reduced to 10 spills in sensitive catchments, would cost between £18 billion and £110 billion.

In this case, the impact on annual household bills could be between £30 and £208 per year. This 40/10 spill policy is similar in cost and bill impact to the policy of 20 spills on average per year.

A policy focused on achieving 10 spills per year on average in sensitive rivers (such as chalk streams) would cost between £16-£82 billion. The impact on annual household bills could be between £26 and £150 respectively.

Alternatively, a policy focused on achieving 10 spills per year on average in rivers where storm overflows are observed to be the reason for not achieving good ecological status would cost between £13-£59 billion. In this case, the impact on annual household bills could be between £22 and £108 respectively.

A policy focused on improving rivers known to be used for bathing to achieve an average spill frequency of five per year would cost between £8-£26 billion, adding between £13-£48 to annual household bills. However, we are told, this policy ignores the costs of dealing with other sources of microbial and other contamination, which may be more significant and difficult to deliver.

With the Taskforce only delivering its latest report in March of this year, it is a long way from delivering definitive recommendations.

However, it has come up with some revised cost estimates which top £107 billion for a full “no harm” scenario, implemented by 2050. Limiting spills due to rainfall to ten, and removing any ecological harm might run to £178 billion, although the cost could be as little as £40 billion.

Any which way, solving the problem is going to cost a shed-load of money and there is a public debate to be had as to which options should be chosen, having regard to the willingness (and the ability) of the charge payers to accept higher bills.

There never has been a good time to embark on high level of expenditure on such projects, and now is very far from being the best of times, especially when there will also have to be significant capital expenditure on reducing water leakage.

Rightly, it could be argued that measures should have been taken a lot earlier, but there was always going to be public resistance to higher water bills, and the politicians have been wary about driving up costs.

This has been seen from the parallel push for “sustainable drainage” introduced in Schedule 3 of the Flood and Water Management Act 2010, but never fully implemented, mainly because of the cost implications. Even now, there are multiple issues to resolve.

As for the current report, this stems from the 2011 White Paper, Water for Life and builds on the Ofwat Drainage Strategy Framework published in 2013. If nothing else, it illustrates the glacial speed at which such public projects move.

By the time the technical analyses have been completed, and the necessary consultations have been concluded, with parliamentary scrutiny probably to come, it could be a decade or more – spanning at least two electoral cycles – before we have “oven-ready” legislation ready to go, allowing for a twenty-year process of implementation to meet a 2050 deadline. Thus, whatever happens won’t be quick, and it ain’t going to be cheap.

Whether, in the interim, there will be sufficient trust in the bloated water companies and their overpaid executives to allow them a role in implementing any new projects remains to be seen.

If, as many would argue, we need to revert to public ownership of water and sewerage provision, then that can only delay and complicate an already complex situation.

Certainly, the situation is not greatly improved by ignorant rants about sewage spills, or by the likes of Will Hutton, who is very much in “something must be done” territory.

His priceless offering is that we need a regulatory, licensing and governance regime that fosters many more top-star performers amongst the water companies, with public ownership the last resort option for the poor performers.

Yet, in the background, we see the stirrings of a major policy initiative building, almost completely unremarked and probably unknown to the loud-mothed critics of our current system. When the dogs have barked and the caravan has moved on from the current hype, one wonders if they will still even be interested.