The next threat to our rivers

[John Aston]

Well, before all the discussion about the means, we need national and political consensus on the end . Water has become almost as emotive a topic as the NHS and just as with health , I have no strong view as to whether it should be publically or privately provided . I am more interested in an effective outcome than elevating any service to sacred cow/national treasure status - adoration can cloud objective vision.

As a nation we need to agree that not only do we want clean rivers , but that we will pay for them and secure adequate funding for an agency to enforce the objectives against the bodies, public or private , that are failing to achieve them.

 

[Alan Whitty]

Unfortunately my experience shows the majority of people in this country don't give a toss about litter and as long as their shite disappears when they flush the chain they don't give a toss about clean rivers or seas either, we as anglers often have similar ideals of such matters but looking at my neighbours in general it's all a pipe dream that doesn't exist outside their own little bubbles....

 

[Mark Wintle]

Some of the statements in this thread are laugable.

Water is free!

Just say you had to collect your own water and relied on what fell on your land. First you'd need a means of collecting it - gutters on a roof? - not free, then to store it - water tank? - not free, then to purify and filter it? - not free?, then to pump/pipe it to where required, via another tank? - not free. All these things are what a water company has to provide the infrastructure to do, and none of them last for ever, nor does the demand remain constant.

Similarly to dispose of sewage/rainwater/drainage there needs to be infrastructure, drains, sewage plants etc.

My local water company has been updating these combined infrastructure utilities, improved water supply, a water network, rerouting of sewers etc.

 

[mikench]

And the above comments are not laughable ? The essential commodity is water and it falls from the sky, do you not agree. It does so incessantly and year on year. It replenishes reservoirs and water butts( I have two do you). I have gutters, all houses do and mine have lasted 35 years to my knowledge. Will Thames water replace your gutters even if you asked. Would United Utilities supply a water butt if asked. The answers are no , you pay for them out of your own pocket. I pay for the delivery of my water per litre. The current infrastructure was in existence before privatisation and has hardly been extended or improved. The demand for water is forever increasing as is the treatment of waste. Tell me of a time when nobody wanted water. Constant demand is an understatement . We all pay for water and sewage treatment whether we like it or not unless we live off grid. We cannot shop around and if it’s unavailable then tough. I repeat that water as a commodity for drinking and foul water comes to the companies at no cost. It isn’t manufactured as in say Dubai,and it’s never last it’s sell by date.

 

[rob48]

The current infrastructure was in existence before privatisation and has hardly been extended or improved.

Complete and utter nonsense. If you'd ever worked in the industry instead of swallowing newspaper articles fed to them by activists you'd have more of an idea.

 

[mikench]

You have I suppose and the current crisis of discharging untreated sewage into rivers regardless of climatic conditions , is a figment of the imagination of activists, newspapers and those gullible idiots who read them . Believe me I know a human turd when I see one on a beach as I do dead fish in a river.

 

[rob48]

Yes I have.
My first job was in an engineers office working on roads and sewer design and contract supervision.
I helped formulate the STC25 Standing Technical Committee Report on Sewers and Water Mains and devised a system of mapping in order to produce reliable and accurate records for future design and maintenance operations.
Upon moving to a consultancy I established a surveying department which carried out CCTV inspection and digital mapping of sewers and water mains and became an approved contractor for water authorities in England, Scotland and Welsh Water.
This was in the 1980s, prior to privatisation.
The conditions encountered were worse than expected by the authorities and the extent of the work that would be required to maintain a barely functioning, let alone improved and reliable, network, with an indication of the astronomical costs involved gradually became apparent.
I mentioned earlier about the RAMPs programme which was necessary as soon as privatisation went through so I won't bother going over that again.
I'll simply add that waiting for people to die in order to rob them would have been unlikely to cover the cost.

 

[mikench]

I accept what you say . However when such remedial work is necessary the continued payment of dividends to shareholders and high salaries and bonuses to the board cannot be justified. It’s clear that the companies have lied and continue to do so about discharging untreated sewage into rivers when it is illegal to do so.

 

[rob48]

Sorry, forgot to address the discharges.
I can't deny that they've happened and I hope (I don't know, it's not my area) that there's the capability for effective retribution. If there isn't, the likley change of government next year will be able to address it, although they didn't bother last time that they had the opportunity.
I know human turds when I see them too, it's good we can agree on something.
The only issue I have with them is that I never see them in the rivers I fish, that's miles of the upper Trent, middle to lower Severn, Warwickshire Avon and Wye.
I fish the Trent most weeks, the biggest problem is the water clarity, which makes it a haven for predators.
I had a full week on the lower Severn beginning of August, it fished its brains out, never caught so many roach, never saw a trace of effluent.
I've got a cottage booked on the Avon near Stratford for next week (going tomorrow) which we have every September. The water will be gin clear, people do paddle boarding and that sort of thing. It's stuffed with roach, dace, and the chub are making a bit of a comeback, as they are in the Trent too, plenty of 2-3oz fish which have been absent for the last few years.
The only river that I've personally seen suffer is the Wye, and that's down to algae bloom resulting from Welsh chicken sh*t upstream, and nothing to do with sewage AFAIK.
It's all a far cry from the days in the 80s when we had to rinse the sewage residue off our nets when we got home form matches on the Trent.

 

[nottskev]

Government ministers and industry spokespeople are the sources to be trusted, Mike.
I worry you've been radicalised by those agitators in The Times, The Independent, The Guardian, The BBC, Sky News .......

I'll simply add that waiting for people to die in order to rob them would have been unlikely to cover the cost.

You prefer non-progressive forms of taxation, I assume, (notwithstanding the obvious point here, that the owners were paid for what they sold in a century that was beginning, signally in the Liberal government of 1906, to re-balance the privileges and responsibilities of the super-rich of the day) and your sympathies lie with the Barons Middleton, into whose laps, since the thirteenth century, had fallen titles, manor houses, coal mines and huge estates. How nice to be schooled in sewage treatment through the prism of Burke's Peerage.

 

[rob48]

Government ministers and industry spokespeople are the sources to be trusted, Mike.
I worry you've been radicalised by those agitators in The Times, The Independent, The Guardian, The BBC, Sky News .......



You prefer non-progressive forms of taxation, I assume, (notwithstanding the obvious point here, that the owners were paid for what they sold in a century that was beginning, signally in the Liberal government of 1906, to re-balance the privileges and responsibilities of the super-rich of the day) and your sympathies lie with the Barons Middleton, into whose laps, since the thirteenth century, had fallen titles, manor houses, coal mines and huge estates. How nice to be schooled in sewage treatment through the prism of Burke's Peerage.

We all have our own views of what constitutes progress.
I don't envy other people or what they've got.
I believe other sewage treatment schooling is available.
And if you ever find an industry spokesperson do relate what he/she says, I'd be most interested to hear it.

 

[@Clive]

And the above comments are not laughable ? The essential commodity is water and it falls from the sky, do you not agree. It does so incessantly and year on year. It replenishes reservoirs and water butts( I have two do you). I have gutters, all houses do and mine have lasted 35 years to my knowledge. Will Thames water replace your gutters even if you asked. Would United Utilities supply a water butt if asked. The answers are no , you pay for them out of your own pocket. I pay for the delivery of my water per litre. The current infrastructure was in existence before privatisation and has hardly been extended or improved. The demand for water is forever increasing as is the treatment of waste. Tell me of a time when nobody wanted water. Constant demand is an understatement . We all pay for water and sewage treatment whether we like it or not unless we live off grid. We cannot shop around and if it’s unavailable then tough. I repeat that water as a commodity for drinking and foul water comes to the companies at no cost. It isn’t manufactured as in say Dubai,and it’s never last it’s sell by date.

You have actually, probably inadvertantly, made rob48's case. If you acquire any of the things needed to collect, purify and discharge water it will cost you something. Unless you can weave a water butt out of grass and twigs or hollow out a length of tree trunk. There will be a very few people in the UK who manage to live entirely on water that has cost them absolutely nothing, but they won't be living in the Wirral with a dishwasher and ice maker.

Did your gutters keep your two water butts topped up throughout the recent dry spell?

 

[nottskev]

I don't envy other people or what they've got.

Lovely. Something we agree on. As envy is nothing to do with reasonable economic policies which balance what our country needs against what canny individuals would like to capture for themselves. "The Politics of envy" is a traditional, if weak, Tory defence against anything that addresses the relation of private wealth to public squalor.

 

[rob48]

I really don't care whether we agree or not as I was mainly concerned in correcting the unfounded claims made earlier.
I did notice your reference to privilege though, almost sounds kind of, what's the word? Never mind, it'll come to me, and I really, really would like to hear what the mythical industry spokesperson has to say.

 

[nottskev]

Iand I really, really would like to hear what the mythical industry spokesperson has to say.

Well, it was really hard to find anything. It took me several seconds. Here's a couple in response to the big rises in water company executive pay, from the Times earlier this year, which reported:
Pay packages for water industry bosses soared by a fifth on average last year, despite the companies overseeing hundreds of thousands of sewage spills.
The average remuneration for executives at ten firms in England and Wales climbed to £1.1 million in 2021-22, up by £193,000 on average. The increase prompted accusations of a “national scandal” given the state of the country’s rivers. Collectively, executives across the sector were paid almost £25 million.

Here they go, the mythical spokespeople:

A Thames Water spokesman said: “Our executive reward packages are benchmarked with those at other similar-sized organisations. We must pay competitive packages to attract and retain the best people.”

A Water UK spokesman said: “Bonuses and incentives for water company leaders are linked to their delivery for customers and the environment. If delivery falters, then levels of reward will, rightly, be lower.”

I wonder what that word you're seeking is? Bolshevik? Do you regard "privilege" as something as mythical as the industry apologists who have been justifying themselves in the media on a daily basis? Maybe I'm being radicalised by The Times?

 

[rob48]

Well, it was really hard to find anything. It took me several seconds. Here's a couple in response to the big rises in water company executive pay, from the Times earlier this year, which reported:
Pay packages for water industry bosses soared by a fifth on average last year, despite the companies overseeing hundreds of thousands of sewage spills.
The average remuneration for executives at ten firms in England and Wales climbed to £1.1 million in 2021-22, up by £193,000 on average. The increase prompted accusations of a “national scandal” given the state of the country’s rivers. Collectively, executives across the sector were paid almost £25 million.

Here they go, the mythical spokespeople:

A Thames Water spokesman said: “Our executive reward packages are benchmarked with those at other similar-sized organisations. We must pay competitive packages to attract and retain the best people.”

A Water UK spokesman said: “Bonuses and incentives for water company leaders are linked to their delivery for customers and the environment. If delivery falters, then levels of reward will, rightly, be lower.”

I wonder what that word you're seeking is? Bolshevik? Do you regard "privilege" as something as mythical as the industry apologists who have been justifying themselves in the media on a daily basis? Maybe I'm being radicalised by The Times?

So the spokesperson said pretty much the same as one from any large organisation. Fancy that. My interest was entirely misplaced.
Like I said earlier, I'm not that bothered apart from the erroneous claims made previously.
Executive pay doesn't interest me especially, it's up to their shareholders.
If anything I'd have more concerns about these people with appalling records in taxpayer funded local government and the NHS where compensation payments and losses due to fraud run into millions every year and those ultimately responsible simply swan off to another trust.

 

[@Clive]

The problem seems to be that there are different ways to measure success. The consumers, the river users and the shareholders and management of the water companies probably don't agree on what is regarded as successfully managing the corporations.

 

[Kevin aka Aethelbald]

Yes.
I have neither a septic tank nor water treatment unit and I pay different companies.

Which companies are they?

 

[Philip]

I have not read every post ...my head was spinning after the first page ...I dont know a huge amount about water treatment but I do find it all a bit wierd if raw sewage is knowingly discharged into rivers in this day and age.

It can't be right can it.

 

[bennygesserit]

So @rob48 are you saying effluent isnt being discharged into our river system and we dont have a problem ?