Wild swimming? Think again

Modern sanitary products were invented some time after the sewers were installed so of course they can no longer cope. The choice is either to update the entire system or to try to stop the problem from happening in the first place. The first option is the costly one but probably the solution.

Don’t forget too that the food chain is being compromised.

Species are being genetically altered by the effluent.

We are consuming this.

So glad I'm vegan - this should really put everyone off their fish, if microplastics haven't already!

I know somebody who wild swims but won't let her children do it - as they just can't be trusted to keep their mouths shut - and swallow no water.

We obviously want the discharge of sewage reduced to a minimum but it is never going to be eliminated because in storm and flood conditions it is going to happen. Thankfully our rivers are much cleaner now than the 1960s when drainage went directly into the river, on a Monday (washing day) we had banks of foam 6 ft deep drifting in the wind up from the weir.

As for wild swimming in rivers if you survive the rashes and sickness you will probably have a very robust immune system!.

Isn't the owner of a property now obliged to equip it with the correct sewage and water drainage system in areas where mains drainage isn't possible?

Katie 'We obviously want the discharge of sewage reduced to a minimum but it is never going to be eliminated because in storm and flood conditions it is going to happen. '

but this is NOT what we are talking about here, are we.

We are talking about the very deliberate discharging of raw sewers into our waterways.

Yes, waters are, well perhaps were until recently, much cleaner because it was EU regulations that forced companies to stop doing the above! The whole point of this discussion.

Now the turn of Devon, North and South - just weeks ago my grandchildren were swimming in the Dart, as we always have. Tragic.

It's just part of the process of returning the UK to its pre EU membership state, isn't it? It's what people voted for...

I learned to swim in the late 1950s. In the sea, on the Essex Coast (Walton on the Naze to be precise...). I didn't realise until many years later that sea water wasn't actually meant to be an impenetrable sludgy green colour... You could see the sewage outfalls all round the coast..

(At the risk of sounding like a non PC old fart I have to say that none of the family ever suffered any ill effects from our immersion in that sludgy coloured water. But it was very saline)

Another cause is that due to cuts, councils are no longer sweeping all the leaves off the streets and they are blocking drains.

As for wild swimming in rivers if you survive the rashes and sickness you will probably have a very robust immune system!.

My family and I have swum in rivers and the sea our entire lives. My father regularly swam in the sea to a ripe old age. None of us have ever had a rash or sickness.

I get the feeling some people think the rivers are to flush our toilets and that hey ho sometimes that happens and so long as the water isn't actively green and poisonous and frothing with our washing water then aren't we doing well.

Also I get the feeling that some think anyone who swims is risking death by rat urine or shopping trolley and is out of their mind. This is one of life's great pleasures and if you haven't done it you are missing something...you might not want to do it....but it is honestly the greatest rush of joy and hugely good for you. Go out into the country and look at our rivers and go to the coast and see the sea- they are incredible.

How did we lose this connection with nature and the environment around us?

Kali2

Katie 'We obviously want the discharge of sewage reduced to a minimum but it is never going to be eliminated because in storm and flood conditions it is going to happen. '

but this is NOT what we are talking about here, are we.

We are talking about the very deliberate discharging of raw sewers into our waterways.

Yes, waters are, well perhaps were until recently, much cleaner because it was EU regulations that forced companies to stop doing the above! The whole point of this discussion.

I think what Katie59 said is correct, though, or at least what water companies claim in the ITV documentary.

In times of excess rainfall sewage is dispersed through discharge pipes into the river to prevent it going back into people's houses.
The discharge pipes have been there for a very long time, they are not new and this has happened for a long time.
2015
A Welsh Water spokesman said: “We are aware that our Hay-on-Wye pumping station released diluted waste water on October 6, 2015, which occurred during heavy rainfall.

“Releases such as this are essential to ensure that residents in the area do not experience internal flooding due to capacity on the network being exceeded. Releases such as this during such weather conditions are permitted by Natural Resources Wales and the release in this case fully complied with the terms of our permit.”
www.herefordtimes.com/news/13895044.river-sewage-permitted

This has more to do with increased flooding, increases in housing and not building the infrastructure to cope.

Someone agrees with you Scones. Rush of delight sums it up and never sick after!

I get the feeling some people think the rivers are to flush our toilets and that hey ho sometimes that happens and so long as the water isn't actively green and poisonous and frothing with our washing water then aren't we doing well.

The green in the river Wye, for instance, isn't from sewage, it's from the runoff from the free range chicken farms in Powys and Herefordshire and chicken manure is washing into the river causing algae blooms and killing wildlife.

Josianne What a joy! I can utterly relate to that face full of pure contentment.

Kali2

Why are our resident GN Tories not here to massively approve of the great idea, I wonder?

Very snide comment, and totally uneccesary Most Tory voters do care about their environment, personally I’m disgusted by it and will be writing to my MP. As 70 percent of our water is disgustingly owned by foreign companies, Labour also did nothing to reverse this trend, including from France and Germany, would they be happy to put this crap into the Rhine or the Seine, oh no of course they wouldn’t, and are using Brexit as an excuse to poison our rivers.???

Lincslass

Kali2

Why are our resident GN Tories not here to massively approve of the great idea, I wonder?

Very snide comment, and totally uneccesary Most Tory voters do care about their environment, personally I’m disgusted by it and will be writing to my MP. As 70 percent of our water is disgustingly owned by foreign companies, Labour also did nothing to reverse this trend, including from France and Germany, would they be happy to put this crap into the Rhine or the Seine, oh no of course they wouldn’t, and are using Brexit as an excuse to poison our rivers.???

I'm sorry but I think it a pertinent comment. Until you came along all we have seen is the posting of various 'justifications' for the lack of action.

I've made this comment, in one form or the other, before on other threads. Even though I'm on the left, I am happy to condemn Labour for their inaction. I - and most others on the left here - will readily discuss the various shortcomings and worse of Blair, Brown, Corbyn, Starmer etc...

But post a criticism of a Tory government or minister and people - and I think you are the only exception I've witnessed - will try to justify anything they've done. Including continuing to allow s**t to be dumped in rivers and the sea.

Maggie Throupe (vaccines minister) has just voted to pour raw sewage into our waterways. She is director of the Derby and Sandiacre Canal Trust.

This is a good article from The Conversation about the problem. It goes some way to explain the difficulties facing water companies (losing investors, for example, meaning there'd be less money to spend on improvements) as well as making a couple of suggestions that might help.

Petera & Lincslass Derek Amess hasn't even been buried yet, and the sort of contemptuous rhetoric that leads to the general contempt for politicians that can eventually lead to events like his death and that of Jo Cox, survives undaunted.

The Christian teaching is hate the sin but love the sinner, whether you are a Christian or not, it is a teaching worth living by. Attackt the policy by all means, but not those who may support a party that advocates it.

I have yet to meet anyone of any party who whole heartedly supports every policy their party advocates.

M0nica

Petera & Lincslass Derek Amess hasn't even been buried yet, and the sort of contemptuous rhetoric that leads to the general contempt for politicians that can eventually lead to events like his death and that of Jo Cox, survives undaunted.

The Christian teaching is hate the sin but love the sinner, whether you are a Christian or not, it is a teaching worth living by. Attackt the policy by all means, but not those who may support a party that advocates it.

I have yet to meet anyone of any party who whole heartedly supports every policy their party advocates.

Do want some more time to think that through?

MayBee70

Maggie Throupe (vaccines minister) has just voted to pour raw sewage into our waterways. She is director of the Derby and Sandiacre Canal Trust.

Having just read the Conversation article, I suggest that Throupe (and others) did not so much vote to pour raw sewage into waterways as to prevent raw sewage from going into people's homes or other places where it would cause even more problems.

Obviously the current situation is awful nonetheless but other than the law being used to fine water companies, what can MPs do? It would be nice to hear people's suggestions without attached scoffing. I'd genuinely like to know what people think can be done given the difficulties of modernising sewers and sewage treatment outline the the Conversation article.

I'm sure we, as a species, can think of ways to improve our sewers but it clearly isn't easy.

I was going to post that treated sewage has always been pumped into our rivers, ie sewage treated with chemicals.
Now there is a problem with acquiring the chemicals, raw sewage may have to be pumped into the rivers.

As Baggs and lemongrove earlier posted, MPs really had no option and we hope it is just a short-term solution easing of the rules.

Money needs to be put into improving infrastructure because pumping treated sewage into waterways is not ideal but that will take time.

Now, how to prevent slurry and manure from farming washing into our rivers??

petera Since writing the above I have been reading an articly by Paul, Embury of the Fireman's Union on Unherd. unherd.com/2021/10/the-lefts-destructive-tribalism/?tl_inbound=1&tl_groups[0]=18743&tl_period_type=3&mc_cid=f3e7f516ae&mc_eid=be97ec1684

The whole essay is well worth reading, but in it. my eye immediately centred on this excerpt
The tendency of many on the Left to see those on the other side of the political debate as inherently bad people — even sometimes as something a bit less than human. It is a dispiriting and destructive approach.

It is endemic on GN is so many threads, even this one.

M0nica

petera Since writing the above I have been reading an articly by Paul, Embury of the Fireman's Union on Unherd. unherd.com/2021/10/the-lefts-destructive-tribalism/?tl_inbound=1&tl_groups[0]=18743&tl_period_type=3&mc_cid=f3e7f516ae&mc_eid=be97ec1684

The whole essay is well worth reading, but in it. my eye immediately centred on this excerpt
The tendency of many on the Left to see those on the other side of the political debate as inherently bad people — even sometimes as something a bit less than human. It is a dispiriting and destructive approach.

It is endemic on GN is so many threads, even this one.

...and I repeat. "[We] will readily discuss the various shortcomings and worse of Blair, Brown, Corbyn, Starmer etc..."

I am interested to read one of the let outs is that the water companies, through apparent lack of investment, do not have the money to improve the infrastructure.

Given that it is not a supply that rests on market competition and that the infrastructure they seemingly cannot afford to they have largely inherited I am surprised as they are not companies in the truest sense. One half of the market equation is missing. They have a captured customer.

In my opinion it is time the government took back ownership of this vital supply. Only a government is capable of the complete oversee of the national needs and future planning.

This will never happen with the current government wedded as they are ideologically to a small state.