[Misc] Sewage in the sea

[Dick Knights Mumm]

This seems to be an issue unique to the UK. Certain types blather on about how little can be done but other countries don’t seem to be going medieval when it comes to sewage; how do other countries deal with it especially land locked ones?

Quite.

 

[beorhthelm]

How much is being paid to shareholders as dividends in recent years and how much (say in terms of a comparable figure, like GDP) is spent now on the water networks compared to when it was last in public ownership? Was it state of the art back then, with more than enough capacity to always be able to cope? or was it like a lot of things? running at a loss with a lack of investment like a lot of public services suffer from?

good questions, people dont ask just read the lastest twitter rant. often reported numbers since 1991 are £57bn dividends and capital investment £123bn. investment pre-privatisation was ~£2bn a year, compared with £4.5bn based on those numbers. so 57bn to shareholders that could have gone into investment or reduced bills (about £69 household/year), while over doubling of the investment.

 

[BrightonCottager]

Yep. Saw that in the news today. Since her meddling, sewage dumps have doubled in the U.K. as a lot of that money was supposed to be used to monitor how companies dealt with such issues.

Nobody watching, nobody to make you spend money treating sewage safely, more money for shareholders.

An absolute classic case of turning a blind eye.

She is a disaster. Someone should flush her out to sea with all the other effluent.

One of her first acts as PM may be to issue the Government's plan for reducing sewage spills - due out in early September.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

No other country in Europe has privatised its water industry in the same way as we have and general taxation is used to spread the cost along with wider water metering. Per capita water use is also often lower. Prof Dieter Helm was on BBC R4's The Briefing Room last week talking about the drought and skewered the English and Welsh privatisation model.

The answer won't be easy, involving more investment and a lot of retrofit to reduce the amount of rain going into the sewers but people have known this for decades and water companies have done nothing except maximise profits, the regulators have been cut and told to do light touch regulation (EA) or concentrate on cutting bills (OFWAT, until a couple of years ago when it woke up).

By the way, the public can play their part by not tarmacing front gardens that increases the amount of run off.

This is interesting to know. Thank you. You make the point about water usage in other comparable countries is lower; I read a while ago that the UK has one of the higher water lose rates due to so much leakage from cracked and/or burst Victorian pipes.....I presume this plays a part in the level of 'usage'? I know it's not being used by the public as it's leaking out into the streets but it's water set aside for the public which is being wasted.

 

[Bakero]

This is interesting to know. Thank you. You make the point about water usage in other comparable countries is lower; I read a while ago that the UK has one of the higher water lose rates due to so much leakage from cracked and/or burst Victorian pipes.....I presume this plays a part in the level of 'usage'? I know it's not being used by the public as it's leaking out into the streets but it's water set aside for the public which is being wasted.

Almost 3 billion litres a day is lost to leakage, which equates to about a trillion litres per year. To put that in perspective, it's like half a million olympic swimming pools.

 

[Bakero]

So where would that sewage go? there suddenly wouldn't be enough capacity to cope if it isn't already there now, what do you expect to happen? someone clicks their fingers and it all magically appears?

I'm sure all the water companies know it's now a major issue, and are working at solutions to limit and eventually stop these sorts of spills, but like anything, it will take time to get there (nationalised services are always crying out for funding and seen as underfunded, so not sure if it was that it would be any better than it is now)

But in the court of public opinion with what becomes the next hot topic, all the unrealistic expectations come flooding out and demands to stop something without an reasonable thought given to practicalities and how exactly it can be achieved, no thought to time scale,

It took 10 years to get our stadium, how long do you think it would take to identify and secure enough sites, creating enough capacity within them to cope with the very worst flooding, and battle against the nimby's who will oppose any new site they may try to build?

Or what's the alternative? sewage flooded homes, businesses etc? when the system can't cope?

You never hear then and now comparisons for before and after privatisation, have the water companies closed sites and got less capacity, or has it increased but a lot of new builds in the area meant there is now less capacity per house than before? were they spilling before it was privatised, but it wasn't a hot topic so no one really noticed?

What should they be investing in to deal with the problems that they supposedly aren't at the moment?

How much is being paid to shareholders as dividends in recent years and how much (say in terms of a comparable figure, like GDP) is spent now on the water networks compared to when it was last in public ownership? Was it state of the art back then, with more than enough capacity to always be able to cope? or was it like a lot of things? running at a loss with a lack of investment like a lot of public services suffer from?

Were rivers like the Thames heavily polluted before privatisation, with little wildlife there (seeing as there have been stories in more recent years about fish, etc returning to the waters) or only after it was?

It would be nice to hear more detail rather than everyone just jumping on the latest band waggon

The justification for the sale of a national asset was that private capital could inject the funds needed to upgrade the network of pipes and sewers. Not only have they failed to do that (see above post on leakage) but they've also failed to build the reservoirs we and are pumping sewage into our waters. How much were Southern fined for illegal dumping a while back? 90 million? A drop in the ocean. Obviously, they've decided it's cheaper to pay the fine than invest in infrastructure.

Thatcher wiped the industry's debt prior to privatisation, since when they've borrowed billions. 56 billion in debt I think I read the other day. Meanwhile, shareholders have received 72 billion pounds in dividends since 89, paid for by borrowing and higher bills for consumers.

Mindboggling that anyone would try to excuse this shite. I'd tell you to get in the sea but that playful exclamation has become more sinister recently.

 

[Papa Lazarou]

If you fancy a swim, check here first

https://www.sas.org.uk/map/

 

[WATFORD zero]

good questions, people dont ask just read the lastest twitter rant. often reported numbers since 1991 are £57bn dividends and capital investment £123bn. investment pre-privatisation was ~£2bn a year, compared with £4.5bn based on those numbers. so 57bn to shareholders that could have gone into investment or reduced bills (about £69 household/year), while over doubling of the investment.

Maybe a little more information rather than a couple of selective headline figures may be informative (and obviously, as you failed to point out, these figures are from two years ago)

England's privatised water firms paid £57bn in dividends since 1991

The payouts in dividends to shareholders of parent companies between 1991 and 2019 amount to £57bn – nearly half the sum they spent on maintaining and improving the country’s pipes and treatment plants in that period.

When Margaret Thatcher sold off the water industry in 1989, the government wrote off all debts. But according to the analysis by David Hall and Karol Yearwood of the public services international research unit of Greenwich University, the nine privatised companies in England have amassed debts of £48bn over the past three decades – almost as much as the sum paid out to shareholders. The debt cost them £1.3bn in interest last year.

Hall concludes the companies have borrowed to pay dividends, rather than to invest in infrastructure projects. The £123bn of capital expenditure spent by the companies has all been financed by customer bills, the analysis states. “A large amount of debt has been borrowed. But since the revenue from user charges covered capital expenditure, this debt has been used to finance dividends rather than capital expenditure,” Hall said.

Dieter Helm, a professor of economic policy at Oxford University, said water companies could not be blamed for exploiting the system.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/01/england-privatised-water-firms-dividends-shareholders

 

[beorhthelm]

Maybe a little more information rather than a couple of selective headline figures may be informative (and obviously, as you failed to point out, these figures are from two years ago)

England's privatised water firms paid £57bn in dividends since 1991

The payouts in dividends to shareholders of parent companies between 1991 and 2019 amount to £57bn – nearly half the sum they spent on maintaining and improving the country’s pipes and treatment plants in that period.

When Margaret Thatcher sold off the water industry in 1989, the government wrote off all debts. But according to the analysis by David Hall and Karol Yearwood of the public services international research unit of Greenwich University, the nine privatised companies in England have amassed debts of £48bn over the past three decades – almost as much as the sum paid out to shareholders. The debt cost them £1.3bn in interest last year.

Hall concludes the companies have borrowed to pay dividends, rather than to invest in infrastructure projects. The £123bn of capital expenditure spent by the companies has all been financed by customer bills, the analysis states. “A large amount of debt has been borrowed. But since the revenue from user charges covered capital expenditure, this debt has been used to finance dividends rather than capital expenditure,” Hall said.

Dieter Helm, a professor of economic policy at Oxford University, said water companies could not be blamed for exploiting the system.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/01/england-privatised-water-firms-dividends-shareholders

what i wrote was source numbers. what you've quoted is opinion, with a spin that dividends are paid from debt, investment comes from bills, as if balance sheets seperate these . the data isnt any different.

 

[wellquickwoody]

Brighton owes its growth / existence to the concept of the health-giving benefits of sea-bathing. Yet we are still seeing lots of instances of raw sewage being released into our sea every time it rains heavily and lots of times it doesn't rain heavily.

The Portobello outfall in Telscombe just east of Saltdean was used 64 times last year to discharge raw sewage.
Seaford had about 180 sewage warnings last year (these numbers are from Southern Water's own guages on its Beachbuoy website).
Bexhill/Hastings has been suffering for months from broken pumps discharfging sewage.
The media - including an article in yesterday's Sunday Times mainly about Seaford and Saltdean - are full of these stories and even local Conservative MPs are writing to ministers about it.
The Surfers Against Sewage sewage pollution app Safers Seas and River Service is gaining massive publicity and new subscribers.
The water companies have amassed £48b in debts and paid £57b in dividends since privatisation.

What are NSCer's experiences and what needs to be done?

Just started the thread and before I gig in properly I thought of this……

Treatment of sewage should be a must do of course, but….it will still break down eventually. Might take longer, will smell bloody awful, and should be left well alone until nature has taken its course. Sea versus land? It will break down in both, but at least on land it is not moving around all over the place, those who want to avoid it can, man or beast.

But it is really no different than horse, cow, pig or dog poo in reality, just it probably carries some human specific bugs and diseases. Again, it can be avoided. Time and nature will break it down.

But surely human poo and wee is less of a problem long term than our other waste? Plastic, metals, toxins, needles, chemicals etc etc.. Maybe we should realise that poo etc is just a natural by product of all animal life on the planet and be a bit less precocious about it?

 

[WATFORD zero]

what i wrote was source numbers. what you've quoted is opinion, with a spin that dividends are paid from debt, investment comes from bills, as if balance sheets seperate these . the data isnt any different.

No different, apart from the £48B of debt built up since privatisation (which is coincidentally, very close to the dividends paid), which you seem to have missed out of 'the data' completely

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

If you fancy a swim, check here first

https://www.sas.org.uk/map/

I’d suggest checking here

www.expedia.co.Uk

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

One of her first acts as PM may be to issue the Government's plan for reducing sewage spills - due out in early September.

I know you are joking but this will not happen. To sort out this mess, like the other messes e.g. NHS, schools, public transport etc, it will cost money and the UK does not like paying taxes. Until there is a big change in mindset you will muddle along forever being promised everything will be sorted by making everything more efficient and reducing waste.

 

[Pinkie Brown]

Her majority dropped from 5K to just 2K from 2015-2019. Many are fed up with her, and James MacCleary is a very good councillor. He will stand as the next LibDem candidate.

The amendment last October from the House of Lords was put forward by the Duke of Wellington, but the Tories voted against it.

22 Conservative MPs did have a crisis of conscience and voted for the amendment.
https://www.theguardian.com/environ...s-tory-mps-to-defend-decision-on-social-media

She's indeed hideous. Along with Dorries and one other MP, she posted a doctored fake video of Keir Starmer that was originally posted on YouTube by some crankcase. For which she failed to apologise when challenged.

The only two Sussex tories who voted for the Lords amendment were Merriman (Bexhill & Battle) plus Loughton. (Worthing East) I couldn't find a recorded vote for Ansell (Eastbourne) or Bottomley (Worthing West) so must assume they abstained. Which in my view, makes them equally culpable as those who voted down the amendment.

 

[Springal]

[tweet]1561952712417222661[/tweet]

 

[Thunder Bolt]

She's indeed hideous. Along with Dorries and one other MP, she posted a doctored fake video of Keir Starmer that was originally posted on YouTube by some crankcase. For which she failed to apologise when challenged.

The only two Sussex tories who voted for the Lords amendment were Merriman (Bexhill & Battle) plus Loughton. (Worthing East) I couldn't find a recorded vote for Ansell (Eastbourne) or Bottomley (Worthing West) so must assume they abstained. Which in my view, makes them equally culpable as those who voted down the amendment.

Yes, Merriman did vote for the amendment and it is his letter that Hart (Hastings) and Caulfield have put their name to. It is hypocrisy, pretending it wasn't that they voted against. It is lies and more lies.

 

[Cowfold Seagull]

[tweet]1561952712417222661[/tweet]

 

[Questions]

We need a thousand people to get together and all have a s hit on the beach together and see if the police come.

 

[Carlos BC]

We need a thousand people to get together and all have a s hit on the beach together and see if the police come.

Kinky

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

We need a thousand people to get together and all have a s hit on the beach together and see if the police come.

They didn’t when people were crapping in takeaway boxes last summer in Bournemouth.