Thames link?
Green Eye, Issue 1642 THAMES Water’s dirty reputation is having an unfortunate knock-on effect on attempts to clean up its act.

All 41 rivers in the capital are polluted as sewer outlets pour untreated sewage into the river. The Thames Tideway – or "Super Sewer" – should aid the sewage crisis, but another major cause of London’s sewage woes is misconnections.

According to Thames data, one in ten properties in its region is misconnected. That means pipes from domestic toilets, showers and washing machines are connected to surface water drains instead of wastewater pipes. The surface water drains flush straight into rivers and streams without being treated.

Raw deal
Often householders are unaware their raw sewage is going straight into nearby waterways. Thames Water runs tests to identify misconnections and then tells householders to rectify the issue.

But according to Lewis Elmes, an Environment Agency catchment co-ordinator, Thames Water customers are becoming more reluctant to sort out the issue. He told a recent webinar on London’s sewage crisis: "Two years ago Thames Water’s efforts to solve misconnections were actually solving anything up to about 90 percent."

Most householders would act voluntarily once they had received a letter from Thames telling them about their faulty pipework. However, Thames Water’s dirty reputation for leaks has had repercussions.

"A frustrating side effect of that negative publicity means that this voluntary rectification rate has been dropping dramatically. We are down to somewhere around 60 to 70 percent voluntary rectifications," said Mr Elmes.

More householders are responding that, since Thames is putting much more sewage into the rivers than they are, why should they obey the order to rectify a misconnection?

Piling on pounds
The recalcitrant customers are only likely to dig their heels in further at the latest news that from 1 April the company will be raising bills by 31 percent, with average annual bills soaring to £639. The firm says the increase will allow investment in the infrastructure over the next five years but campaigners point out that hundreds of millions of pounds has been paid out in dividends to shareholders and executives have received eye-popping levels of pay.

If householders refuse to sort out their own misconnection, the water firm passes it on to the local council to take enforcement action. The matter can then end up in court. With local councils’ resources stretched, the misconnections can take years to rectify, while raw sewage continues to flow into rivers.

Campaigners have written to London mayor Sadiq Khan asking him to create a dedicated team to tackle the river pollution crisis.

Alice Roberts of the charity CPRE London said: "Clearly, the current system is not working. This is why we are calling for the formation of a central team that can work on behalf of all London boroughs. Doing so will offer a more efficient system that can deliver on enforcement and eliminate the flow of sewage into local water systems."