Scottish Water admits nearly 800 sewage spill sites are ‘unsatisfactory’

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1. Almost 800 sewage spill outlets across Scotland are in “unsatisfactory” condition, **i** can reveal.

   One in five of Scottish Water’s sewage discharge points are not good enough, according to the national water firm’s own assessment.

   Environmentalists are furious that the “unsatisfactory” sewage releases allow condoms, wet wipes, sanitary pads and other toilet debris to spill into Scotland’s rivers, lochs and beaches.

   Campaigners and opposition parties said the figures were “shocking” and showed that the Scottish Government and the national, publicly owned water company were “failing to safeguard” the environment.

   Scottish Water’s 2022-23 annual return to the Water Industry Commission Scotland (WICS) shows that 776 of its 3,591 “intermittent discharge” sites (22 per cent) are deemed unsatisfactory.

   It marks an increase from the previous year’s return, which showed that 681 of its 3,574 sewage discharge sites (19 per cent) were found to be inadequate.

   As highlighted by **i**’s Save Britain’s Rivers campaign, there is growing anger that water companies are legally allowed to discharge sewage via “combined sewer overflows” (CSOs) during periods of heavy rain.

   While the system is designed to stop sewage backing up into homes, environmentalists are worried there is not enough testing to know how damaging the dumping may be.

   Scottish Water said there were a variety of reasons that CSOs – and other kinds of discharge point, such as settled storm sewage overflows (SSSOs) – can be deemed unsatisfactory.

   A sewage release can be thought inadequate if toilet-related debris is spilling out and cluttering up rivers.

   A sewage release can also be considered as inadequate if it overflows during dry weather, or if it negatively impacts on water quality.

   The Scottish Liberal Democrats – having first identified the latest Scottish Water data on unsatisfactory discharges – said action was needed to upgrade the ageing sewage network.

   Party leader Alex Cole-Hamilton said Scotland’s beautiful rivers “risk being ruined by shocking levels of sewage dumping”.

   He added: “By Scottish Water’s own measure, a fifth of sewage outlets are unsatisfactory. Coupled with big increases in the number of sewage dumps last year, this is a tide of bad news for those who enjoy our natural environment.”

   Scottish Water’s 2021 plan admitted that combined sewage overflows can sometimes cause “acute environmental pollution incidents”.

   The document said that there were 630 CSOs in Scotland which had “sewage-related debris problems”. It also revealed that 80 per cent of CSOs did not have a screen to prevent wet wipes and other toilet litter being washed into rivers.

2. Between state owned Scottish Water and the chaos in the English private sector, it’s hard to believe we live in a G7 country.

   (How about focusing the hundreds of billions on getting rid of **going brown** all the damn time. Surely that will help our environment more than reducing our 1% of the world’s carbon emissions.)

3. But I thought having nationalised water meant that all sewage related problems magically don’t exist anymore

4. Turns out having publicly owned water doesn’t fix everything

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