Summary
Stomach-churning footage shows pools of human excrement floating in the River Thames in west london, leading to the cancellation of rowing training sessions due to water quality issues caused by sewage spills from storm overflows.
The clean up will cost millions, but will the water companies sanction it?
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Video shows ‘oil slick of excrement’ flowing in the River Thames | UK News
Stomach-churning footage has captured pools of human excrement floating along the River Thames in west London.
Waste pooling near Putney Embankment
The video shows the sewage waste pooling near Putney Embankment, downriver from Fulham Football Club’s Craven Cottage, on Thursday.
Furnivall Sculling Club and Vesta Rowing Club have cancelled training sessions ahead of the Henley Royal Regatta, a marquee rowing competition, because of the water quality.
The areas where both rowing clubs train have seen more than 70 hours of sewage spewed directly into the Thames since the beginning of the ear, according to data from Thames Water analysed by the tabloid.
Vesta’s safety officer texted members on Thursday saying all training sessions have been cancelled. ‘Non-squad or single scullers avoid going out for the next 24 hours’, they added, according to MailOnline.
Furnivall’s captain Evelyn Tichy told the outlet her team cancelled sessions on Friday.
The spill was spotted last week
At least 10 members in the last six months have been sick due to ‘infection’ rather than the usual one in that same period, she added.
‘It looks a bit like oil slicks of excrement on the Thames. I personally have rowed on the Tideway for about 10 years, and I have never seen it this bad,’ Tichy said.
England’s rivers and coastlines have a foul problem – sewage, and a lot of it.
How much untreated sewage released by water companies doubled in 2023. According to the Environment Agency, there were 3.6 million hours of spills, compared to 1,750,000 hours in 2022.
Storm overflows act like release valves for the country’s creaky sewage system, spilling out rain and foul water to stop sewers from being inundated with water.
Companies in England can only dump wastewater into the environment in rare circumstances, such as storms.
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According to data from Thames Water, several storm overflows in the Putney Embankment area have spewed sewage in recent weeks.
The Frogmore Storm overflow, bear the Roche nursery school, saw a three-and-a-half-hour-long discharge on May 3.
An overflow on Putney Bridge Street discharged for eight minutes last month, while the Jews Row Pumping Station discharged for four hours and 24 minutes on May 3.
Just 14% of English rivers meet good ecological status, officials say, warning of a ‘chemical cocktail’ coursing through waterways’
Surfers Against Sewage, a charity that monitors water pollution, found last year that 60% of inland bathing sites don’t meet minimum safety requirements for water users in England.
A Thames Water spokesperson told MailOnline: ‘Taking action to improve the health of rivers is a key focus for US. We appreciate how much waterways are loved and enjoyed by everyone, and we are committed to minimising our impact on the environment.
Environmental officials say there is a ‘chemical cocktail’ inside English waterways
‘Sewage discharges are unacceptable to us and our customers, and we’re working hard to stop them, in the face of the wettest weather in a decade. We were the first company to publish an online map providing close to real-time information about storm discharges from all our permitted locations, putting transparency at the heart of what we do.
‘This ‘near real-time’ data is available to customers as a map on our website and is also available through an open data platform for third parties, such as swimming, sporting and environmental groups to use.
‘We are working hard to make discharges unnecessary and have published plans to upgrade over 250 of our sewage treatment works and sewers to treat the high volumes of incoming sewage and reduce the need for overflows during wet weather.’
Thames Water has been approached for comment but have not responded.
