A Petri Dish for E.Coli
Here are all the CSOs in England & Wales that 'overflowed' in 2024 - Scotland data is coming soon! - dumping raw or minimally treated sewage into fragile chalk streams, rivers, onto beaches and into shellfish areas.
Each colour represents a different Water Company, the size of each dot relates to how long each overflow was polluting - where the monitoring is disabled we show a medium-sized dot.
The figures, supplied by the water companies themselves, understate the problem, as the data is poorly collected by the Water Companies, with monitoring defective or in many cases completely absent.
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Donate NowSewage Everywhere
There is sewage overflowing into rivers in almost every constituency across England and Wales. A very few miss out, simply because they don't have any Combined Sewage Overflows.
What are CSOs? CSOs mix toilet sewage with rainwater and then discharge it into rivers, creating a horrible environment for fish and other creatures - it poisons them, and the rivers die.
Top of The Poops - Constituencies
- 94,836 hours
- 88,840 hours
- 88,682 hours
- 70,874 hours
- 70,562 hours
- 58,733 hours
- 58,148 hours
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8 Daventry55,424 hours
- 53,696 hours
- 52,211 hours
Swimming in Sewage
Most, if not actually all, of the beaches and designated coastal bathing locations around England and Wales are regular recipients of a good layer of sewage.
Accuracy Warning
We use data from the water companies, but we are seeing many anomalies that make us believe that bathing location information is quite poor. The situation is likely far worse than reported here.
Water companies have a duty to report on the summer bathing season separately, and this made grim reading in 2022. For more details check out Surfers Against Sewage Water Quality Report 2022
Top of The Poops - Beaches
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1 Thames Water - Wolvercote Mill Stream15,444 hours
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2 United Utilities - Wallasey9,432 hours
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3 South West Water - Plymouth Hoe East9,239 hours
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4 South West Water - Steamer Quay, Dart Estuary7,817 hours
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5 United Utilities - Allonby6,296 hours
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6 United Utilities - St Annes5,942 hours
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7 Southern Water - Littlehampton5,115 hours
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8 South West Water - Mothecombe, Coastguards Beach, Erme Estuary4,581 hours
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9 Southern Water - Sandown, Shanklin, Yaverland, Whitecliff Bay4,081 hours
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10 Southern Water - Bognor Regis East, Felpham, Middleton-on-sea4,059 hours
Rivers & Streams
Of the 4700 rivers in England, few escape from sewage dumping.
On the map, you can see in blue all the rivers that escaped sewage in 2024, and in brown all the rivers that received more than 24 hours of sewage dumps.
Top of The Poops - Rivers
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1 Wessex Water - River Avon39,065 hours
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2 South West Water - Unknown30,218 hours
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3 Severn Trent Water - River Trent26,083 hours
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4 Yorkshire Water - River Ouse25,550 hours
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5 Dwr Cymru Welsh Water - River Teifi22,288 hours
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6 Severn Trent Water - River Severn21,458 hours
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7 South West Water - River Tamar21,237 hours
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8 Yorkshire Water - River Aire21,191 hours
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9 Yorkshire Water - River Calder19,525 hours
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10 Anglian Water - River Great Ouse17,602 hours
Sewage in the Food Chain?
Shellfish are sensitive to the quality of water that surrounds them, and as they filter the water, they can become contaminated with bacteria from the water around them.
Top of The Poops - Shellfish
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1 South West Water - Teign Estuary18,313 hours
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2 South West Water - Exe Estuary14,629 hours
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3 South West Water - Fal Estuary13,945 hours
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4 South West Water - Dart8,991 hours
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5 Southern Water - Chichester Harbour (Chichester Channel)7,616 hours
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6 South West Water - Taw-Torridge Estuary7,270 hours
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7 Dwr Cymru Welsh Water - Dee (East)4,912 hours
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8 United Utilities - Morecambe Bay East4,743 hours
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9 South West Water - Salcombe4,640 hours
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10 Southern Water - Southampton Water4,562 hours
