United Utilities

was responsible for at least 97,537 sewage overflows in 2023
On average 267.2 times a day

These lasted for 656,014 hours (That's 75.93 years!) - in 1,944 different locations across their service area

2023 - By Water Company

How does each water company compare? These are the totals by company for each. The totals are really high, counting things in hours doesn't make it very easy to think about. Here we show how many years of continuous sewage dumps happened in a single year, by water company.

2023 - Asset Spill Duration Comparison

It isn't like there are just a few outliers... the problem exists across the entire estate of water assets. Here we show a 'cumulative frequency diagram' - where the number of CSOs that dumped sewage for a time, or longer, is shown. You can see that many CSOs dumped sewage into a river for months and months.

United Utilities is highlighted in the plot below

2023 - Worst Locations United Utilities

1. CARTMEL IN CARK PUMPING STATION

Westmorland and Lonsdale polluted for 6,471 hours, into River Eea

281 incidents

That's 8.99 months.

5.4 times a week, on average

2. STAVELEY WWTW

Westmorland and Lonsdale polluted for 5,336 hours, into River Kent

323 incidents

That's 7.41 months.

6.2 times a week, on average

3. PLUMBLAND WWTW

Workington polluted for 4,763 hours, into River Ellen

307 incidents

That's 6.62 months.

5.9 times a week, on average

4. KIRKBY STEPHEN WWTW

Penrith and The Border polluted for 4,649 hours, into River Eden

307 incidents

That's 6.46 months.

5.9 times a week, on average

5. ORTON STW

Penrith and The Border polluted for 4,648 hours, into Chapel Beck

277 incidents

That's 6.46 months.

5.3 times a week, on average

6. GILCRUX WWTW GILCR

Workington polluted for 4,560 hours, into Bullclose Beck

230 incidents

That's 6.33 months.

4.4 times a week, on average

Water Companies

Data Sources & Accuracy

EDM (Event Duration Monitoring) data and Consented Discharges to Controlled Waters with Conditions from Environment Agency & Data Map Wales, and Scottish Water

Experimental derived data from Thames Water API, Some data may be missing or inaccurate. This uses Environment Agency rainfall data from the real-time data API (Beta) - Rainfall data is delayed by up to two days.

This website is intended to provide an accurate representation of the Environment Agency data. The data is hard to use, and thus some errors may have been made. If you find something that is incorrect, please raise an issue at the GitHub issues page and we'll endeavour to fix it quickly.

This project is not associated, approved or endorsed by any of the companies whose logos you see here.