Protests over water firms dumping sewage in rivers

Thousands of people have taken to rivers and waterways to protest against water companies.

Surfers Against Sewage organised a day of action across the UK.

In Manningtree, Essex, wild swimmers marched and dressed up in giant poo costumes by the River Stour, and Anglian Water admitted it dumped sewage in the river 389 times last year.

Catherine Arnold, a nutrition therapist who helped organize the Manningtree protest, said that we need to protect the natural beauty of the area. Why would we release sewage into our rivers?

According to the Environment Agency, water companies discharged raw sewage into British rivers 372,533 times last year.

Untreated sewage is only meant to be discharged into rivers in exceptional circumstances.

Each protest was against a different water company.

The Scottish Water is in Edinburgh.

Tynemouth is the Northumbrian Water.

Northern Ireland Water.

Scarborough is located in Yorkshire Water.

Manningtree, Essex is serviced by the Anglian Water.

The Southern Water is worth it.

Newquay is located in the South West Water.

Abergavenny is the Welsh Water.

The Victoria Embankment Garden is in London.

The Severn Trent andStoke Bardolph are in England.

United Utilities is at New Brighton Beach.

A professor at the University of Suffolk is looking at E. coli counts in rivers. He took a sample from Manningtree. Good bathing water needs less than 500cfu/100ml.

The situation is bad. I am very concerned about the lack of biodiversity in the river because every time I sample in it I am shocked.

The situation was completely unacceptable according to Anna Helm Baxter, who organised the Manningtree protest.

She said it was essential to keep up the pressure on the water companies and the government, who needed to create stronger policies and shorter timelines.

The government announced a plan to fix the sewage system.

The CEO of Surfers Against Sewage said it did not go far enough. The charity wants an end to sewage discharge into British waters by the year 2030.

He said British rivers had become pollution superhighways.

The river and beach-loving public have had enough.

The data from our monitoring programme tells us that our performance continues to improve, and the increasing visibility we have of combined sewer overflow activity gives us even more opportunities to act faster in the areas where we can have most environmental benefit.

We agree that we need to do more to deal with flooding and overloading of the sewer system.