Investigation finds sixty Northumbrian Water pipes discharging sewage illegally

Hundreds of discharge pipes across the UK are potentially illegally dumping raw sewage into the country's waterways, an investigation has found.

There are more than 870 pipes across the country which could be operating without permits, of which upwards of 200 are confirmed by water companies to be in use, according to findings from Channel 4's Dispatches programme.

Except in very limited circumstances, permits are required for firms to spill untreated sewage into rivers and seas during periods of high rainfall, to prevent sewers becoming overloaded and backing up into homes.

Using Environmental Information Regulation requests, Dispatches found that Northumbrian Water has 61 pipes without permits, all of which are reportedly being used.The company told PA these outfalls operate, and their performance is reported to the Environment Agency, in "exactly the same way as any other".

They continued: "We take our commitments to the environment extremely seriously and have had an industry leading record on pollution in recent times, as well as the highest possible rating of 4 stars in the Environment Agency's Environmental Performance Assessment. 

“We share the passion of our customers and communities to make sure we can all enjoy a healthy natural environment and we work hard to protect and enhance coasts, rivers and watercourses in all areas of our operation. 

“These outfalls operate, and their performance is reported to the Environment Agency, in exactly the same way as any of the other 1250 outfalls on our network.“They are the result of the handover of the huge network from local authorities and other owners and in some cases very little information was provided to match permits to locations. A huge process has been carried out to manually find, inspect and match all storm overflows to relevant permits. 

"During this process, we identified a small number of overflows where work was needed to ensure appropriate, modern permits were in place, and this process is ongoing and being carried out proactively with the Environment Agency.”

Meanwhile, a whistleblower told the investigation that water companies are being left to investigate their own incidents as Environment Agency funds have been slashed.

Helen Nightingale, who has recently retired from the agency after 30 years, said: "The funding's been cut massively... so we have fewer officers to go out and do the work.

"We are only supposed to attend the very serious or quite serious incidents. The lower impact incidents... environment officers are told not to attend them."We aren't as aggressive. We don't enforce to the same extent against water companies. Now water companies investigate their own incidents and tell us what category it is."

Dispatches said it was told by Northumbrian Water and other water companies operating pipes without permits that they are working proactively with the Environment Agency to ensure the correct permits are in place for all storm overflows.

The Environment Agency told the programme: "Water companies have rightly been condemned for allowing far too many sewage spills and we are holding the industry to account on an unprecedented scale."

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs told PA: "We are the first government to take action to tackle sewage overflows. We have been clear that water companies' reliance on overflows is unacceptable and they must significantly reduce how much sewage they discharge as a priority.

"This is on top of ambitious action we have already taken, including setting targets to improve water quality which will act as a powerful tool to deliver cleaner water, pushing all water companies to go further and faster to fix overflows."

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