to think the water companies need to buck their ideas up

I'm with South west water and thought we were the most expensive but maybe not. I'm fed up of the beach discharges. It's disgusting. Any employees want to come on and explain why it keeps happening?

For repeat offenders, I don't think locking them up for a few weeks would be over the top, tbh.

I wonder if you live near me? Exactly that happens in my town.

Upstream there is a sewage* treatment works that regularly discharges into the same river, and it's close to a popular swimming and boating spot. I used to take my dog for walks near there, and often contemplated stopping to tell people that they were quite probably swimming in sewage.

It's Southern Water here. While they manage to keep the mains water running most of the time, they also waste a lot. According to their leak map, there are currently 5 reported leaks in my small town, and a couple of years ago there was a massive mains leak in Hastings that spouted like a geyser for days on end.

They are the most expensive water company in the UK, with an average bill of £759 for combined water and sewage.

*I refuse to call it "wastewater", I'm sure they only call it that because it sounds less unpleasant when they're pouring it into rivers and onto beaches.

The companies like SE Water manage the supply network. They are not, despite the common name, actually supply water.

They are generally not failing in their contracts inasmuch as any network supplier can experience issues (pipes burst etc) and their obligation is to fix them, and also to provide alternative supplies (which i think they do by having standpipes and delivering bottled water).

Everybody is up in arms because they asked people to moderate their usage but that was a sensible thing to do.

1. The alternative was to issue and enforce a hosepipe ban on the really hot days, meaning no-one could fill a paddling pool for the kids.
2. The network provides a certain volume at a certain pressure. When demand peaks (because of hot weather or higher population) some areas of the network lose pressure and eventually water because other areas are closer to the source of supply. If people moderated then everyone would get something. (I laugh because people talk about nationalisation to make things fairer but are not actually prepared to modify their behaviour to make things fairer)
3. The average UK user consumes 144l per day (IIRC) compared to 112 across Europe. That's 25+% higher and there's really no good reason for it (grey water would help but that's not something SEW can resolve)

I see sewage in the Thames almost every single day, even though I think some might come from the boats. It’s floating, one way or the other.

And you might be working with EA but the new proposals for extracting water at Teddington and releasing treated effluent is only beneficial for the company.

Easier and cheaper for the company than maintaining the pipes.

No, there haven't been any new reservoirs built. But my company has spent billions every single years laying thousands of miles of new pipes to boost resilience and keep up with the growing population. We work with the environment agency to reduce sewage spill as much as possible. Billions has been invested into river health campaigns which have measurable improvements in river health as a result. We consistently monitor water quality in all of our major rivers and have teams dedicated to improving it and protecting the animals that live there. There is new legislation coming which I don't think the public know about yet but we're already working on delivering to ensure rivers are clean enough to bathe in in popular spots. There is SO MUCH work done to make things better.
And yet there’s still shit in all the rivers and beaches. It sounds like you’re defending the status quo when the status quo is demonstrably nowhere near enough. Nobody is suggesting you don’t personally work hard, but they clearly need at least double the staff and double the investment into preventing spills.

https://www.channel4.com/programmes/dirty-business

Definitely worth a watch if you haven't seen it. Compelling (well horrifying) docudrama on our ongoing sewage / water privatisation scandal.

No, it's not the same.

As people working in these companies we see how much work is actually done and how much money is actually invested and we know it's not "fuck all" like people claim. It's the ignorance that pisses us off.

No, there haven't been any new reservoirs built. But my company has spent billions every single years laying thousands of miles of new pipes to boost resilience and keep up with the growing population. We work with the environment agency to reduce sewage spill as much as possible. Billions has been invested into river health campaigns which have measurable improvements in river health as a result. We consistently monitor water quality in all of our major rivers and have teams dedicated to improving it and protecting the animals that live there. There is new legislation coming which I don't think the public know about yet but we're already working on delivering to ensure rivers are clean enough to bathe in in popular spots. There is SO MUCH work done to make things better. And no one knows about it because all you see on the news is "shit in the river again".

It's the ignorance that pisses us off. You can even see it on this thread, people scoffing we can't possibly run out of water because I water my roses! They don't even understand that we haven't run out of water, they're just draining the pipes faster than we can fill them. If they actually knew what we all do we wouldn't be annoyed!

Conversely, I don't blame the NHS for doctors treating me badly, I blame the doctors because they should be better. I blame the NHS for long waiting lists not the doctors but I certainly do blame the actual doctors themselves for all the harm they've caused me over the years! No one made them hurt me,. certainly not the NHS as an organisation!

They aren’t held to account because MPs get big funding donations from the execs running the water companies and/or are shareholders of them/expecting a cushy consultancy job from them when they leave office.

This. 100% this.

In my village FOUR years ago we received a letter saying they were going to upgrade the infrastructure which has been leaking and bursting for years. It's been quietly put off and off and they cannot be pinned down to a new date. All the while people's gardens are backing up with sewage, their foundations are being destabilised by leaks gushing past their walls and people in sheltered accommodation aren't able to flush their toilets for weeks on end.

It's an absolute disgrace and I'm delighted my MP is trying to hold them to account. It needs people in government to force the water companies to do the right thing.

I don’t think anyone thinks that the people operating water are cunts, we think that the the situation is mismanaged by the politicians and the management.

Like @SerenaCat93 i have worked in the water industry.
Most water pipes leak because of ground movement. So when the ground dries and cracks or freezes, the pipes crack too. The other main contributor to burst pipes is 3rd party damage by other contractors. Occasionally you get something really unusual that causes a burst like an unexploded WW2 bomb that detonates. (Which happened when I was working for a water company).
The water company don't actually cause the leaks, but they only have a finite number of trained employees and if it's in the public highway then they have to liaise with the other utilities and local council to set up traffic lights/close roads/excavated. If the area is considered "traffic sensitive" then the council may only give permission to carry out repairs overnight/at weekends.
I've watched the computer screens in the control room showing reservoir levels and how something seemingly insignificant to a household has an effect on the demand. The controllers would have the TV on during major sports events or prime time TV, because as soon as the final penalty is scored or the "doof doof" moment in Eastenders happens the demand for water increases dramatically. This means they can switch on systems to keep the water flowing.

Water companies pouring raw sewage into the environment is also horrific, but they carry on doing it, with no care for humans, fish, or any other animal etc etc. we’ve got ourselves into a very sad state.

They pass the fines they are given on to the bill payers too.

So we get our water cut off for weeks on end, they empty raw sewage onto our local beach, they get fined and they pass the cost on to us. Our bills go up to pay the fine. It's daylight robbery.

The directors should get fined personally.

Desalination plants are horrific for the environment. All building those will do is accelerate global warming this increasing demand even further and kill all the fish on the surrounding sea.

Yes we take pride on how hard we work together keep the water running too. We're all doing loads of overtime, missing our kids and working our asses off this week with the summer demand. Everyone just seems to think were cunts though. So that's nice.

Time to build some desalination plants? We are a island surrounded by water ……

Water control room worker here

I don’t think we are begrudged running water but I do think people can do their bit within reason. As soon as summer demand hits, we can visibly see the storage points dropping hour by hour and it then becomes a balancing act trying to take water from some to keep others topped up and keep everyone on water. It’s not viable to take all the fun of summer away and say no paddling pools etc but things like keeping a sprinkler on for the grass all day doesn’t help.

I work on managing burst mains specifically and although it doesn’t help on the receiving end, we are hopping around the office 24 hours a day trying our best and actually I take pride in caring. But you’re right, situations like your hairdresser shouldn’t happen. Burst pipes can’t be predicted but there are restoration options that should be prioritised for situations like that

As someone who works for a water company I can tell you that we haven't run out of water in the reservoirs at this moment in time, we've got plenty. The problem is people are using it faster than we can pump it into thee pipes because of the hot weather so the pipes are losing pressure which is causing supply issues. It is physically impossible to put water into the pipes as fast, or faster than it is being used at the moment because of the sheer amount of water being used. Yes the population is increasing, there are more houses, more showers, more drinks, more hosepipes and sprinklers running and more paddling pools being filled up.

We don't want you to have no water. We want you to slow down on emptying the mains pipes into your lawns and flower pots so that everyone gets water.

For the people about to say we should replace every pipe on the country with one twice the size and build new mega pumps, that is literally impossible without spending trillions and digging the whole damn county up, it's also unnecessary 48 weeks of the year because when usage is normal it's fine.

In last year's drought some of the reservoirs did run dry and some of them got down to emergency levels. That was terrifying for all of us because we can't pull water out of our arse if it doesn't rain but what's happening currently is a different issue. It's like moaning theres not enough ice cream because you have to wait in a long queue to get some. There's plenty of ice cream, but people can only be served one at a time so you just have to accept you have to wait to get yours, but it hasn't run out.

70% of water companies are foreign owned.

So dividends flow out and we’re left with the shit. Literally .

What they can control is infrastructure. Lack of investment and paying billions in dividends over the years to shareholders instead of investing that money means they could have built more reservoirs, fixed leaking pipes and put steps in place to stop dumping raw sewage into the sea and rivers.

As for the water cycle. There is no lack of rain in this country.

Yes we can all do our bit, but letting the water companies off the hook and blaming the old man for watering his roses is madness.

Hold directors personally liable, not just fines but something that really inconveniences them such as travel and driving bans.

Better still, set a deadline and if it fails, nationalisation without compensation.

The sewage works for our town is on a chalk bed river, supposedly one of the rarest habitats in the world. They discharge raw sewage into the river from time to time. There is a nature reserve 2 miles downstream. When they do, even the birds won’t go in the water. Meanwhile, like at Hampstead Ponds, loads of young people are jumping into the water and messing about. Some idiot put on Facebook in another county, that the nature reserve was a good place to go - for playing about in the water; not to observe wildlife!

DH wrote to them to say it was very irresponsible, when the river is highly polluted!

It is shocking and I blame the treasonous Thatcher government that sold off state owned utilities and compromised national security in the process. Of course the private equity funds loaded the utilities up with debt and invested nothing in the infrastructure. Of course they just pass any and all fines onto their 'customers'. They exist to make money, not provide an essential public service. The whole lot should renationalised.