Can someone explain why are rivers and beaches are full of shit?

[ArseInTheCoOpWindow]

Is it Brexit? It’s happened so fast. 5 years ago we went to Cornwall and the seas were lovely. Now l keep reading pollution is being pumped into the sea.

Is it the water companies? Too much rain? The government🙄

Im 60, l vaguely remember this in the past 70’s/80’s. But not like this?

Or is it a perfect storm of everything?

Torys… 😡

When Labour get in will they magically stop it then? There has been shit going in to the sea and rivers for the whole of my life.

Because water companies are run for their shareholders and it's cheaper to pump waste into rivers than sort it out properly even with the fines imposed.

And farm run off.

No one cares about anything but money basically.

There has been shit going in to the sea and rivers for the whole of my life.

Mine too, I think they just didn't announce it at the time. But the smell and detritus was definitely there - worse tbh.

Well it magically got a lot lot better for a very long time.

And the Tories ARE in power. They seemed determined to destroy our tourist industry along with everything else.

Two main reasons population growth and old lack of investment by water companies into the old victorian water systems that were designed for a smaller population.
The water companies got privatised and sent lots of money to shareholders and debbtholders instead of investing in upgrading their water treatment systems.
It's shit. Literally

the water companies needed a lot of infrastructure investment. Thatcher decided the answer was privatisation.

in a shock turn of events it turns out that the privatised water companies have been prioritising paying dividends over upgrading infrastructure! And the watchdog was so toothless and fines so low dumping the sewage was cheaper then actually do the the job they were set up to do.

Infrastructure.
More people
Heavy rain means that sewage overflows into the rivers and seas

Lack of investment

I wonder if it's a problem in other developed countries?

There was a lot of effort in the 90s to clean up our rivers.

I remember Surfers against Sewage - and the effort to clean up the rivers and seas.

Because the UK population has increased by about a fifth in the last decade, and the infrastructure has remained the same ( or maybe a bit worse, as it wears out and isn’t repaired).

The village where I used to live had two new estates added, the population increased by a third. Nothing happened to the sewage, except that all the new houses’ went into the same Victorian pipes. The developers didn’t want to pay, the buyers didn’t want to pay, so it just didn’t happen. The increase in Council Tax wouldn’t go near covering the extra cost( same for the roads, the playground etc etc)

Because privatised water companies would rather pay dividends to their shareholders than use that money to maintain and invest in infrastructure.

Any fool knows that commercial companies put profits and their shareholders' interests before anything else. The provision of a water supply, sewage treatment and the prevention of environmental damage are essential public services, and the water companies should never have been privatised in the first place.

Thames water shareholders (mostly pension companies) recently voted NOT to put extra cash into the business for the work needed to reduce sewage pollution - or not unless users' rates increased.

The shareholders are effectively the owners. It's ridiculous. They shouldn't have the option. Essential services should be nationalised (although that system is not without its problems either).

Lack of effective sanctions. The companies may consider it cheaper to take a fine than to invest in the infrastructure.

As PP have said this has always happened. In the 1800s the decision was made that the U.K. would only have single waste water pipes, with rainfall, grey water (e.g. shower water) and actual sewage all mixed together. Other countries designed separate systems for these categories. This means that when the U.K. has lots of rain (like recently) the sewers exceed treatment capacity and the excess is dumped into the rivers and seas. If we had separate systems for rainwater and sewage this wouldn’t happen, but it’s probably too late to change it now.

It’s got worse recently due to population growth and inadequate infrastructure investment, as noted by PPs. But also there was a rule change a few years ago which required water companies to measure how much waste was dumped into rivers and report on it. This caused the issue to hit the news. Before that there was very little public discussion of it because nobody had any numbers.

So the seas you swam in on your holiday in Cornwall were probably dirty too, you just didn’t know it because the issue wasn’t in the media then.

Here we go..🙄

Because Thatcher sold everything off to profiteers.

I'm in the Thames Water area. There is a chronic lack of investment in infrastructure so pipes whether sewage or fresh water are always leaking. Thames water just go around patching them up and normally in the same places about 3-4 times within 18 months.

Thames Water like Southern and other water companies spend about a third of each bill payers money paying of debt. This debt was loaded onto the water companies by the mainly foreign "investors" who got most of the shareholdings soon after privatisation. They then offloaded most of that investment on other investors after loading the companies with loads of debt.

If a third of most water companies income is going to pay off debt it means they don't have the money to invest in infrastructure. Like with the other utilities like gas, pipes only have a limited lifespan. So even without the population increase they would need replacing.

There is to think about

England to diverge from EU water monitoring standards | Rivers | The Guardian

The UK government is to diverge from the EU’s standards for monitoring water quality in England, it can be revealed.
Campaigners fear the change of approach could lead to more pollution in England’s rivers and waterways if the new measuring methods are less rigorous.

While in the EU, England was covered by the water framework directive (WFD), and a national chemical and ecological survey of rivers was conducted annually. After Brexit, the WFD was transposed into English law. From 2016 the government decided to test water quality under WFD every three years rather than annually

But water pollution does cut across political views - people of all parties hopefully want to know their rivers and seas are clean.

It's not a culture war thing - so that's good

The seas and rivers are cleaner the years when there are droughts. 🙄

The water companies are blaming us for the shit in our seas, rivers and waterways.

With climate change bringing about changes to rain fall patterns ,no doubt this will impact on water pollution

13 years of a Tory Government.

But they weren’t. They were all lovely and clear. We went for about 8 years previous to our last trip.

And ne’er a turd did l see. Shit free seas.

This is the truth. PLUS Brexit has meant the government have been able to make it worse by allowing the water companies to pump more shit into the rivers. If we were still in the EU, it would have been illegal to do this.

Another Brexit bonus folks!!

You mostly can’t see the sewage unless it’s running straight from a pipe. Doesn’t mean that bacteria aren’t there.