The passing of the Environment Bill into law earlier this month will ramp up the pressure - and impose a great deal more cost - on large UK water and sewerage companies (WaSCs) to reduce pollution from their storm overflows. Provisions in the legislation are intended to effect a significant cut in the number of annual discharges - or spills - that take place from the approximately 15,000 storm overflows across England, around 13,500 of which discharge into rivers. Southern Water, which was hit with a record ￡90 million of fines in July over multiple incidents, involving the pollution of rivers and coastal areas with sewage, announced earlier this month that it had set up a dedicated task force to devise ways of reducing spillages from its storm overflows by 80% before 2030.
展开▼
