Forum Topic

Stop Thames Water's "Sewage for Water" Plans

With Thames Water again in the news, I'm hoping the people of Chiswick will lend their support to a campaign to stop the company's plan to dump treated sewage in the last stretch of the non-tidal Thames.The so-called Teddington Direct River Abstraction project in Richmond and Kingston would see the company extract up to 75 million litres a water a day from the Thames in times of drought and replace it with treated sewage.  This will raise pollution levels upstream of Teddington Weir, a part of the river which has recently been designated London's first official bathing water place.  It will involve four to six years of massive disruption to residents while new plant is built at the Mogden sewage works and a 3.5 metre diameter pipeline is bored along a 4-kilometre route from there to the sewage outlet in Ham.The proposals have been taken out of the hands of the local authorities and will now go to the national Planning Inspectorate next year.  In the mean time, the Save Our Lands And River action group has launched a parliamentary petition calling for U.K. sewage treatment to be raised to the standards being adopted in Europe.  This would make the proposals illegal as the effluent returned to the river would not meet the higher standards.We have garnered just short of 50,000 signatures, but need many, many more.  Please help us by signing the petition: https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/763721

Magnus Grimond ● 9d13 Comments

Surfers Against Sewage held mass protest across various waterways yesterday I think - none really near here AFAIK.They are calling on the Govt for tighter controls than those currently proposed in the proposed new water bill.  We obviously need far better controls on what is now happening with our water here.Let's all sign petitions and ask our MPs to IMPROVE the proposals for cleaning up our water.

Philippa Bond ● 5d

Thanks Philippa.  This is a way to protest against a project that will increase pollution just up-river from Chiswick.  If you only sign one petition, please sign this one.

Magnus Grimond ● 4d

Thames Water simply cannot process all the sewage flowing into Mogden and they are forced to discharge to the River. The Storm Tanks overflow when we have heavy rain. They made it very clear to Blair’s government and to Vince CanCable when he was in the coalition government. They were overwhelmed by the increase in population due to mass immigration. That has got progressively worse and will get even worse when Heathrow expands and the UK imports construction workers from the 3rd world. Thames Water has been bleating on about the population growth in its catchment area for decades. Successive governments turned a blind eye and purposefully ignored the problem. Following Thames Waters financial problems, senior directors and managers have jumped ship. Who knows what the failed company is left with.

Steve Taylor ● 3d

Water - which is a monopoly - just should never have been privatised!  Mrs Thatcher herself is on record saying that it was an experiment - and you can believe that if you want to!Steve:  Why don't you because you could - blame an ever increasing elderly population?  There are so many ways to extend our lives nowadays that this a reason for there being more people - they are living longer and wanting to use...  water!Thames Water can now at last put water meters in which help them as well as us to know how much water is being used and whether pipes are leaking but they also need to know as do the Council how many homes have been illegally and unsafely (no fire separation) divided into separate dwellings.  They don't have to be immigrants at all:  A friend told us that they had recently discovered that their shower waste emptied straight into their neighbour's garden!    Or blame people who despite there being a drought for months still are happy to indulge themselves spending ages in the shower and/or taking huge baths, pressure-washing cars and patios etc with no second thought about anyone or anything else.  People who pave over their gardens so that all the water runs off and straight into the drains and often causing flash flooding instead of soaking into the garden.Older homes in London have a combined drainage system (rainwater and sewage).  We need to separate rainwater when and where we can.  There have been university experiments where water butts have been provided to one side of a street to see the difference that this makes to the amount of fresh water that is used. We just don't give or oversee the provision of clean water and the disposal of dirty water the priority that it should have.  The Environment Agency was scaled down so that they were unable to monitor the sewage discharges caused when it rains heavily.  It isn't just population growth either it is all those unmonitored and illegal pipe connections - some of which are in new multi-storey developments.  We want everything cheap cheap cheap and then don't like the consequences!Did you watch the programme about the people who investigated the problems with their local river - the Windrush?Sign this petition!   

Philippa Bond ● 3d

“ Steve:  Why don't you because you could - blame an ever increasing elderly population?  There are so many ways to extend our lives nowadays that this a reason for there being more people - they are living longer and wanting to use...  water!”I went to several meeting with Thames Water and the environmental minister, Lord Whitty, under Blair’s government and also with the Environmental Secretary under the Conservative coalition government. Thames Water DID factor in the growing elderly population. They warned consecutive governments but those governments didn’t listen. They were also warned that the infrastructure couldn’t cope with immigration levels rising at unprecedented levels. And it’s getting worse as our borders are now unmanaged.

Steve Taylor ● 2d

There are plenty of people leaving Britain voluntarily as well as those that are helped to move elsewhere.And you believed Thames Water?  I don't believe that it is possible to tell WHO exactly is using the water (if it is actually being used) - immigrants or non-immigrants.  I think that is just used as a way of scapegoating and dividing society and you should not fall for it.What can be seen is the increase in use of water eg all the drench showers, washing machines, dishwashers, old fashioned single flush toilets which still use masses more water, pressure washers etc.  Urinals in offices that flush themselves day and night when nobody is there etc.  More and more gadgets being dreamed up using more and more water without any consideration for the amount of water being used.  More and more materials being dreamed up and put on the market which aren't really and truly capable of dissolving enough to be flushed down with just one small flush the Victorian drains and yet have been marketed and called 'flushable' because of a lack of legislation.  There have been products called 'flushable' on the front of the pack in huge letters and then on the back of the pack 'one at a time' is added.  And as everyone also knows there is a huge problem with pipe breakages and leakages needing fixing.A dripping tap can easily waste 70 bathtubsworth in a year.https://www.metroeco.co.uk/the-real-cost-of-a-leaking-tap-water-waste-and-bills-explained/A mains burst can waste millions and millions of litres.  England loses more than TWO and a half MILLION litres A DAY to leaks.What can be seen is that not enough modernisation has been done to reduce usage, to seriously encourage customers to reduce their  unnecessary usage/wastage and to separate rainwater and sewage water. There also hasn't been enough investment in water infrastructure.

Philippa Bond ● 2d

'All these immigrants come over here, take our jobs, live on benefits - and drink all our water!' That's certainly a new angle! More likely 'all those foreign investors come over here, buy up our utilities, asset strip them and pay their executives a fortune!'

Peter Evans ● 1d

Everyone needs water and it should be free, they will be charging for the air we breathe next, yeah wonder who using up all the air, it cannot be those elderly with their failing lungs, can it 😳

Janice Evans ● 1d

https://engageenvironmentagency.uk.engagementhq.com/bathing-watersA lot of treatment has to take place before water runs out of the tap!  Although people may not actually be bathing at other times in seas, rivers and lakes etc there are plenty of activities that take place on water all the year round and not just in the places designated as bathing sites during the stipulated dates.We need better.

Philippa Bond ● 1d

They probably think twice now before entering water, real shame the lowered standards.

Janice Evans ● 1d

And bathing water quality lower than in the recent past in some places despite intervention - with sewage being dumped even when it hasn't been raining apparently:https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/aug/06/all-bodies-of-water-england-polluted-toxic-chemicalsThere's also a Govt chart of how the situation has declined recently as well somewhere :(

Philippa Bond ● 1d

This petition doesn't have long to run...If you haven't watched Channel 4's Dirty Business on the problems with our water then do make the effort to try and do so.  It is quite an eye opener into what has been happening and the way that some of the infrastructure has deteriorated.

Philippa Bond ● 1d

“There are plenty of people leaving Britain voluntarily as well as those that are helped to move elsewhere.”That’s irrelevant because Thames Water warned the government that immigration was increasing and the company would not be able to cope. The problem isn’t only the  supply of water - it’s primarily the company’s inability to treat the massive increase in raw sewage. “The Raw Numbers: Thames Water officially reports that its customer base grew by 1 million customers over the last decade, rising from 15 million customers in 2015/16 to 16 million customers today.”Besides the increase in “paying customers”you would need to factor in at least another 1 million people who have disappeared into the black economy. These people are undocumented and are living in accommodations provided by slum landlords or living illegally with relatives. These people still have to defecate and urinate and their bodily fluids and excrement has to be treated!!“ • Pew Research Centre & Oxford University: Studies place the total number of unauthorized or undocumented migrants in the UK between 800,000 and 1.2 million. * The Greater London Authority / LSE: Historical structural modeling placed the baseline figures between 600,000 and 900,000, noting that over half have lived in the country for more than five years.”

Steve Taylor ● 14m