MP presents Parliamentary bill to end sewage scandal in rivers
Last night in the House of Commons, South Lakes MP Tim Farron to end the ongoing scandal of sewage being dumped into England's lakes and rivers.
Tim's bill would ban water companies from dumping sewage into rivers and legislate to name and shame the companies found to poison animals.
Under the new bill, water companies would be forced to publish quarterly figures of how many animals have been forced to swim in sewage polluted rivers.
It comes as new figures from the Rivers Trust found that water companies dumped sewage more than 2,800 times in South Lakeland last year for a duration of 36,265 hours.
This included:
- 1172 hours at Staveley wastewater treatment works into the River Kent
- 1348 hours at Grasmere wastewater treatment works into Grasmere Lake
- 1372 hours at Hawkshead wastewater treatment works into Black Beck
- 1809 hours at Milnthorpe sewage treatment plant into the River Bela
- 2710 hours at Coniston wastewater treatment works into Church Beck
Speaking in Parliament, Tim said: "The bill would require water companies to produce accurate and comprehensive quarterly reports on the impact of sewage discharges on animal welfare, human health and the environment.
"The public have a right to know what our water companies are being allowed to do.
"With the cleansing impact of public scrutiny, and the literally cleansing effect of water companies spending their money on upgrades rather than bonuses, hopefully the public will soon see encouraging signs to give them faith in our waterways and renewed faith in our political system that the polluters will actually be held to account for dumping sewage into our lakes and rivers, that they will no longer be permitted to do so, no matter how powerful they may be, and that companies making billions in profit will no longer be protected by a Conservative Government who permitted them to discharge sewage 772,000 times in two years.
"What, then, shall we protect: the inflated profits of water companies, or the safety and beauty of our lakes and rivers? It is time for all of us in this House to take action and to pick a side."