Latest news with #sewage
CTV News
15 hours ago
- General
- CTV News
Repair delayed for pipe that caused major Winnipeg sewage leak
Millions of litres of raw sewage leaked into the Red River from Feb. 7 to 13, 2024. (Danton Unger/CTV News Winnipeg. Uploaded Feb. 21, 2024) The City of Winnipeg has delayed a permanent repair to a pipe that was the cause of major sewage leak into the Red River last year. According to the city, the schedule has been delayed so it can focus on improving the 'robustness and efficiency' of the emergency bypass. Though the city's targeted installation was fall 2025, it has refocused its efforts to first make changes to the temporary bypass system by improving its capacity and reliability. Winnipeg said it changed around the pump arrangement, adding that the temporary bypass can pump a little bit more than the old crossing. The city said another cause of the delay is that it wants to ensure it gets a qualified contractor for the repair, adding that it also has to consider flow conditions for when it switches over to the new pipe. 'This is highly specialized and complex work and there are only a handful of qualified contractors, all which are from outside the province,' it said in a statement. 'This type of tunneling also cannot be performed during winter conditions.' This delay comes over a year after a pipe leak caused 135.2 million litres of untreated sewage to spill into the Red River at the Fort Garry Bridge. CTV News Winnipeg previously reported the spill was linked to a November 2023 incident when it was determined that one of the two river crossing pipes at the location had a leak. Work on the permanent repair will begin in fall 2025. The new river crossing is expected to be in operation by May 2026.
Times
2 days ago
- Health
- Times
I've driven 4,858 miles around the UK coast. Our seas are in a bad way
This week Ofwat, the water regulator for England and Wales, fined Thames Water a record £123 million for sewage spills and for paying dividends despite failing to reach customer service and environmental targets. Kudos to Ofwat for showing its teeth, but I can confirm that fining water companies after the fact won't stop you, your children, or your dog getting sick at the seaside this summer. As I write, sewage is being pumped into the sea in 47 locations on the English and Welsh coasts, including Sheringham, Gorleston, Hythe, Hastings, Bexhill, Hove, eight locations on the Isle of Wight, Mill Bay opposite Salcombe, East Looe, Mumbles, Solva and Llandudno. For the past 17 years I've made an annual circumnavigation of the British and Northern Irish coasts researching the The Times and Sunday Times Best UK Beaches guide. It's a tradition to begin and end the trip with a swim in the first and last beaches on the list. This year, the inaugural dip was at Holme-next-the-Sea, in my home county of Norfolk. The beach isn't monitored by government sampling teams and I was unaware of Environment Agency (EA) advice against bathing at Old Hunstanton, a mile-and-a-half west, so I waded in confident that the chances of being poisoned were negligible. The E. coli infection that arrived with impressive violence at 3am, in a tent, three days later, suggested otherwise, but it was a calamity I'd brought upon myself. My dog, on the other hand, was an innocent victim. He fell into a hole full of effluent on a suspiciously soggy footpath 200 yards downhill from a water treatment plant outside Exmouth, Devon. He spent the next 72 hours in a miserable state. South West Water confirmed that a pollution incident had been reported there six days earlier, but had concluded that the leak wasn't theirs and the water flowing down the lane had possibly come from 'a natural groundwater spring'. Whether that is the case or not, the greater truth is that we should no longer be confident that our rivers and seas won't poison us. Over the past four weeks I've inspected more than 600 beaches in the UK and Northern Ireland. It was the back end of the sunniest spring on record, and yet I saw significantly fewer surfers, swimmers or paddleboarders than I've seen in previous years. That could be that such fads are out of fashion — in 2021 it seemed that the entire nation had bought inflatable SUPs — but I fear that it's actually because we're all more wary of our inshore waters. Sewage has oozed into the public consciousness via news stories, pressure from groups such as Surfers Against Sewage and the Rivers Trust, and the coverage from The Times' Clean It Up campaign. There's even been effluent on The Archers, with clean water activist Feargal Sharkey pointing the finger for the Ambridge sewage spill at Borchester Water. The official statistics justify our fears. The number of beaches rated by the Environment Agency as insufficient — ie containing unsafe levels of faecal matter — has increased from four in 2021 to 37 in 2024. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said: 'The number of Poor (sic) bathing waters rose to the highest level since adopting the four-tier classification system in 2015,' but noted that 'in-part this reflects the designation of new sites not previously managed to meet bathing water standards.' You'll find beaches deemed too polluted to swim in this summer in Tynemouth, Bridlington, Clacton, Dymchurch, Bognor Regis, Worthing, Southsea, Lyme Regis, Weston-Super-Mare and Blackpool. Saddest of all the failures, though, is Scarborough. The seaside holiday is said to have been invented there, but now Defra warns against bathing in South Bay and gives North Bay the lowly 'sufficient' rating that I no longer trust. That's bad for business. 'People think dirty water, dirty town,' a shopkeeper called Fran told me last week. 'No one wants their kids to get sick. I understand that. But it's killing us.' • 12 of the best places to visit in the UK Let's not forget, though, that last year 424 of the 675 monitored bathing waters in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland were rated excellent. That's 63 per cent, which sounds good until you learn that in Cyprus it's 97.6 per cent, Croatia 96.7 and Spain 87.6, with an EU average of 85 per cent. And a Defra three-star rating is no guarantee that you won't get sick. Rain has been washing faecal matter into streams and on to beaches for millenia, but the menace of the Combined Sewage Outfall (CSO) is a 21st-century problem. Victorian engineers designed our sewage systems to channel wastewater from homes and businesses in the same pipes as groundwater from rainfall. These combined sewers fed into treatment works where the contaminants were removed and the clean water was returned to the environment. In the unlikely event, as it was then, that excess wastewater threatened to overwhelm the treatment works, the CSO could divert untreated sewage and contaminated surface water directly to rivers or the sea. That worked just fine in the 19th century, but as the population grew from around 40 million in 1898 to 69 million today, lack of investment stunted infrastructure growth and now it takes just a few hours of rain, or a fault at the treatment works, to trigger a CSO discharge. Defra lists 14,254 active CSOs operated by ten water companies in England and Wales. If you see a long pipe jutting out from a beach, that's one of them. Last year, they discharged 450,398 times, pumping faecal matter and whatever else we flushed down our toilets for 3,614,428 hours. To put that in context, if each CSO discharged in turn, the pollution incident would have ended would have ended sometime in the 2430s. South West Water ran its 1,370 CSOs for 544,439 hours in 2024. Severn Trent for 454,155 hours and Anglian Water for 448,938. Thames Water dumped sewage for a mere 298,081 hours. • Inspired by the Salt Path? These are the best sections to walk In an average of 38.6 per cent of cases, water companies blamed exceptional weather as the cause of the discharge. Asset maintenance was responsible for 20.1 per cent; and insufficient capacity 37.8 per cent. That suggests that just short of 60 per cent, on average, of the sewage dumped in our rivers and seas last year was due to infrastructural inadequacies. The total cost of bringing our water system up to 21st-century standards is a staggering £290 billion, according to the National Audit Office, but even a quarter of that would go a long way towards keeping our rivers and seas clean. So it might make you a bit sick to learn that between privatisation in 1990 and 2023, water companies paid out £72.9 billion in dividends. That's just a few drops over 25 per cent of that £290 billion. Our coast is the most beautiful on Earth, and our water companies treat it like a gutter. So let's fight them on the beaches. Start with a Two-Minute Beach Clean. Pioneered in Bude in Cornwall, the movement now has litter-picking stations at 1,200 locations across the UK and Ireland and has reduced rubbish in some places by 61 per cent. • 15 of the most beautiful places in England Or join an organised beach clean operated by the National Trust, Surfers Against Sewage or community action groups: if they're happening, you'll see the posters. Email your concerns to your MP, keep a close eye on your water company through local and national media, and if you see — or smell — a sewage spill, report it to the Environment Agency Pollution Hotline on 0800 80 70 60, or to the Surfers Against Sewage hotline on 01872 555950. Finally, before you head to the seaside this summer, download the Safer Seas and Rivers Service app from Surfers Against Sewage. It shows bathing water ratings, pollution alerts and CSO discharges in real time. Join the conversation in the comments below
Telegraph
2 days ago
- Health
- Telegraph
This California beach used to be filled with families. Now it's deluged with Mexican sewage
Imperial Beach, California, is a city with a dirty secret. There's a reason why nobody, beyond a determined bunch of early-morning surfers, ventures beyond its sandy beaches and into the sea. It's the same reason local restaurants source their fish from further up the coast, and residents keep their windows shut at night, even during the sweltering West Coast summers. The city, a short drive south of San Diego, is being polluted by billions of gallons of raw sewage flowing across the Mexican border every year. Its beaches have been forced to close, its air is being contaminated by pollutants hundreds of times above levels deemed safe, and locals are falling violently unwell. The issue is now a source of tension between the US and Mexico, and The Telegraph understands that Donald Trump has given a personal commitment to tackle it as the two countries attempt to negotiate a solution. When The Telegraph visited earlier this year, Tom Csanadi, a retired paediatrician, was looking out at the view from his home on the beachfront. To the north he could see the curve of the coastline as it arcs towards San Diego, and directly in front of him the blue of the Pacific Ocean, with an old wooden pier stretching a quarter-mile out to sea. Rising up on a hillside to the south, beyond the border wall, is the Mexican city of Tijuana, which even at a distance of a few miles seems to dwarf Imperial Beach. 'S--- flows downhill,' Dr Csanadi said. 'And we're downhill.' Tijuana is one of Mexico's fastest-growing cities, exploding in size since the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta) came into force in the mid-1990s. But its development was too fast for the antiquated and neglected sewage systems on either side of a border, which were overwhelmed by the demands of a population that now numbers more than 2.3 million and is climbing ever higher. Instead, up to 80 million gallons of its waste is flooding into the Pacific Ocean and the cross-border Tijuana River every day. The river used to disappear during the dry months, from around June to September. But these days it is kept flowing by a cocktail of raw sewage and industrial chemicals, bearing viruses, bacteria and parasites into the US. Imperial Beach is bearing the brunt of it, and has become what some locals refer to as 'Mexico's toilet'. Dr Csanadi and his wife, Marvel Harrison, thought they had staked out their own share of paradise when they bought an undeveloped plot on the beachfront 10 years ago. Over time, it became a family home for them and their children – along with a pet chicken roaming outdoors called Daphne – and at the back of their minds, they thought they would be there for the rest of their lives. They don't think that any more. In the years since moving in, Dr Harrison, a psychologist, has developed a condition similar to asthma that has left her with a chronic cough and means she has to use an inhaler. There are some days when she can't walk on the beach because of the strain it puts on her lungs. 'We're a small town with a global problem,' she said, taking sips from a large mug of tea in her kitchen between barely-suppressed coughs. As for Dr Csanadi, he has developed an E coli infection that is resistant to antibiotics and regularly comes down with sinus issues. Accounts of chronic illness are common throughout Imperial Beach, where residents report cases of migraines, respiratory conditions, stomach problems, fatigue, skin infections and nausea. Authorities say hundreds of Navy Seals, training at the base a short distance up the coast, have developed gastrointestinal issues from contact with contaminated ocean water. The dead animals that regularly wash up shows the wildlife isn't immune either. A group of bottlenose dolphins found on a beach one summer were killed by sepsis caused by bacteria transmitted via urine or faeces, researchers at State Diego State University found. Most of Imperial Beach's population stays out of the sea, where access has been restricted for around three years. Warning signs instructing swimmers to stay away are planted in the sand every 20 feet or so. But people are falling ill anyway because the pollution is spreading through the air from the churn of the diseased river and crashing waves of the Pacific. Every night, somewhere between midnight and 2am, the city is enveloped by a strong smell. It can happen during the day as well, albeit less commonly, leaving locals prisoners in their own homes. Nobody can quite agree what the odour is: some compare it to rotten eggs, while others say it has a bitter chemical tang. To TJ Jackson, who lives along the beachfront, it simply 'smells like Tijuana'. The stench is the result of hydrogen sulphide emanating from the Tijuana River, according to Benjamin Rico, a PhD student studying the pollution at the University of California San Diego. Typically, hydrogen sulphide levels are below one part per billion (ppb), and California has set a safe limit for children and pregnant women at 7.3ppb. But Mr Rico shared research with The Telegraph showing hydrogen sulphide levels taken from one neighbourhood in Imperial Beach reached up to 4,500ppb. And it is just one of potentially thousands of pollutants being given off by the river, and spread over the rest of the county. At one pollution hotspot on Saturn Boulevard identified by Mr Rico, the sulphur smell is overpowering. Water pours out of a concrete pipe into an estuary, churning untreated sewage, chemicals and metals. Many of the nearby trees, their branches dipping low towards the water, are withered and black. The area was deserted, with the exception of a young boy who cycled past with a T-shirt clamped over his mouth and nose. Paloma Aguirre, the mayor of Imperial Beach, hit out at the response from Gavin Newsom, the California governor. 'He has not done enough,' she said. 'And it borderlines on gross negligence that he is actively refusing to help us, despite the overwhelming evidence pointing to the fact that we are really being harmed here. 'He hasn't done more than send a letter to [former US president Joe] Biden asking for more funding.' A spokeswoman for Mr Newsom said Ms Aguirre's frustration was 'misdirected' because sewage infrastructure was 'under federal and international jurisdiction'. She said the California governor had been a 'strong advocate' for Imperial Beach, and last year 'secured critical funding and support to address cross-border pollution from the Tijuana River while holding authorities accountable to expedited timelines'. 'We call on the Trump Administration to continue to fund repairs and complete infrastructure to protect public health and safety and end this environmental crisis once and for all,' she added. So far, locals are quietly optimistic about Lee Zeldin, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), who visited Imperial Beach in April and declared the sewage crisis was 'top of mind' for Mr Trump. Mr Trump's administration submitted its plan to Mexico earlier this month, and the two governments are in the midst of thrashing out a deal that is expected to be concluded within weeks to upgrade sewage treatment facilities. 'We're literally going line by line on past agreements, and pressure testing everything to see what can be completed faster,' a US government source said. 'If it says five years, could it be done in two years? Could it be done in 100 days?' To date, Mexico is said not to have rejected any of Washington's proposals, and negotiations have been spurred along by both Mr Trump and Claudia Sheinbaum, the Mexican president, who are 'committed to solving this problem'. But the move comes too late for some Imperial Beach residents who have packed up and moved away, worn down by what they feel is years' worth of neglect from the government. Among their number is Serge Dedina, Ms Aguirre's predecessor as mayor, who suffered sinus, ear and stomach infections and whose son required urgent care when he fell violently ill after swimming in the sewage-infested waters. Ms Aguirre, however, plans to stick around and see what happens next to Imperial Beach. 'I can't leave – I'm the mayor,' she said. 'I go down with the ship. That's my responsibility.' The Mexican government has been approached for comment.
The Sun
2 days ago
- Business
- The Sun
Thames Water hit with largest ever fine for water company over sewage spills and breaking rules
THAMES WATER has been hit with a £122.7million fine — the largest ever for a water company. It will pay £104.5million for sewage spills, plus £18.2million for breaking the rules over dividend payments. Watchdog Ofwat slammed the struggling company for 'letting down its customers and failing to protect the environment'. It said Thames had 'routinely and not in exceptional circumstances' released untreated sewage. And, issuing its first fine over shareholder payments, it highlighted one of £37.5million in October 2023 to the firm's holding company — plus another £131.3million dividend from March 2024. Ofwat boss David Black, said: 'Our investigation has uncovered a series of failures by the company to build, maintain and operate adequate infrastructure.' Mike Keil, chief executive of the Consumer Council for Water, said Thames' actions were a 'serious betrayal of customers and the environment'. The fine must be paid by Thames and its investors, and not be passed on to its 16 million customers. Thames hiked its bills by an average of 31 per cent in April. It owes £19billion and is trying to restructure its finances through a sale to US investment firm KKR. Thames insisted it takes its environmental responsibilities 'very seriously' and said it was making progress addressing the issues. Doubling Compensation for Water Issues: Government's Big Move 4 BRANCH GROWTH NATIONWIDE BUILDING SOCIETY says customers have been flocking to its branches over the past year as rival banks pull out of high streets. Nearly 200,000 more have used its branches. Nationwide has the second-largest branch network in the UK behind Lloyds. But Lloyds has been axing hundreds in recent years — with 136 more set to shut over the next year. Nationwide, meanwhile, has pledged to keep all of its nearly 700 branches open until at least the start of 2028. A PAW YEAR FOR PROFIT 4 RISING costs and lower animal sales have both dealt a blow to Pets At Home. The chain reported a 16.6 per cent fall in profits in the year to the end of March, to £72.9million. The firm benefited from the boom in pet ownership during the pandemic but demand has fallen since. Profits at its vet arm climbed almost a quarter to £75.9million. But it is facing a probe over prices on items such as pet medications. CLOSING five depots and simplifying its structure has helped Magners and Tennent's maker C&C Group return to profit, as it made £38.5million last year, compared to a £70.9million loss in 2023. It sent shares climbing by 3 per cent. B&Q'S HOT SPELL THE recent warm weather has helped sales at B&Q owner Kingfisher to bounce back up by 5.9 per cent in the past three months. Seasonal products such as garden furniture has flown off the shelves, with sales up by almost a third across B&Q. And they were a fifth higher at Screwfix. But Kingfisher's boss Thierry Garnier remained cautious, warning that 'consumer sentiment remains mixed'. Traders agreed with his negative view, sending shares down almost four per cent. METER SCANDAL'S £140 PAYOUTS 4 EIGHT energy companies will pay an average £140 compensation to 40,000 customers forced to have pay-as-you-go meters installed. They will pay £5.6million in compensation using guidelines set out by Ofgem. They have also agreed to write off £13million of energy debts from customers who had a prepayment energy meter force-fitted between January 1, 2022, and January 31, 2023. The firms involved are Scottish Power, EDF, Octopus, Utility Warehouse, Good Energy, Tru Energy and Ecotricity. Octopus inherited force-fitting cases when they acquired customers. The firms have agreed to the compensation, ordered by Ofgem after a review. The watchdog's Tim Jarvis said: 'Our priority has been to put things right. "We've made our expectations clear to suppliers on how customers who were treated poorly should be compensated.' Some firms tried to ensure struggling customers paid their bills by forcing their way into their homes to install a meter, often when they were out. Energy Secretary Ed Miliband said of yesterday's ruling: 'Justice is finally being delivered to many of the families, lots of them vulnerable, who were affected by the scandal.' Dhara Vyas, chief of Energy UK, said: 'Suppliers have worked hard to co- operate with this review.' Customers will be contacted by their suppliers and do not need to take action. GROCERY INFLATION 2YR HIGH 4 GROCERY price inflation has surged to 4.1 per cent — the highest since February 2023, according to analysts. The figure takes the UK into 'new territory', warned market research company Kantar. Prices rose the fastest for chocolate treats, suncare products, butter and spreads. May's hot weather sent sun cream sales climbing 36 per cent. Other rises included potato salad (up 32 per cent) chilled burgers (27), prepared salads and coleslaw (both 19). Meanwhile, prices fell the fastest for dog and cat food, and household paper products. Fraser McKevitt, from Kantar, said: 'Households have been adapting their buying habits to manage budgets for some time. 'But we typically see changes once inflation tips beyond the three per cent to four per cent point as people notice the impact on their wallets.' He said own-label lines were currently the fastest growing part of the market.
BBC News
3 days ago
- Business
- BBC News
Who owns Thames Water and why is it in so much trouble?
Thames Water has been fined a record £122.7m and been told it has "let down its customers and failed to protect the environment" by the water regulator company has huge debts and is struggling to fix leaks, stop sewage spills, and modernise outdated serves about a quarter of the UK's population, mostly across London and parts of southern England, and employs 8,000 people. Why was Thames Water fined so much? Ofwat ordered Thames Water to pay a fine following two investigations into its company has been hit with a £104.5m penalty for breaches of rules connected to its sewage heavy rainfall, water operators can release untreated waste into rivers and seas to prevent homes regulator Ofwat said its findings suggested three quarters of Thames Water's storm overflows were spilling "routinely and not in exceptional circumstances".Additionally, Thames was fined £18.2m because of multi-million-pound payments to its shareholders in 2023 and 2024. Ofwat called these "undeserved" given the company's money from Ofwat's fines will ultimately go to the Treasury, but no firm decision has been made about what it will be used has estimated it could be fined up to £900m over the next five years for leaks and sewage spills which would hinder efforts to attract new investment. What did the regulator say about Thames Water's dividends? The Ofwat fine marks the first time a water company has faced a penalty because of its payments to shareholders, which are called dividends. The regulator highlighted Thames Water's payment of £37.5m made in October 2023 and £131.3m in March 2024, which it said "broke the rules".The regulator said the shareholder payouts did "not properly reflect the company's delivery performance".Thames Water said the dividends "were declared following a consideration of the company's legal and regulatory obligations." How did Thames end up with so much debt? Many UK water companies have large debts, but Thames Water's problems are the Thames was privatised in 1989, it had no debt. But over the years it borrowed heavily and its total debt - which includes all of its borrowings and liabilities - now stands at £22.8bn, according to latest financial debt pile increased sharply when Macquarie, an Australian infrastructure bank, owned Thames Water, with debts reaching more than £10bn by the time the company was sold in said it invested billions of pounds in upgrading Thames's water and sewage infrastructure while it owned the company, but critics argue that it took billions of pounds out of the company in loans and dividends. What does all this mean for customers? No matter who eventually owns or runs Thames Water, customers will see no impact on their services. Taps will still run and toilets will still Thames has said it needs to increase its bills to fix problems, with the average annual bill rising by almost a third to £639 in April. Consumer groups argue people shouldn't have to pay more because the company has been badly Sir Adrian Montague, Thames Water's chairman, warned that without bigger price rises, the company cannot guarantee safe and resilient water supplies that can cope with climate change and population growth. Who owns Thames Water now? Thames Water is privately owned by a group of pension funds and investment firms. The biggest shareholders include:Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System (Canada) - 32%Universities Superannuation Scheme (UK) - 20%Abu Dhabi Investment Authority - 10%China Investment Corporation - 9%Other investors include funds from Canada, Australia, and the Netherlands. Could Thames have fallen under government control? Earlier this year, Thames secured £3bn in emergency funding, which it said would give it the space needed to complete a restructuring of its debts and attract a cash injection from prospective new proposals had to be approved by the High Court after a group of creditors opposed it, arguing the 9.75% interest rate on the loan was too group then appealed against the High Court's decision, but this was the funding deal had not been approved, Thames faced the possibility of a temporary nationalisation, under a measure known as a Special Administration Regime. Will Thames now be bought by a US company? Thames Water is in discussions with US investment group KKR about a cash injection of up to £ is one of the world's largest private equity firms with $160bn of investments globally. The firm is already a shareholder in another UK water provider, Northumbrian deal being completed is also dependent on lenders to the company accepting a discount on the billions they are owed. Some junior lenders could see their entire loan being written said in March there was no certainty that a binding proposal would emerge, and any deal would need to be approved by regulators. Why was Thames Water privatised? The entire water and waste sector was privatised under Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government. At the time, Thatcher wrote off the industry's £5bn debt, leaving companies with a clean slate, and gave them £1.5bn in public the time, the UK was under pressure to meet European water quality standard standards. Thatcher wanted the billions of pounds of investment need to do this to come from the private sector and, by extension, companies' customers."If we want environmental improvement, it will cost money," said Mrs Thatcher in 1988. "It will be the people who want those improvements in water who will have to pay."However, critics say that privatisation has not worked as water firms have taken on too much debt while failing to invest in infrastructure.
