Calls for a change in the way sewage discharges are recorded

Activists are calling for changes in the way sewage discharges are recorded.

Currently, water companies only need to record how long sewage is pumped into rivers, not how much is released.

Professor of stable isotope geochemistry at the University of Durham, Darren Grocke, said without this information it was difficult to accurately understand the “environmental damage caused”.

The Environment Agency (EA) said it was changing its approach to regulating the water industry by introducing additional officials and inspections.

Professor Grocke said that “an hour of leakage may correspond to 10 liters of sewage or it may refer to 1,000 litres”.

“Without this information, it is difficult to accurately understand the environmental damage caused,” he added.

United Utilities has promised to reduce sewage spills into Windermereand announced earlier millions of pounds of funding to deal with the problem.

Save Windermere campaign founder Matt Staniek said talk of reducing spills was “completely meaningless”.

He said there was a “lack of transparency” in the way the data was collected.

The EA said continuous water quality monitoring would be introduced in 2025 for upstream and downstream discharges from sewage treatment plants and storm overflows.

The EA says companies will also be required to publish data on the frequency and duration of discharges from storm overflows.