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Despite systematic discharge of raw sewage into our rivers throughout 2019, water firms are still paying huge dividends to shareholders...

Read that this morning, absolutely appalling but unfortunately I'm also not really surprised. Nothing gets in the way of profit and dividends, including sh*t it would seem!
 
I have the Windrush at the top of the garden and it's in a miserable state. It has been for years but this year it is choked with silt and there are parts you can walk across without getting your boots wet. The sewage element is horrendous and needs to be experienced to be believed. However, what makes me seethe is the constant stream of garden waste and the hum of pumps extracting water for gardens 24/7 for nine months of the year. I try hard not to get depressed about it but I fished the Evenlode for tiddlers after work last week because I just wanted to be by a river and didn't get a bite on any of the bait I used - not even maggots on a really light rig - which is a first in 30 years.
 
Appalling is the only word to describe this practice . I have seen this happen many times on the river Foss, a minor tributary of the Yorkshire Ouse, it regularly has untreated sewage put in to it and suffers terribly from over abstraction by farmers .To see the fish kills breaks my heart as it was the river I learn't to fish on as a boy . I still fish it on occasions but it is a shadow of it's former self all the big perch and roach that once abounded have long gone . I have made enquiry / complaint to the EA on several occasions with no response other than they would monitor and ' look in to it' . Pathetic ...
 
Thames water got fined over 20 million pounds back in 2017 and yet still dump raw sewage from all of their works. Its often cheaper to dump sewage than treat it. They can legally dump sewage into a water course during high water conditions so they seem to take advantage every time the water comes up to dump. Its become an acceptable practice with them these days. Sewage farms are not regulated anymore around London (I am not sure its the same around the country) and all are now self regulating. Some time ago the EA removed all of their sensors from sewage outflows and let them do whatever they want too. Unless you apply under the freedom of information act they do not have to publicise any wrong doing They recently admitted to dumping raw sewage into the tiny river chess, for 4 months solid. They seemed to be proud when they announced they had stopped doing so, in my view because their tanks had run empty. It lasted a short time before they started dumping again.This problem has been going on for over 20 years the chess is a chalk stream . During the lock down I saw a video of Blackbirds farm sewage works in Aldenham pouring out some horrible filth. The amount was so bad that it looked like a weir pool of solids, I have been told the EA did not attend. The companies need to be fined more and the company directors imprisoned then maybe things might be sorted.
 
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