On Thursday 27th March, we hosted a talk with Severn Trent to discuss the health of the River Stour. River Rangers Manager Gareth Mead and his colleague Amanda Coffey who is River Insights and Improvements Manager, led an engaging talk about the scope of Severn Trent’s work and involvement in caring for our river.
Kinver Climate Action Group wanted to hold this talk because we know sewage dumping in our rivers has been a hot topic in the media. This meeting explained the truth behind the publicity and most importantly, the Severn Trent team told us some things that we can control as a community, to help our river reach a healthier state (as well as what they are doing, of course).
For those who missed the talk, or want a recap, here are some of the key points.
Why is sewage dumping happening?
The drainage system in the UK means that often, road and roof runoff has been mixed with sewage into a common drain (Severn Trent’s combined sewer system explainer can help you visualise this). After heavy storms, to avoid flooding homes, these drains are designed to ‘overflow’ into the nearest watercourse. This is a permitted feature – but clearly, looking forward, not a desirable way to continue. The problem is redesigning old systems will be costly. And, as the built environment makes it harder for water to naturally soak away, the problem could get worse. On top of that, while the drains in our area are Severn Trent’s responsibility, the highways and homes that feed into them, are not.
‘Illegal’ raw sewage discharges occur when there’s a pipe blockage or failure. And very often that’s due to items that shouldn’t be flushed, ending up in our sewers. This is often wet wipes, sanitary items and fat which solidifies in pipes and creates what are known as ‘Fatbergs’.
How dangerous is sewage in our rivers?
To quickly bust a myth, many think sewage always means excrement, but this is not true. ‘Sewage’ is used to describe any wastewater carried away in the drains from homes, businesses and industry. This water of course includes waste from our toilets, washing machines and run-off from the highways.
Most sewage gets treated to remove some of the pollutants, and this is what should happen to water leaving our streets. Sewage is not meant to reach our rivers untreated, but due to the reasons above, sometimes it has to as the water needs somewhere to go.
Large sewage works have strict standards. Once treated, the wastewater is discharged back to a watercourse. Locally, the Roundhill Sewage Works discharges to the Stour just south of Kinver; and the small Kinver Sewage Works discharges just south of the Windsor Holloway. Treated sewage is intended to be safe for release back into the environment.
How healthy is the River Stour?
The River Stour was historically very polluted due to its course through a number of industrial settings between its source in Clent and its confluence with the Severn at Stourport. Work to clean the Stour has largely been successful with industrial pollutants far lower, but there are still a number of factors which mean the Stour is classed as poor or moderate from a health point of view.
During the talk, we showed some of our recent sampling results (which you can see in the slides here). Water quality in the Stour west of Prestwood is not too bad, but the Smestow coming south from Wolverhampton, which joins the Stour at Prestwood, has exceptionally high phosphate concentrations, which mean it is ecologically of very poor quality.
The high nutrient levels cause algal growth, low oxygen, murky river beds and are generally unfriendly to a varied and healthy river ecology. This water mixes with the Stour, degrading its water quality as it flows towards the Severn.
The Severn Trent team explained the various factors that can lead to high phosphate levels including sewage, but also fertiliser from farmland and gardens. They also went into detail on what they are doing to promote river health. The Severn Trent team were keen to work with us, and possibly do more river sampling to locate the causes. If you are interested in the river, contact us on info@kinverclimate.co.uk and we’ll keep you in the loop.
What can you do to prevent untreated sewage reaching our rivers?
Severn Trent is working hard to upgrade drains where it can, and create huge water stores to limit the number of storm-related overflows. However, we were relieved to hear that there is a lot we can do ourselves to limit the number of sewage spills, most of which involve preventing too much water reaching our drains.
- Don’t flush anything other than ‘the 3 Ps’ (use your imagination). Toilet paper is designed to disintegrate in pipes but wet wipes are a particular nuisance, as even the ones labelled as ‘flushable’ do not break down and can block pipes. So if you do use wipes, please bin them instead, as well as any sanitary items and nappies.
- Install water butts and use this water in your garden and for washing the car. Doing this means you take some of the load off the drains in the event of heavy rainfall. It also means you save water and many plants prefer rainwater over the water from our taps which is treated with chemicals to make it safe for us to drink.
- Limit impermeable landscaping around your home and garden. Lawns, flower beds and other natural surfaces offer easy ways for water to return to the water table without impacting our drains. Now, so many of our drives and gardens are paved over, diverting surface water to the drains in times of heavy rain. Where you can, opt for draining surfaces like gravel and if you do need a hard standing for mobility reasons, consider resin-bound gravel which is designed to be easy to walk or wheel over, but offers drainage.
- Plant trees and green roofs. Trees do so much for our environment, but an often forgotten job is water management. Big trees are thirsty, so having a mixed landscape with a variety of plants, which need different amounts of water through the seasons, creates a natural way to manage surface water.
Learn more for yourself with Severn Trent’s tips for avoiding blockages.
Adopt a section of the Stour
At the end of the talk we heard from Col Maltby, who is part of the ‘Bringing the Stour to Life‘ project. This is a new community-led group, working to protect and preserve all 31 miles of the River Stour, while enhancing people’s understanding and engagement with the river at the same time. They are looking for guardians to ‘adopt’ a section of the Stour to document it and have got as far as Stourton which is where we come in. They are hoping to find local residents who would be up for spending some time taking photos of the river and feeding back their observations, with the long-term view to establish a Stour Way including not only environmental improvements, but art and history moments too.
If you would like to get involved, email them at info@riverstour.org