The Times: Cumbrian village suffered 321 sewage spills in past year
A water company has been pumping sewage into a historic Lake District village during dry weather in breach of its permit, the Environment Agency (EA) has said.
“Cartmel, at the southern edge of the Lake District National Park in Cumbria, is renowned for its 12th-century priory and L’Enclume, the only three-star Michelin restaurant in the north of England.
However for 20 years residents have complained of foul-smelling water in the village’s River Eea, and of finding dead fish.
On Wednesday, the EA said its investigators had found that United Utilities had been spilling sewage from the local Cark pumping station into the river, even during periods of dry weather.
Water companies are allowed to spill sewage only under exceptional circumstances, when it is raining so heavily that the system cannot cope with the amount of water and effluent.
The EA’s revelation, which is thought to be the first time that the regulator has publicly highlighted dry-weather spills, was raised in a letter to Tim Farron, the local MP, after a suspected sewage incident on Valentine’s Day.
Jim Ratcliffe, the EA’s manager for Cumbria and Lancashire, said that the impact on the environment during the spillage “had the potential to be significant”.
“We have completed a permit compliance assessment of the pumping station using our nearby rain gauge, the photographs you and your constituents sent to us, as well as information our officers collected at the site,” Ratcliffe said. “The assessment found that the pumping station was spilling in dry weather in breach of its permit.”
Feargal Sharkey, the clean rivers campaigner and former singer with the Undertones, called on the agency to spell out how it intended to deal with the situation.
“The Environment Agency demonstrates yet again that they are incapable of regulating the water industry,” he wrote in a tweet. An EA spokeswoman said that the agency had issued a warning to United Utilities.
Data compiled by the Rivers Trust found that the pumping station at Cark spilled 321 times for a total of 4421 hours last year.
Locals say that sewage backs up into the village, damaging the health and wellbeing of residents and wildlife.
The spills were said to be worse on race days at the village’s national hunt racecourse.”
