DAMNING figures released by the Environment Agency have revealed that South West Water discharged 19 hours of sewage a day into the River Tamar in Calstock Parish last year. 

Although the figures show a reduction on last year’s figures by almost a fifth, councillors continue to be concerned about the health of the River Tamar. 

Calstock parish councillor, Alastair Tinto said: ‘The latest figures on sewage discharges into the River Tamar in Calstock Parish give residents of Calstock Parish very little comfort that the river is safe.’

Although the new figures reveal a reduction in sewage discharge from the 12 combined sewer overflows in Chilsworthy, Calstock, Gunnislake, Harrowbarrow and Metherell, the Environment Agent (EA) says this is largely down to the low rainfall last year and not action by water companies. 

On Friday (March 31) the EA published Event Duration Monitoring data for 2022. This includes data from all ten water and sewerage companies operating in England, with information on the frequency and duration of storm overflow spills.

The data shows that last year a total of 301,091 spills were recorded in England. These figures show a reduction from 2021 where the figure was 372,533.

Environment Agency executive director John Leyland said: ‘The decrease in spills in 2022 is largely down to dry weather, not water company action.

‘We want to see quicker progress from water companies on reducing spills and acting on monitoring data.

‘We expect them to be fully across the detail of their networks and to maintain and invest in them to the high standard that the public expect and the regulator demands.’

Last year, in the Calstock Parish, South West Water’s 12 combined sewer overflows released nearly 7,000 hours of sewage into the River Tamar on over 750 occasions.

Following the release of this new data, parish councillors feel that little action is being taken by SWW to protect the Tamar and that greater transparency is needed. This follows the continuous campaign for clean water in the Calstock Parish including a recent anti-pollution event at Calstock quayside.

The sewer overflows allow sewage and rainwater to be diverted into the river at times of heavy rainfall. These overflows have been found to have discharged for 6,931 hours in 2022, which equates to 18.99 hours a day.

Harrowbarrow councillor, Andrew Brown, said: ‘This is an improvement on 2021 when the spills were at twice that level but it still equates to nearly 19 hours a day. That is simply not good enough.’

‘Given that 2022 was a year of drought, it’s no surprise that the figures are better that they were in 2021. They jolly well should be. But it’s hard to believe that it was raining sufficiently for 19 hours a day to be poured into the river. We believe that a lot of this must be raw sewage.

‘To get properly to the bottom of it we need to know exactly when each spill occurred. Then we can see if it was raining heavily enough to justify the overflows.

‘South West Water isn’t doing nearly enough to protect our rivers.’

Cllr Tinto explained that the council will be looking to retrieve rainfall data for 2022 to match it up with the EA data. Cllr Tinto said: ‘If the spills are happening when there’s not rain, it will show raw sewage is going into the Tamar.’

A SWW spokesperson provided the following response: ‘We are investing £330 million in our wastewater network to dramatically reduce our use of storm overflows and reduce our impact on river quality by one third by 2025. We have been working hard to reduce the impact of storm overflows.

‘There is a wide range of influences on river water quality. Less than 20% is within the direct control of water companies, so in order to fix our rivers we all need to work together.’

The full data releases for 2022 and previous years are available at: Gov.uk.