One of England’s most iconic lakes, Windermere, was used as an open sewage system by a water company over a three-year period, according to the BBC’s analysis. Over 140 million litres of waste were dumped into the lake by United Utilities during 2021 and 2023, most of which was unreported and illegal. The failure to report this illegally-dumped sewage highlights the severity of the use of Windermere to illegally discharge sewage, where the permit mandates it must be dumped a certain depth for treatment. Sewage overflows damage the environment by causing detrimental algal blooms and even killing fish.
A statistical analysis of operations data by United Utilities showed that the illegal discharges had been going on for more than three years, far greater and longer than previously disclosed. The Glebe Road pumping station, which discharges directly into the lake, was the only relevant site for the data. The station was authorised by the Environment Agency to release raw sewage into the lake during various storms, providing least 245 litres of sewage were pumping per second to the treatment works. However, the station consistently failed to meet this requirement despite it being written in the site’s environmental permit, leading to the dumping of sewage into the lake.
The company stated that it routinely self-reports over 94% of potential environmental incidents, and that some of its sewage releases into Windermere were “potentially non-compliant”. However, Matt Staniek, founder of Save Windermere, argues that Windermere National Park is being used as a sewer and United Utilities is “incompetent, or they profited from it and it’s Windermere that suffered.” United Utilities told the BBC: “We are committed to being fully transparent with the Environment Agency” and that it had implemented new system changes to prevent further incidents, focusing on additional treatment facilities around Windermere, as illegal sewage discharge does not align with their core values
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