Thames Sewage Events

Every year an average of 39 million tonnes of untreated sewage is dumped into the tidal Thames, killing much of what lives in the river. These sewage overflows are legally consented and are getting worse.
Thames Water send a warning email to rowers when their main pumping stations are discharging to the river, we record these at sdn.rivertac.org. We also send out notifications on Twitter – follow @ThamesSewage to receive these.
Listed on this page are the notified discharge amounts since June 2011 into the Western Tideway. These are only four out of the 57 Combined sewage Overflows and pumping stations that discharge into the Thames after as little as 2mm of rain.
 
Lots Road Pumping Station
The Thames Tunnel or Super Sewer, is the single best solution to clean up the Tideway. The plan has been agreed and approved, construction is due to start in 2016. But these sewage discharges will continue for many years and we fully expect major fish kills and environmental damage as the current system becomes more overloaded.
 
Dead Bream after a sewage overflow
The figures below are cubic metres (m3) or Tonnes of sewage since June 2011 and are only the monitored discharges into the Western Tideway, therefore the actual total is very many times higher

 

2011 Hammersmith PS Mogden STW Western PS Lots Road PS
June 504,750 516,000 484,200 242,300
July 224,400 107,000 407,225 156,440
August 572,600 691,000 428,750 241,700
September 222,500 31,000 102,600 55,700
October 48,400      
November 207,000 166,000 411,600 168,360
December 75,000 355,000 337,150 66,960
2012 Hammersmith PS Mogden STW Western PS Lots Road PS
January 196,400 249,000 346,280 148,410
February 6,000 133,000 28,575  
March 50,000 123,000 46,125 16,740
April 612,000 399,109 862,750 293,400
May 176,600 680,000 162,600 27,000
June 654,600 1,761,000 977,349 322,560
July 211,400 419,400 276,600 99,900
August 367,200 327,000 304,275 141,200
September 227,100 457,000 315,825 95,940
October 229,640 648,000 564,150 134,460
November 647,600 1,038,100 350,250 243,900
December 819,600 1,667,800 784,250 334,980
2013 Hammersmith PS Mogden STW Western PS Lots Road PS
January 328,600 1,495,700 147,225  
February 762,600 1,865,500 128,175 46,980
March 461,400 1,079,08 307,200 90,720
April 41,100 50,000 393,252 58,500
May 553,200 81,000 153,150 79,180
June 0 0 59,400 20,250
July 38,600 0 206,100 37,980
August 649,800 32,750 784,100 130,680
September 743,100 25,400 301,725 247,780
October 1,391,100 175,400 667,800 298,080
November 1,301,000 254,300 454,350 144,900
December 1,271,363 223,500 560,475 135,000
2014 Hammersmith PS Mogden STW Western PS Lots Road PS
January 1,637,456 2,505,000 678,750 250,830
February 433,000 3,956,300 470,550 196,740
March 34,000 52,400 81,600 61,500
April 87,400 29,000 156,750 94,500
May  203,080 7000 382,350 185,220
June  532,800 0 176,850 49,500
July 24,400 0 176,850 27,000
August 859,400 264,000 739,050 257,040
September 84,000 0 86,700 62,460
October 323,600 234,000 221,925 76,500
November 678,400 1,068,000 824,025 381,060
December 37,800 45,000 148,350 18,000
2015 Hammersmith PS Mogden STW Western PS Lots Road PS
January 286,400 309,000 389,325 93,960
February 600 26,000 95,700 13,500
March 1800 0 118,800 9,000
April 0 0 0 0
May 52 0 188,073 27,032
June 0 0 110,850 13,500
July 387,000 94,000 425,850 246,420
August        
September        
October        
November        
December        
An update to the discharge data has been requested from Thames Water…..
 
To receive notifications of each Sewage Discharge, please visit this Thames Water page or follow @ThamesSewage on twitter. We also keep a log of these notifications at sdn.rivertac.org.
The discharge amounts have been requested after each rain event including local TAC observations. We would like to thank Thames Water for their continued cooperation in providing us with the transparency this data requires.
All data and images on this website, www.rivertac.org are the copyright of the Thames Anglers Conservancy © 2017. All users of this website are reminded that any redistribution or copying of copyrighted material requires the permission of the copyright owner.Please contact: admin@rivertac.org.