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.