‘Raw sewage pumped into Lake Windermere for 10 hours’
A water company has been accused of illegally dumping millions of litres of raw sewage into a World Heritage Site lake.
United Utilities left raw sewage spilling into Windermere in the Lake District for 10 hours in February after a telecommunications fault caused its main pumping station to fail, according to documents from the water company seen by the BBC.
A backup pumping station discharged the sewage into the middle of Windermere, England’s largest lake and a popular bathing spot, from 11.34pm to 9.49am, it said.
The water company did not report the incident to the Environment Agency for 13 hours, the BBC said, despite regulations requiring all pollution incidents at the site to be flagged as soon as possible.
The broadcaster cited insiders at United Utilities who said the emergency pumps would have operated for six hours at 500 litres a second, leaving more than 10 million litres of sewage in the lake.
It also said that the water company would have been automatically notified of the fault “shortly after” it occurred.
‘Unexpected fault’
A United Utilities spokesman said: “This incident was caused by an unexpected fault on the third party telecoms cable network in the area, which United Utilities was not notified about and which affected both the primary system and United Utilities’ backup.
“As soon as we discovered this fault was affecting the Glebe Road pumping station, our engineers took urgent steps to resolve the situation and we informed the Environment Agency within an hour of the pollution being confirmed.”
The report follows a similar incident at the Windermere lake in November 2022.
The lake, which has four designated bathing sites, has been plagued by algal blooms that choke off aquatic life and are caused by excess nutrients from inputs such as sewage.
The revelations prompted criticism from opposition politicians and renew focus on sewage on the same day the Government starts testing bathing sites for pollution during the summer season.
Steve Reed, the shadow environment secretary, said the Conservatives had “just folded their arms and looked the other way while United Utilities pumped a tidal wave of raw sewage into Britain’s most beautiful lake.
He added: “The next Labour government will put the water companies under special measures to force United Utilities to clean up their toxic mess.”
Tim Farron, the Liberal Democrat’s environment spokesman, said: “This is a scandal. We can’t let them get away with this any longer.
“The public are rightly furious that their favourite local rivers and lakes are being spoiled while water company bosses accept huge bonuses.”
