ERA on Channel 4 News
Did you catch ERA on Channel 4 News recently? If not, you can always watch it on https://www.channel4.com/news/public-anger-still-growing-despite-fewer-sewage-spills-in-2025. Although they filmed ERA Chair, Veronica Carter, for about 20 minutes it got edited down to something much less. We were provided with the proposed questions beforehand and considerable thought went into how to best answer those questions, so we thought it worth publishing those questions and our prepared answers as a blog, which serves to tell the story of where we are up to with our E.coli testing of our local waterways.
Why did you set up the river testing?
Our group ERA – Eco Rother Action is a climate and biodiversity crises response group for our local area. Our members chose our name, but it has the name of our river, the Rother, right there in it, so it became somewhat inevitable that we would see what we could do to improve things for our river and its tributaries. One thing we do is to spend many, many summer hours pulling our Himalayan Balsam from along the river. The Western Sussex Rivers Trust run a magnificent whole catchment water quality monitoring scheme covering the Rother, the Arun and all the tributaries, and many ERA members are part of that scheme. Their monthly surveys cover a lot, including measuring nitrates, phosphates and the turbidity (murkiness) of the water but not E.coli, although they are now moving in that direction. Testing for E.coli is very expensive! Nevertheless, we felt it was an important thing to monitor, especially as we know that many people swim in the Rother or kayak upon it. We kept being asked if the Rother was safe to swim in and simply couldn’t begin to answer that question. Now at least we can give people solid numbers so that they can make their own minds up. We aspire to the Rother being a swimmable river fit for both humans and the varied wildlife that have it as their home.
What do you think of the results you’ve seen so far?
We have been going for less than a year with our E.coli testing. We need to collect more data before we can read too much into it all but we are very lucky to now have Portsmouth University supporting us with analysing our data and refining our process. One thing that has shocked us is how much E.coli wastewater treatment works add to our waterways even when all that is going into them is fully treated effluent. You may be surprised to learn that there is no upper limit set for E.coli in our rivers and streams, unless there is a designated bathing area downstream or there are shellfish. So, for the vast majority of wastewater treatment works their permits to discharge do not set any limits for E.coli levels. Where there are downstream shellfish or bathing areas the effluent can be UV treated to reduce E.coli, but that simply does not happen elsewhere. Defra would not permit spending money for UV treatment when the permits to discharge have no E.coli limits set. Spills, the discharging of untreated wastewater, are a huge problem, but one that is beginning to be addressed. E.coli in fully treated effluent is the elephant in the room that nobody is talking about yet.
What do you think about the CSO here at Harting spilling so often?
It is simply unacceptable, just like it was when it happened last winter and undoubtedly countless winters before that. This wastewater treatment works has the worst record for spilling in our area, but it discharges into the smallest stream compared to other wastewater treatment works in the area. Our rivers and streams are the veins and the arteries of our country and should not be being treated as one big sewage pipe. We use them for recreation, for swimming and kayaking, but more importantly they are home to a whole ecosystem. I was lucky enough to see an otter about 3 miles from here a couple of years ago. That otter should not have to live in a river polluted with our sewage, be that from wastewater treatment works or from poorly managed septic tanks, which are also a major problem. We can all regret the past that has got us to this point, but more importantly we have to insist upon a greatly improved future.
What would you like to happen?
There is so much that needs to happen. Last year this site underwent a considerable upgrade which doubled what they call it’s ‘flow to full treatment’, it can now take twice as much effluent as it previously could but the spilling has been continued for the majority of the time this winter, as previously. Southern Water tells us the issue here is ingress of groundwater into the pipes bringing the effluent to the site. They now plan to reline those pipes, both here and at nearby Buriton which has also spilled considerably this winter, but they can only reline the pipes that belong to them. Other pipes they have to try to identify the owner and get permission to do the necessary work. Water companies need to have the right to go ahead and do work like that, even if it proves too difficult to track down the owner and get their permission – a change in the law to allow that to happen is one thing that needs to change. If this pipe relining fails to stop the spills, their Plan C is to look into buying adjoining land and creating a managed wetland, a large reed bed, that would process out at least some of the nasties before the effluent reaches the stream. If this site does need to have a managed wetland constructed we will only find out by the site spilling horrendously again next winter following the pipe relining.
How important are the roles of citizen groups in actually bringing about change?
Critical. We have the local knowledge and the local contacts. In our particular case nearly everyone involved is retired, which also means we have the time. And these are our waterways, we genuinely care about them. We can be the eyes and the ears on the ground for the regulator, whether that be the Environment Agency or the new regulatory body they are talking about setting up. I think that groups like ours are becoming increasingly important, absolutely critical.