FOD Launches River Hub to Track Dart Sewage Spills in Real Time — SkimNews
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- Friends of the Dart (FOD) launched River Hub, a platform tracking real-time sewage spills on the River Dart, analyzing why spills recur, and listing where cleanup work is and isn't planned — data FOD argues water companies and the Environment Agency should be making accessible themselves.
- The launch coincides with South West Water (SWW) being fined nearly £8m for sewage spills, including in Cornwall's River Camel, and with Andy Burnham telling the Labour conference water is a symbol of what went wrong with Britain and pledging to reverse Thatcher's ban on public water ownership.
- Some underlying data had to be extracted via freedom of information requests, with the hub's 'Why it keeps happening?' section concluding that not all local sewage treatment works have capacity for the populations they serve.
- River Dart residents including Emma Roberts, who was hospitalized with an E. coli infection after a swim, and Olivia Doherty, whose 17-year-old son Seamus suffered stomach problems after swimming, told the Guardian they've fallen ill after contact with the water.
- Kayak operator Ben Brierley called the UK government's 2035 deadline for bathing spots and 2050 for other rivers 'bonkers,' while the Environment Agency says 100% of storm overflows are now monitored and £10.2bn is earmarked over five years for upgrades to 2,500+ overflows.
- SWW pointed to its own WaterFit Live site for near real-time overflow data, while FOD is offering the River Hub model free to other community groups, with organizations it works with already expressing interest.
Why it matters: FOD argues regulators and water companies should be providing user-friendly pollution data but aren't, and residents like Roberts have been hospitalized with E. coli after swimming in a designated bathing spot. FOD is now offering its River Hub model free to other communities, several of which have already shown interest — turning one Devon river's experiment into a potential template for grassroots accountability across Britain's waterways.
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