This Flood Alert remains in force. Flooding is possible this afternoon and overnight into Thursday 30th December. Last night’s rain has caused river levels to rise and we expect these to remain high throughout the rest of today and into tomorrow morning. This may result in flooding to low lying land and roads close to rivers this afternoon and overnight into Thursday morning 30th December. However, flooding to properties is not currently expected. Take care near the areas of concern and monitor your local weather conditions. We are monitoring river levels and have staff in the area checking for and clearing blockages. This message will be updated on Thursday morning or earlier if the situation changes.
As is often the case at such times, the Surfers Against Sewage pollution map reveals metaphorical “red flags” at Widemouth Bay, Mawgan Porth and Fistral Beach in Newquay:
In the aftermath of Storm Arwen a week ago the heavens have opened over Davidstow, and more strong winds are forecast:
The latest dose of heavy rain is currently hovering over #Davidstow.
Some more strong winds are forecast for tomorrow, and if the slightly longer range forecast verifies there might be more #PowerCuts in #Cornwall by the middle of next week thanks to an as yet unnamed #storm. pic.twitter.com/3zfkCAZ9Mm
Today’s strong onshore winds mean that flood warnings are still in place for this evening’s high tide. Meanwhile winter has officially arrived. There have been several showers of hail here in Davidstow this morning. Here’s one of the heavy showers on the radar rainfall (and hail!) map:
Here is the Magic Seaweed surf forecast for Widemouth Bay for today:
and next week:
[Edit – December 7th]
Storm Barra has arrived and consequently it’s been very wet and windy in Davidstow this morning. The coast of North Cornwall is on flood alert at high tide once again.
At least we haven’t had a power cut yet. Unlike 10 days ago!
Another downpour last night has resulted in all too familiar news this morning. Here’s the NetWeather.TV rain radar view of Cornwall at 9 PM last night:
Davidstow is under all that rain dropping cloud somewhere! This morning there are flood warnings in place for North Devon, and flood alerts across North Cornwall:
What’s more the Surfers Against Sewage map reveals that nearly all the beaches in North Cornwall also have water quality warnings in place:
The little low tide “beach” at Trebarwith Strand is currently clear, but Watergate Bay is not.
[Edit – October 26th]
Here is Baroness Jones from the Green Party explaining the problem on BBC Newsnight:
"We've known about this for nearly 30 years and yet water companies still insist on paying out billions to shareholders and have not invested in the infrastructure to deal with this."
This seems to be the meat of the letter I received from Scott Mann MP a couple of days ago:
The facts are that we have a combined sewer system in this country, meaning rainwater and sewage both flow into it. This means that heavy rain and storms can lead to additional pressure on the system that needs to be released”. lt is not a coincidence that discharges happen most often during or after a storm. lf this pressure is not discharged the wastewater – including sewage – will back up into the streets and into people’s homes. This is not hyperbolic; it is a fact. The age of this Victorian sewerage system means that the complete elimination of storm overflows would be extremely challenging. Unfortunately, they have always been a part of our wastewater infrastructure and until now little action has been taken by any government or party.
One of the recent amendments in the Lords would have required work to be done to eliminate sewage discharges, and I was one of several hundred MPs who opposed it. Initial estimates of the work necessary to achieve this are in the region of £150 billion and upwards. To put that in perspective, this is more than the entire budget of the NHS. These costs would inevitably be passed onto taxpayers or water bill payers. No sensible legislator could have backed this. I am of the view that the water companies should foot the bill for improvements over time and not the taxpayer, so these improvements must be manageable.
That rather begs the question about where we would be now if the necessary improvements had been started a decade or two ago? And indeed what the actual cost would be in today’s day and age!
[Edit – November 1st]
This tweet from Professor Dieter Helm seems apposite at this juncture?
“The sad reality of 30 years of privatisation has been high gearing, high profits and dividends, and investment well below what could have been achieved.” https://t.co/yhGkI3B4fU
After almost continuous heavy rain, hopefully the end is in sight for the current series of pollution incidents on the beaches of North Cornwall. Several beaches are not being monitored at this time of year, but currently Widemouth Bay and Trevone are the only ones still marked in red on the Surfers Against Sewage water quality map:
Hopefully those two will get the all clear tomorrow
[Edit – November 5th]
In answer to my question above about “the actual cost of the necessary improvements to the UK’s ageing sewage infrastructure”, the Government has just announced:
An independent research project that considers options, costs and benefits for reducing storm sewage discharges in England.
Reducing sewage discharges from storm overflows is an important priority to protect the environment.
This research, the first assessment of its kind, was commissioned by the Storm Overflows Taskforce – made up of Defra, the Environment Agency, Ofwat, CCW, Blueprint for Water and Water UK – and funded by Water UK.
The independent research, carried out by Stantec, presents a detailed overview of potential approaches that will act as an important evidence base for government action.
The Storm Overflows Taskforce will now consider the report and its recommendations to:
support the development of the best mix of policy solutions
inform the government plan on storm overflows to be published in September 2022.
The report itself evaluates the costs and benefits of a range of scenarios. The methodology used is summarised like this:
The policies tested consider the universal implementation of permits to control storm overflow spill frequency to an average of either 40, 20, 10, 5 or 0 (zero) times per year (named F40, F20, F10, F5 and F0, respectively).
Three scenarios are also considered, describing the engineering approach used to deliver policies. The first relies on a conventional approach to capture spills from storm overflows using network storage (W) which is sized sufficiently to capture spills and allow for these to slowly return to the sewer network for treatment.
The other two augment the conventional approach with partly or wholly nature-based technologies (retrofitted SuDS) at two levels: 10 percent of impermeable area controlled (S10) and 50 percent of impermeable area controlled (S50). In this context, controlled means that these flows do not enter the combined sewer system. The SuDS solutions are implemented in addition to sewer network storage; therefore creating mixed grey-green solutions. The S10 level of SuDS is at a modest level across the catchment, whilst the S50 level is at a high level. Controlling runoff from 50% of impermeable area (S50) is broadly equivalent to preventing all highway runoff entering combined sewers in a fully combined catchment.
The costs of the various approaches are summarised in the following infographic:
There seem to be a wide range of available options that cost considerably less than £150 billion, and that’s before accounting for the associated benefits.
