Southern Water has overhauled its existing environmental permit at its Fairlee Wastewater Treatment Works on the Isle of Wight and secured a new permit from the Environmental Agency to find new ways of reducing the use of storm overflows.
The Environment Agency give water companies permits to control what they do which are site specific, taking into consideration several factors to protect the environment.
The previous permit at the Fairlee Wastewater Treatment Works meant that during storm conditions the water company was required to store 3-million litres of storm water in on-site storage before releasing any excess into the environment.
Southern Water was able to do this but the company wanted to make use of a 15-million litre abandoned treatment tank which had been unused for decades which would allow it to store more water, reducing the amount of stormwater released into the environment.
Making the site more effective
The Environment Agency agreed the water company could use the tank as additional storage to reduce local storm overflows. To allow the storage to work with what was already on site, Southern Water built a new pumping station to transfer the excess storm water to the new storage, which would have otherwise been released to the environment through the storm overflow.
With so much extra storage unlocked, storm overflows immediately started dropping compared to what was predicted for the site. In 2024 the improvements prevented around 12 storm overflow releases and the actual number of storm overflows were far less than predicted.
Other work underway on the Isle of Wight includes the installation of roadside sustainable drainage systems in Gurnard, just north of Fairlee. These help manage surface rainwater run-off from roads and reduce localised flooding, easing the strain on the sewer system when it rains.
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