Southern Water has found the worst example of an illegal connection ever its region entire block of 15 flats discharging wastewater and sewage straight into River Itchen chalk stream at Portswood since it was first built in 1989.
Misconnections into surface water drains from homes and businesses generally happen when a careless builder or householder accidentally plumbs a new loo or washing machine into surface water drains instead of the sewers.Usually, these instances are small scale and confined to one or two properties
Southern Water engineers grasped the seriousness of the illegal connection as soon they began sampling – the contamination was off the charts.
To put this in context, a single loo can produce 20,000 litres of sewage a year. So for the building as a whole, this amounts around 11 million litres of wastewater from toilets alone since the block was built - not to mention the showers, baths, dishwashers, kitchen sinks, and washing machines.
Southern Water is doing a lot of work and investing heavily to help improve water quality in the River Itchen, in protection of local wildlife and in support of a council application for a new bathing water designation.
Detective work to track any causes of contamination in the catchment led the engineers to the flats who lifted a series of manholes and carried out sampling until they reached Royal Court, in Southampton’s Upper Grosvenor Road
A CCTV camera revealed rows of private sewage pipes punched through the side and into the surface water drain - the drainage pipe then runs straight into the Itchen.
The water company has recently doubled the size of the team to find and fix more problems across the region.
Southern Water said that while it is normally the responsibility of householders to put illegal connections right. However, such is the scale and importance of this latest finding, the company is moving to put it right as quickly as possible.
“SAS (Surplus Activated Sludge) is a bit weird and 
Owen Mace has taken over as Director of the British Plastics Federation (BPF) Plastic Pipes Group on the retirement of Caroline Ayres. He was previously Standards and Technical Manager for the group.
PureTec Separations, the Ledbury-based water treatment engineering firm, has appointed Dan Norman as its new Sales Manager – Water Process Systems, supporting the company’s continued growth in the UK and international markets.
bNovate has launched BactoCloud, a secure cloud-based platform that connects and manages its BactoSense instruments, enabling real-time monitoring and optimization of microbial water quality.
Hear how Scottish Water has completed its £235 million Ayrshire Glasgow Resilience Project - customers across Greater Glasgow, Ayrshire and East Renfrewshire will now benefit from a more secure and resilient water supply.
Hear how United Utilities is accelerating its investment to reduce spills from storm overflows across the Northwest.
Find out more about the remarkable career opportunities on offer at WSP - scroll down to watch the inspirational video.