United Utilities engineers are reporting that Keswick’s new £23m sewer upgrade has already stopped millions of litres of storm water getting into the River Greta during its first five months of operation.

Built to help clean up Bassenthwaite Lake, the United Utilities scheme has cut the number of times sewers spill to the river by more than 70 percent since it was finished in March. In addition, the amount of storm water to reach the river has reduced even more dramatically because the spills themselves were much smaller.

The spill figures were revealed in initial data from the new system. Although the volume is only estimated currently, further improvements to the system’s monitoring software will allow engineers to gather even more accurate data in future.

Simon Povey, the scheme’s project manager, commented:

“This is great news because it means huge amounts of chemicals called phosphates, encourage the growth of algae and harm wildlife, can be prevented from getting into the lake.”

“Before we improved Keswick’s sewers, heavy rains frequently overwhelmed the pipes and sent dirty storm water and phosphates, which are common in many of the cleaning products we all use at home, overflowing into the river and the lake itself.”

“Even worse than that, from time-to-time manholes discharged some of this water onto the street and into people’s homes. The chances of this water coming from the sewers from now on is vastly les.,”

Powerful new pumps now pump the extra water to Keswick sewage works, where new tanks and equipment can clean much more of the foul water before returning it safely to the environment.