Harrogate Green Party's alarm at national newspaper's claims over 'frightening' sewage levels in River Nidd

The Guardian reported on Saturday that the River Nidd in North Yorkshire, one of the river catchments studied by Peter Hammond, a retired professor of computational biology, received untreated sewage discharges from at least seven treatment works.

Calculations were possible on estimated volumes for four treatment works: Pateley Bridge, Harrogate North, Darley and Kirk Hammerton.

Mr Hammond claimed the river received an equivalent of 317 Olympic pools of raw sewage from those works in 2020.

After reading the article, Arnold Warneken, Harrogate and District Green Party councillor for Ouseburn Division, said: "I have serious concerns about the recent report from Professor Peter Hammond about sewage discharges into the UK rivers and into the Nidd which runs through my division

"The general public would aghast if they knew what was happening to our sewage.

"The levels of pollution impacting on our health and environment, aquatic life and biodiversity are frightening.

"Visitors are swimming at the Lido, dogs are swimming at the Nidd Gorge, children playing on the sandbanks and swimming in Nidd at Kirk Hammerton and Tockwith.

"And there are no warning signs as to the potential hazards and side effects of this contaminated river.”

Talking to The Guardian, a spokesperson for Yorkshire Water disputed the article’s conclusions.

“In the short time we’ve had to review this report we’ve identified several industry-wide claims we don’t recognise,” said the spokesperson.

"The report focuses on potential impact of storm overflows at Pateley Bridge, Harrogate North, Darley and Kirk Hammerton.

"We are aware of an instrument issue that was identified in the 2020 Pateley Bridge return, which overinflated discharges from the 6x overflow and paints a false picture of the overflows.

“This monitoring is being replaced and was discounted in the 2021 and 2022 returns.

"Storm overflows are not identified by the Environment Agency as reasons for these sections of the Nidd not achieving good ecological status.

"The assessments suggests that where Yorkshire Water can make a difference is in reducing phosphorus from final effluent of wastewater.

"That is why we are investing £790 million by 2025 in phosphorus removal.”

But Harrogate Green Party councillor Arnold Warneken questioned Yorkshire Water’s attitude and said the end result was dreadful for the Nidd.

"Yorkshire Water say the Environment Agency doesn’t blame sewage for the Nidd not achieving good ecological status,” said Coun Warneken, “but if it's not that, what is the cause?

"I would like to know how much of the £10 billion pledged nationally by water companies to deal with sewage problems will go to Yorkshire Water to clean up their act and how much and how will spent on the Nidd?”

In a study of 30 treatment works in 2020 run by nine of the 10 water and sewerage companies in England and Wales by Prof Peter Hammond, a mathematician who analyses data on sewage discharges, the volume of raw sewage discharged was estimated at 11bn litres – the equivalent volume to 4,352 Olympic pools.

Mr Hammond has previously given evidence to MPs claiming the scale of illegal discharges of raw sewage by water companies is ten times higher than official data suggested.