Overloaded system in dire need of fixing

WALES is blessed with beautiful scenery from its coasts to its valleys. And yet the rivers, lakes and seas that we turn to, not just for leisure but also for industry and food, are too often blighted by sewage.

The latest figures are appalling – total untreated household waste poured into the nation’s waterways for almost a million hours last year – up by more than two-thirds on the year before.

This is shocking, upsetting even, as is Welsh Water’s apparent inability to even reduce, let alone stop, the amount of sewage spilling into our rivers and seas.

To explain the swell, the company points the finger at 2023 being the wettest on record. When it rains heavily, as it appears to do with increasing frequency, a mix of stormwater and the wastewater from our toilets and sinks pours untreated into Wales’ water courses. The current system in place becomes overloaded.

Stemming the flow when more than nine out of 10 are described as “significant” outflows, and there are further issues identified at facilities such as pumping stations, is proving a tide resistant to turning.

To try to solve the issues, Welsh Water says it is investing £140m within five years to improve the areas with the biggest environmental impact, and will triple that investment in the five years to 2030.

Such amounts indicate the scale of the challenge involved but may prove to be drops in the ocean of work needed. What is economically viable across a rural, sparsely populated nation of three million people is a potential harsh reality.

Without massive subsidised investment, it’s hard to see how Welsh Water will ever solve this crisis once and for all.

But people across Wales, who already have some of the highest water bills in the UK, will want to have their confidence restored and to know that everything that can be done is being done.

This is particularly the case following regulator Ofwat’s £40m intervention earlier this month, and our investigation last year which exposed how Natural Resources Wales had recorded more than 200 regulation breaches by Welsh Water within six years but had only fined the company for two.

Wales arguably has no shortage of water or waterways – unless, of course, drought strikes. Those charged with looking after these precious resources have a responsibility to ensure they do so to the best of their ability and to the highest standards. Otherwise they must be called to account.