This is the best summary I could come up with:

The raw sewage that is diverted away from the works flows into ditches, rivers and seas and the amount will probably dwarf the volumes dumped into the environment via storm overflows.

“Water companies report their overall compliance with wastewater rules as good, but dig a little deeper and you’ll see that lots of treatment works are failing to deal with the amount of sewage they are legally meant to treat.”

“Sadly there are many incentives for water companies, rogue teams or staff to do this, including reduced cost of pumping and treatment, and treatment works that were struggling to comply appearing to be passing, with the resulting regulatory performance rewards leading to staff bonuses and increased dividends to shareholders – with very little risk that the manipulation will be found or anyone prosecuted.”

Ofwat says water and wastewater companies’ environmental performance is “simply not good enough” and that the industry regulator is “acutely aware of the damage this does to our natural resources and to public trust.

Geraint Weber of the regulator Natural Resources Wales says: “We expect water and sewerage companies to comply with the conditions of their environmental permits.

Nathan Critchlow-Watton of the Scottish Environment Protection Agency says: “Sepa assess Scottish Water’s compliance with authorisation conditions at wastewater treatment works through site inspections, investigating events and incidents, sampling discharges, assessment of operator data and Sepa’s programme of environmental monitoring.

The original article contains 1,239 words, the summary contains 231 words. Saved 81%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!