Southern Water says it wants to protect rare chalk streams, but campaigners say it could pollute the Solent

A proposed £1.2bn scheme to recycle effluent from the sewage system and turn it in to drinking water has been criticised as a threat to the environment and a potential costly “white elephant”.

Southern Water wants to treat effluent – wastewater from the sewage system – at a plant at Havant in Hampshire and pipe it into a nearby spring-fed reservoir to boost water supplies during droughts. The scheme would ensure less water is extracted from two rare chalk streams: the Rivers Test and Itchen.

It would be the first reservoir in the country to use recycled water derived from effluent to supplement its levels. Regulators says effluent recycling is successfully used overseas, providing plentiful and safe supplies, but campaigners say there are more environmentally friendly options.

  • wewbullEnglish
    51·
    5 months ago

    If the treatment is done safely, which I’m sure it would be, why would anyone be opposed to this?

    • GreyShuckOPMEnglish
      5·
      5 months ago

      From the article:

      Bob Comlay, who runs the Havant Matters website, which details community concerns, and who is also vice-chair of the Solent Protection Society, said construction work to build the plant on the former landfill site risked contaminating groundwater which would flow into the Solent. There are also concerns about the environmental impact on the marine ecology of rejected contaminated water discharged into the sea.

      He said a Thames Water desalination plant which used the same technology had been mostly inactive since it was opened. “This is a vanity project,” he said. “It will be a white elephant.”

    • ZombieEnglish
      41·
      5 months ago

      Why are you sure it would be? England’s rivers are full of sewage right now. The water companies have hardly proved their ability to keep water safe lately.

      • wewbullEnglish
        2·
        5 months ago

        …because you don’t spend 1.2bn to do what you can do for free. The problem now is there isn’t enough treatment capacity and shit gets dumped into waterways raw. If you’re happy polluting, you just keep doing that. You don’t build something that does a bad job and get the same result.