Thames Water has pumped 72 billion litres of sewage into the River Thames over the last three years, according to new data shared by the Liberal Democrats.
The data, which was revealed by an environmental information request submitted by the party, comes as water companies have been accused of failing to do enough to tackle the problem of sewage overflows.
The capital’s water firm uses volume sewage monitors while constructing the Tideway project, but the water company does not use them across the entire network, meaning that the total volume of sewage is likely to be much higher than these figures.
The sewage monitors revealed that last year at least 14.3 billion litres of sewage was discharged into the Thames, with the worst year on record being 2021 when 32 billion litres of sewage were discharged.
The worst impacted site was Mogden near Twickenham, where 17.1 billion litres of sewage were discharged, while the second most impacted site was Crossness in East London which saw 15.8 billion litres of sewage discharged.
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“These horrifying revelations are proof that Thames Water needs to be ripped up. It is outrageous that Conservative ministers continue to sit on their hands and let Thames Water get away with this. The government is standing idly by whilst our rivers are poisoned and water firm execs pocket millions,” said Maura Wilson MP.
“The era of water firms putting profit before the environment must come to an end. These water firms are committing environmental crimes which are destroying wildfire habitats, all whilst pocketing eye-watering sums of money”.
It comes after the firm’s previous boss Sarah Bentley quit earlier this year over the firms environmental record, and concerns at the time around whether it could collapse – with it facing increased public scrutiny and criticism from campaigners.
She added that it was just the “tip of the iceberg” and said “water firms are fitting monitors which simply aren’t up to the job and hide the true horrors of their filthy sewage habits”.
A Thames Water spokesperson told The Guardian newspaper: “at a limited number of sites across the Tideway Tunnel, we have the ability to calculate volume discharged; however, we do not have the ability to do this across our sites”
The spokesperson added that the firm is focused on preventing the need for the discharges.
