Recent storm overflow activity
In order make a decision about using the water companies are now required to publish details about the start and stop times of spills from Combined Storm Overflows in near real-time.
In the southwest SWW has designed WaterFit Live to provide information only on the latest spill and, despite repeated requests from ESCAPE, has declined to provide a more detailed history. We believe this is a danger to public health and this page is designed to show the recent history for Exmouth.
ESCAPE recommends the Safer Seas and Rivers app managed by Surfers Against Sewage. https://datahq.sas.org.uk/sewage-data-hq/is-it-safe-to-swim/
Think of a sewage spill like the old style electric hobs on a cooker, as soon as you turned them off they go back to black but are still dangerously hot if you put your hand on the plate. A sewage spill is similar because once the spill stops it takes time for the sewage to be diluted and disperse. This is why we are calling on the government, regulators and the water companies to agree on a common standard safe alert time after the end of the spill. The SAS app uses 48 hours but SWW only allows 12.5 hours.
You need to know the recent history of spills and you need to know when the last spill ended in order to make an 'informed decision' about using the water.
WaterFit will only show the last two minute spill so you might think this is not enough to affect water quality. You don't realise that in the last 48 hours untreated sewage has been discharged for over 32 hours.
EXMOUTH CSO activity
ESCAPE is using information from the National Storm Overflow map based on data provided by SWW. The charts below is a near real time feed showing any spills over the last seven days and a closer view over the last 48 and 24 hours. The number of spills counted means the number of EDM activations this is not the same as the 12/24 spill count. Look at the helpsheet for more information https://ex8.online/documents?did=5c89663ae745b95&z=1739980920
This is a limited trial based on the Exmouth CSOs. Please also check using SSRS before using the water.