Cole-Hamilton attacks appalling dry-spilling of sewage and dumps in protected areas

Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton has today attacked the Scottish Government’s record on environmental protection after it was revealed that the government-owned water company has dumped sewage on thousands of occasions during dry weather, including into protected areas.

Research by The Ferret published today plotted Scottish Water sewage overflows against rainfall information and found 2,300 dumping events in the past five years that occurred in dry weather, even though SNP ministers have claimed dumping only relieves pressure during heavy rainfall.

According to the research, 4% of discharges recorded by Scottish Water between 2018 to 2022 took place when it wasn’t raining. Some of these dry dumps took place in protected areas or during periods of drought and water scarcity. This included St Andrews East and West Sands and Irvine beach, the Inner Clyde bird reserve and river Endrick drinking water area.

The report also revealed that at one sewage treatment plant discharging into a shellfish protected water, raw sewage has been flowing since 2008 because the plant is unable to process the sewage volume quickly enough.

Alex Cole-Hamilton MSP said:

"To put this in concrete terms, this means wet wipes and human waste flowing into rivers and onto beaches, even when the system is not under abnormal stress.

"It seems like every appalling practice adopted by the private water companies in England is being mimicked by the government-owned water company in Scotland.

"What makes this even more shocking is that because so little of the Scottish water network is monitored, the true number of dry spills taking place may be far higher.

"Scottish Liberal Democrats want to see sewage dumping and dangerous dry spilling stamped out altogether. That means speeding up measures to upgrade Scotland's Victorian sewer network, sewage discharges properly recorded and published to uncover the true scale of the problem, and legally-binding targets to tackle sewage dumping."