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Sewage Spills in Special Areas of Conservation: A Growing Concern · How To Protect The Ocean

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  One thing that's great about Marine Protected Areas is that it protects the
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  habitats that are in that area. So whether
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  they be sponge reefs or coral reefs or maybe they're seagrass
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  beds or mangrove areas or whatever they might be, the
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  benefit of having these imaginary boundaries that are implemented is
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  that they protect the areas from fishing damage from
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  trawling or something like that, and it really helps. The
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  problem with marine protected areas is that they are imaginary boundaries,
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  right? They don't have physical boundaries. They're just boundaries
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  that are put on a map, and they're enforced by, you know, the
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  authorities, the people who manage them. They may be local authorities. They
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  might be a coast guard. They might just be a local area, local
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  village. But regardless, those boundaries do not stop
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  bad water quality from getting in. So it could be like anything from
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  nutrients to sewage to sediment
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  can get into those marine protected areas. It's important that those are protected from
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  land-based sources. But unfortunately, the article that
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  we're going to cover today shows that there have been a ton of hours, like
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  tens of thousands of hours, actually even hundreds of thousands of
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  hours, where sewage was directly released into waterways
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  in the UK. And we're going to talk about why that needs
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  to stop and why that can't go into these area
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  conservation zones for the UK. We're going to
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  talk about that on this episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. Let's
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  start the show. Hey,
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  everybody. Welcome back to another exciting episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast.
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  I'm your host, Andrew Lewin. And this is the podcast where you find out what's happening with
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  the ocean, how you can speak up for the ocean, and what you can do to live for
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  a better ocean by taking action. Now, in today's episode, we're
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  going to be talking about sewage. Yes, the poop water.
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  The water that once you flush down the toilet, you're like, I don't even care what
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  happens to it. I don't want to know about it. I can't believe that
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  went down the toilet. Whatever you might think. That's
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  what we're going to be talking about today. because it's news day today.
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  It's finding out what's happening in the ocean and we're going to find out
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  what's happening in the UK amidst of sewage that's
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  going directly into waterways, which gets into these
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  areas, these special areas of conservation, otherwise known
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  as marine protected areas. Obviously not
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  something that we wanted to talk about in terms of the degradation
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  that could happen, but the amount of hours, we're looking at over 100,000 hours
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  across the UK of sewage that was released into
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  it. That's how many hours sewage was released directly into those areas. Not
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  a good thing. But before we get into all of that, I
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  want to talk to you a little bit about getting news to your
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  inbox Mondays to Fridays from me to
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  you as a gift for free. All you have to do is just put in your
• 2:48
  email at the link that I'm about to give you
• 2:51
  and then you get access to three news articles a day
• 2:55
  that you can easily look through. You get access to knowing what
• 2:59
  happens when we release an episode or what kind of episodes we're
• 3:02
  going to be releasing on the podcast. You also get access
• 3:05
  to all the other podcasts that are friends of mine, you know, a little bit
• 3:08
  of a network we have going on, Loose Network, but these are
• 3:11
  friends that are doing some great work in wildlife, in veterinary
• 3:16
  science, and conservation, and communications, and
• 3:19
  so forth. Really great episodes, so you can check
• 3:22
  that out just in the link
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  in the show notes, or you can just go to speakupforblue.com forward
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  slash newsletter. That's speakupforblue.com forward
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  slash newsletter. All right, let's get back to the poop. That's right,
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  the BS. So actually it's more of the HS, the human you
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  know what. Sewers dumped for more than
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  100,000 hours in England's protected marine areas. Now this is a
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  company called iNews. So it's inews.co.uk. I'll
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  put the link in the show notes for the actual article. It's really interesting because
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  it looks like they did a bit of a study. or did a bit
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  of an investigation. They said that there had been sewage discharges in
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  marine special areas. And it looks like one, two, three,
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  four, five areas. Humber Estuary up in
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  the northeast of the UK, down in the south, Solent
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  Maritime in the southern waters, Plymouth Sound and estuaries
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  in southwest waters, Severn Estuary
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  over in the west, and then Moore Canby Bay. in
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  the East, and all of them are over 10,000 hours. Some of
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  them are 15, some of them are 18. Solent Maritime in
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  the South, 18,000 hours of sewage spill in
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  that time. Now, I know for a fact that
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  sewage spills every once in a while. We have in
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  many different countries, including Canada, the US, and the UK that I
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  know for sure. I'm sure Australia as well and other countries. We have these sewage treatment
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  plants, and those treatment plants are there to capture all of our sewage and
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  treat it before it goes back into our waterways, which is
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  our rivers, our lakes, our streams, and eventually getting into
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  the ocean. But we want them to be clean. And there are specific regulations in
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  each of these countries where there are numbers at the end of
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  the pipe, so where the discharge actually happens from the sewage treatment
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  plants. not from your homes, not from the businesses, not from the restaurants.
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  Those restaurants all go into one plant, or the crap
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  from the restaurants, the sewage from the houses, the sewage from the
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  businesses, all go to a plant, a specific plant that captures
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  all of that. It gets treated, and then it goes back out into a
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  stream or a river, usually a fairly large river that can
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  handle this area. And based on the properties of that river, the
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  flow, the height of the water, and so forth, and the water properties, it
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  will have a number. The engineers will create a number, a wastewater number,
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  to say, hey, your nitrates, your ammonia, your
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  phosphates have to be a specific number in order to
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  release this. If they're not, then you can be fine. The region, the county, the
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  council, wherever you are and wherever area you live in
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  and whoever's in charge of that from a political standpoint will be
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  in charge of making sure that number is there. And if that
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  number is not there, you're in deep poopy water, literally. And
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  that's something nobody wants, right? We want clean waters. We
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  want to make sure our sewage works well. Now, there are different
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  levels of sewage. The secondary sewage is what we
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  have normally have, which takes care of a lot of the major
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  sewage. I know the tertiary sewage takes care of nutrients
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  like nitrates and phosphates better. But
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  these are point sources. So these are sources where the sewage gets treated,
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  it goes out into a discharge into a pipe, and that pipe
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  goes out either into a river or stream or a lake. Like for
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  instance, I live in Burlington. Burlington has a
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  sewage treatment plant near the beach, which is kind of gross because when you're on the beach,
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  all you're doing is smelling that sewage treatment plant. But
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  we know the pipe goes out two kilometers out underneath the
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  water, two kilometers out, and it gets discharged out there as
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  treated water. Unfortunately, sometimes, not
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  just that plant, but other plants, when it gets rainy and
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  it rains too much and it overflows, then they have
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  to release the sewage into the water. It's not supposed to happen a lot of times, but it
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  does happen, and as there are more More
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  catastrophic events, like rain events where flooding would happen, more
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  of that's going to happen. That's a climate change thing and a weather thing.
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  That's not something that's going to be good in the future and has to be accounted
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  for in the future. And that's a lot of design, a lot of wastewater
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  engineering design and so forth to be able to ensure that we
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  properly treat those. Now, I've went on a little bit of a tangent,
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  but I want to give you the basics of what's happening here.
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  When we are seeing that nearly 18,000 hours
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  of sewage is dumped in the Solent Maritime Special
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  Area of Concern on the southern coast of England, which includes
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  a major estuary that's home to the rare sponges and reefs, that
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  obviously is not a good thing. That's something that there
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  needs to be better management of that area. Now,
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  the southern area, the southern water, which was responsible for wastewater services
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  in the region. So the company said that it will be investing more than 3 billion
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  pounds between 2020 and 2025 to
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  improve its network and reduce storm overflows. Now, this
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  is something that happens all the time. We see companies that
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  are managing these wastewater areas if
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  they're privatized. Most places that I
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  know are usually government regulated, but it depends on the government. But
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  because they could privatize it, they're regulated. So there has to be
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  investment. So either it's public money or it's private money that has to be invested. But
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  if it's private, it should be held to even more account to
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  be like, hey, you know what? We can't do this anymore.
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  You know, like we can't handle people putting
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  this together where it's like we're overflowing this. But there
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  has to be investment. There has to be money investment to constantly update, continually update
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  this area. Because if we don't, then boom. It's
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  going to get flooded with nastiness. Literally, nastiness. And
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  so like the company also plans
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  to invest another 7.8 billion between 2025 and
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  2030 to upgrade its wastewater treatment works and reduce environmental damage.
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  That's always nice, but that's a lot. It takes a long time. Why is
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  it taking so long? The Plymouth Sound and estuaries as
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  a special area of concern located in the south coast of England, west of
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  the Solent Maritime Southern area of Sac. Southern, ah. special
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  area of conservation, had sewage dumped into it
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  for over 15,400 hours last year.
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  And there's more and more and more, and I'll link to the
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  article so that you can see. And so this
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  iNewsplace developed a manifesto of just being like, hey, you
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  know what? We need to fix these things. And
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  obviously, this is a growing problem. Sewage
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  should not happen in a country like the UK. or countries
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  like the UK, and this has
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  to be solved and needs to get buy-in from the
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  government. And obviously the UK just went through a major
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  election where there was a huge overturning of the government, not
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  overturning in terms of a coup, but an overturn in terms of it's
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  a new government. It's not the Conservative Party anymore. The
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  Labour won over the Conservatives. Unfortunately, the Labour hasn't really
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  backed it in full. So, the Liberal Democrats
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  and the Green Party have signed up to the manifesto, but
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  the Labour and the Conservatives are yet to back it in full. So, they probably back certain
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  parts, but not full. So, there
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  are certain people who have been stepping out. I don't know the people, Sir Kair
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  Starmer, who I believe is actually, might be
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  the Prime Minister now. I think if I
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  recognize the, maybe not, I don't know. I'll have to look that up, sorry.
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  Don't believe me on that. But he basically stops short of
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  fully committing to its five pledges, although he prays
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  the manifesto. And there's a link to this manifesto in
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  the article, which I'll link to. More than 20 environmental
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  organizations have endorsed the manifesto, including the National Trust,
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  Britain's biggest conservation charity. So that's a
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  plus. And it says that the National Trust spokesman
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  said, It is appalling, our spokesperson said, it is
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  appalling to hear about the number of sewage spills that were made
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  into or along the borders of special areas of conservation.
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  Just 14% of English rivers are in good ecological health and
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  1 in 10 freshwater and wetland species in
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  the UK are threatened with extinction. That's not a good
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  record to have. That is not a good record to
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  have. And here's the problem when you have special area of concerns or
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  you have a marine protected area, you have some kind of protected area that doesn't have physical boundaries,
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  is that the water can seep in and get in. So if it's bad
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  water quality, the protection is not really great. It might be protected
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  from extractive processes like fishing, mining,
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  or habitat destruction like coastal
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  development, but it doesn't necessarily stop any bad water
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  quality from coming in. That
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  has to be managed from land. That has to be
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  managed from people. And if you have the treatment facilities, upgrade
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  them. Now, I know Canada and Ontario, especially because I live in Ontario, went
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  through something like this over the last two decades, where
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  they realized that the populations in certain areas were increasing dramatically. And
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  they need, especially in Southern Ontario, they needed to upgrade their
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  facilities to accommodate those future concerns. So
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  looking at population modeling for people, looking at
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  how people will be using the area, that's going
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  to change over time as there are more and more people on this planet.
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  We have to house more and more people. There have to be the proper sewage
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  treatment plants, facilities, upgrades and designs
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  that need to go into place, especially if there's an area that's booming or there's an
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  area that just needs updating. It's old and it needs updating. That should be
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  happening on an annual basis. These risk assessments, these
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  evaluations have to go into play. If they don't,
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  We get problems like smelly problems and sewage problems.
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  It's not nice. It is not nice at all. And trust
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  me, from a person who worked as one of his first jobs as
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  a wetland technician in the Toronto region, you
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  know, the Toronto has some very interesting things
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  that go into their rivers and stuff and the Don River. which
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  can be a beautiful river at times. There are some shady parts
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  that I didn't even want to walk into when I was working there because it
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  looked really nasty and it was heavily polluted and
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  needs to change. You just never
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  know what you're going to get into. We
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  know the problem, we know what's needed to fix it, more investment, more
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  political buy-in. It'll be really interesting to see now that the
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  Labour Party is in power at a majority, from
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  what I hear, and I don't know that political system very well. It's very similar
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  to Canada's, but I don't know the full. It's got a lot of seats compared to
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  Canada. So it'll be very interesting to see how that's done, regardless
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  of the fact that the Labour Party should be
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  more environmentally aware. hopefully will be. My understanding is they're a
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  little bit more left-leaning, a lot more left-leaning than the conservatives. So
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  it'll be interesting to see where this goes and how the environment is
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  treated in the future. We are at a crucial point
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  in human history where governments need to focus
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  on the environment. Governments need to be aware that
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  the economy and the environment are tied together at this
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  point. Whether we thought about it before or not, it doesn't matter. At
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  this point now, If we have a bad environment, we are going to be spending more
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  money. It's going to be taking away money from the economy. It's going to be costing us
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  more. Whether it's a carbon tax or some other type of
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  tax, we're going to have to start paying for a lot of these natural disasters that
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  are happening. And if we can't control things like sewage
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  treatment plants ahead of time and be proactive
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  instead of reactive, we're going to be in trouble. So
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  this is a heads up to all those my listeners in the UK. Make
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  sure now the Labour Party is in power that you are putting their
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  their feet to the fire on saying, hey, you know what? Like we
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  need to make sure that these rivers are treated fairly. This
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  is our lifeblood. This is our water. This is what
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  we need to survive. We are an island. We need to make sure
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  that our freshwater is in good condition, not only for the environment and
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  for the animals that are around, but also for human health. We need
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  this to make sure that this goes well. And so investment's going to have
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  to be made, spending's going to have to be made, and that's going to have to be foresight
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  on the government. And so it's up to you as citizens to
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  make sure the government is looking forward. So my listeners here who are from
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  the UK who are very environmentally focused, because you're listening to
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  this podcast, so you want to learn about the environment, it is time to
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  put this government to the test and say, hey, let's
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  make sure our sewage doesn't go directly into our
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  waterways anymore. Can we do that? That'd be great. All
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  right, that's it for today's episode. If you have a question or comment, or you're from
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  the UK and you want to comment and you have more information on this, I would love
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  to hear it. You can hit me up on Instagram,
• 16:32
  at howtoprotecttheocean. Just DM me, at howtoprotecttheocean. Other
• 16:37
  than that, and if you want to sign up for the newsletter, speakupforblue.com forward
• 16:41
  slash newsletter. That's speakupforblue.com forward slash
• 16:44
  newsletter. I'd love to hear from you. I'd love for you to sign up to
• 16:48
  the newsletter. And I want to thank you so much for sharing this episode for
• 16:51
  the people that you know will really enjoy it and listening. It is
• 16:54
  so, so nice to have an audience that listens and
• 16:58
  engages with me. I really, really love it. So thank you so much
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  for joining me on today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. I'm your host, Andrew