CONCERNS have been raised over sewage being put into rivers.

The Carlisle and District Green Party posted a map onto their Facebook page, showing where the sewage network discharges treated effluent - and overflows of untreated effluent and storm water - into rivers in Carlisle.

This comes after an amendment was made to the Environment Bill, which sought to place a legal duty on water companies not to dump the risky sewage into rivers.

The bill, intended to revamp the UK’s environmental regulations post-Brexit, currently allows raw sewage to be discharged into the country’s waterways.

In 2020, water companies discharged raw sewage more than 400,000 times over a period of 3.1 million hours, according to figures published by the Environment Agency.

A spokesperson from the Carlisle and District Green Party said: "It is perhaps not such a common past time at this time of year, but the Rivers Trust recommends avoiding entering the water immediately downstream of these discharges and avoiding the overflows, especially after it has been raining.

"This information should alarm us at any time of year.

"Greens support putting the supply and maintenance of clean water back into public ownership.

"Let state-run water authorities invest properly in clean water supply, rather than haemorrhaging vitally needed funding to shareholders."

In response, a United Utilities spokesperson said: “More than half of the North West’s sewer network carries rainwater as well as the wastewater we all flush away - this is called a 'combined' sewer system.

"During storm conditions, when sewers and treatment plants are operating at full capacity, we are permitted to spill excess storm water from combined sewer overflows (CSOs) to help prevent the flooding of streets, homes and businesses.

"Since 2000, we have invested £1.2 billion to improve overflow discharges to reduce spill frequency, volume and impact upon the natural environment.

"We recognise there is more to do and our existing plans are already focused on securing further improvements.

“In our latest business plan we committed to investigating 195 of our high-spilling overflows by 2025 to better understand them and inform spill reduction schemes for future investment.

"Through the sector’s Green Recovery programme, we will investigate a further 300 overflows.

"These detailed assessments will help us understand the environmental impact of these overflows and identify the costs and benefits of proposed solutions to inform future investment.”