WaterFit Live logoAbout the catchment

1,030km
of sewers
67
pumping stations
148
treatment works
193
storm overflows

In this area there are 94km of rivers and streams as well as a coastline which includes 11 designated bathing waters and 3 designated shellfish waters.

Why do we have storm overflows?

Storm overflows act like safety valves on the wastewater network. When the system becomes too full (for example, after heavy rain), storm overflows release the excess. If they didn’t work, sewage would build up in pipes and flood into people’s gardens and homes.

We want to reduce the need for storm overflows to operate, which is why we’re investing record amounts into improving, expanding and upgrading our network to better cope with the volumes of wastewater it deals with.

Learn about storm overflows

How we’re reducing our reliance on storm overflows in this catchment

We are reducing our reliance on storm overflows by:

  • Reducing the amount of rainwater and groundwater entering our system
  • Slowing the flow of water through the environment
  • Increasing our network’s capacity to store and treat flows

Our monitoring teams constantly review data being sent back to us from our EDMs, sewer level monitors, river water quality monitors, flow and pressure monitors and water samples. This constant data-gathering is fundamental to modelling our system and identifying areas for improvement.

For this catchment, this means:

Waste water treatment centre
Increasing capacity
1/4

Upgrading treatment works

By improving. increasing and optimising our treatment processes, we can maximise the volume of flows being treated at the same time.

Picture of a storm tank
Increasing capacity
2/4

Increasing storage

We are looking at solutions for increasing the volume of water our system can hold. By building storage tanks, we can store storm water whilst our treatment works process and treat the flows. This increases the system’s resilience to large volumes and reduces the risk of storm overflows.

Picture of works to separate sewers
Reducing rainwater getting in
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Surface water separation

Since 2015, new developments must build houses that have one sewer specifically for rainwater (surface water), and another sewer for wastewater from inside the home. Surface water sewers transport the rainwater directly to the rivers via some filtering.   This keeps surface water out of the wastewater network. Where older systems are in place that combine the two types of wastewater, we’re looking to separate those sewers where it’s cost effective to do so.

Picture of a storm. A wave can be seen crashing over a railway track
Reducing water getting in
4/4

Reducing infiltration

Some water enters the sewers when it’s not supposed to, for example, groundwater can enter the system after heavy rain. This infiltration can fill up storm storage and cause it to overflow. We’re reducing infiltration like this at hot-spot areas.

Case study: Peatland Restoration on Exmoor National Park

Slowing the flow of water through the environment

Our teams are doing an incredible job up on Exmoor National Park, restoring the natural peatland. This allows the land to hold water, so less runs off into the rivers (which has a negative impact on water quality). Looked after properly, peat also extracts huge amounts of carbon from the air which improves the environment in other ways.

Our nature-based solutions
Picture of peatlands

River health

We use the Environment Agency’s measures of river health to assess our impact on rivers. Ecological status of our rivers are at a national low (just 14% of rivers achieved Good in 2022).

Currently, in our area, 12% of Reasons for Not Achieving Good Ecological Status (RNAGs) are associated with our activity. We estimate that our investments into our storm overflows will reduce this to c.9% by 2025, and we aim to make further investment to reduce this to 0% by 2050.

There are a lot of other factors that impact the quality of river and coastal waters. The pie chart below shows what they were in 2023, and the percentage of RNAGs they caused.

We work in partnership with others to improve water quality across our region and to help clean up the rivers in the South West.

Case study: Natural flood management

Slowing the flow of water through the environment

With the help of Devon Wildlife Trust, we supported work with the National Trust on the Arlington Estate and surrounding farmland. Together, we constructed over 30 leaky dams and other natural flood management measures on one of the in-house farms, using timber sourced from surrounding woodland. This slows the flow of water through the environment, and helps prevent flooding and can reduce the amount of run-off discolouring and polluting the rivers.

two men in full safety gear in woodland positioning logs into a dam as part of natural flood management

The important role you play

Caring for your sewerage

Why do we ask customers to help? Because, there were 675 blockages in this catchment last year alone. And roughly 79% of those were caused by our customers pouring fat, oils and grease, or flushing wipes and other unflushables, into the sewer.

Caring for your sewerage image

A note for businesses

Areas North Devon welcome up to 111.5% more people in the summer. This means it’s a hotspot for hotels, restaurants, and cafes. If you own a catering or food-related business, we’ve got some useful information just for you about using our sewers in the right way.  

Living in and serving North Devon

Looking after our treatment works is a job John and Clive take very seriously. Both live in a beautiful area of North Devon and are passionate about their job and protecting the environment.  

“Seeing the amount of wipes, non-flushable tissues, and sanitary products that come into our treatment works is really disheartening for us,” says Clive, “even more disheartening if these items block the sewers and cause a pollution that harms the environment.”

“Just flushing the 3Ps (Pee, Poo and Paper) would really help the treatment works run at their best, and protect the environment,” says John.

Two wastewater treatment works operatives rake the top of the skip where wipes collect to level out the discarded material

More about what we're doing