Sewage monitors faulty at seaside spots in England and Wales, data shows

theguardian.com:

Sewage monitors at some popular seaside destinations in England and Wales are faulty or not installed, Environment Agency data has revealed, meaning people could be swimming in human waste this summer without realising.

Seaside holidays this year have been marred by water companies pumping raw sewage into the ocean, with popular beaches in areas including Sussex and Devon having to close.

However, some holidaymakers could be swimming in it without warning, as new analysis by the Liberal Democrats has found that some monitors that are supposed to measure the amount of sewage being pumped into water at popular seaside spots are broken or not even installed.

Water companies monitor the dumping of sewage from storm overflows by using event duration monitors (EDMs), which record the frequency and timespan of spills.

The Environment Agency data for England and Walesshows that 1,802 monitors installed by water companies provided information for less than 90% of the time, with possible high spill counts in those periods, and that 1,717 storm overflows did not have a monitor installed.

Last year, for waterways, not just bathing status areas, a quarter of sewage discharges went unmonitored in total because the monitors were not working or were left uninstalled.

Across Devon and Cornwall, one in eight of the sewage monitors at designated bathing locations were either faulty or not installed.

Many popular seaside destinations were without monitors, including Long Rock, Cornwall; Littlehampton, Sussex; and Lee-on-Solent, Hampshire. Littlehampton pier is next to a sewage overflow, but there is no monitor yet installed at the site.

Sussex has been particularly badly hit by sewage pollution, with new figures showing that every single beach