Water quality and responsible sewage disposal

When it comes to water quality, we understand this is increasingly important to those who enjoy the waterways for their leisure and recreation.

Facilities

With large numbers of registered vessels on our waterways, all river users must act responsibly to ensure a safe and healthy river environment is maintained so all users can enjoy the waterway. This is why we advocate that sewage waste should never be disposed of directly to the water course. All boaters should use the designated pump-out and chemical cassette disposal facilities located upon waterways, at either public facilities or within commercial boatyards and marinas. The Environment Agency provides facilities along our waterways, and many marinas have their own provision. Any expansion of facilities or installation of new sites is currently beyond our available resources, and placement of new facilities would require careful planning if budgets allowed.

Communications and Awareness

UK waterways may have their own bylaws regarding “grey” water, such as that from sinks and washing machines, and “black” water (sewage). Boaters should check these before boating on any river, with the local navigation authority, as there is variation in legislation across areas of the UK and navigation authorities. In the absence of consistent legal requirements, we have worked with RYA and others on initiatives such as the Green Blue ‘Green Guide to Inland Boating’ (access the website at this link The Green Guide to Inland Boating - The Green Blue) and Love Where You Sail (access the website at this link Love Where You Sail - The Green Blue), to promote good environmental management and appropriate disposal of sewage waste. Education and awareness is central to encouraging responsible sewage disposal by boaters. We have regular contact with stakeholders such as local boating groups, user associations and marinas to reinforce this messaging. We can also raise awareness to registered customers through their annual renewals and other communications.

Enforcement and Legal Position

The Thames Navigation Licensing & General Byelaws 1993 explicitly prohibit the discharge of sewage. However, not all waterways have the same byelaws. Byelaws are jurisdiction-specific and cannot be adopted for all waterways without going through a statutory process of drafting, consultation, and Secretary of State approval. For waterways where discharge from any vessel is not currently explicitly prohibited, changing law would have both a practical and financial impact upon boat owners – as retrofitting large holding tanks into existing craft could be both prohibitively expensive and impractical. It would also have an substantial impact on the marine trade and navigation authorities in terms of design standards, compliance and facilities.

Discharging sewage waste could result in a pollution incident that affects fish populations and /or habitats, which could result in prosecution. We do not currently have any pollution incident reports that indicate direct sewage discharge from vessels. We would review our resourcing if we had sufficient evidence that this was posing a significant impact, and was a higher risk to people and the environment, than our current priorities for maintaining a safe navigation.