Calderdale sewage discharge during heavy rain must stop - councillor

Yorkshire Water says it has a programme in place to remove sewer overflows into rivers

The discharge of sewage into the rivers of Calderdale during heavy rainfall must be stopped, a councillor has said.

Steven Leigh, Conservative councillor for the Ryburn ward, said effluent being dumped into rivers at times of heightened flood threat increased the risks to people's health.

Mr Leigh, leader of the Conservative group on Calderdale Council, said: "It's not good that it's happening."

Yorkshire Water said it was working to address the issue.

Mr Leigh said members of the authority had been critical across party lines of the dumping of sewage in the district's rivers.

Given the amount of work done to reduce the flood risk in the area, it was odd it still happened, he added.

The Calder Valley suffered severe flooding in 2015 and 2020

According to the Local Democracy Reporting Service, Mr Leigh told the Calderdale Flood Recovery and Resilience Programme Board: "If some of these places are going to get flooded, surely the dumping of this raw sewage only makes it worse because it is more likely to be tainted with sewage than at quieter times."

Yorkshire Water said overflows were designed to act as a pressure relief valve on the system.

Sewer overflows discharged into rivers to prevent flooding of property from drains, the firm said.

Adam Ashman, from Yorkshire Water, said: "Yes, the release of storm effluent absolutely occurs during periods of high rainfall.

"Those sewer overflows are permitted to discharge into rivers."

A two-year programme to remove them, taking in the highest discharging storm overflows, would be followed by a five-year programme of work to deal with all storm overflows, Mr Ashman said.

"There's a lot of them and that plan has started," he added.