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Chemicals from sewage and septic tanks are killing Windermere, warn campaigners

High phosphorus levels are leading to toxic algal blooms while sewage is being discharged into the lake's catchment for thousands of hours a year

William Wordsworth described Windermere as “magnificent and beautiful” but two centuries on it is beset by a toxic soup of sewage and chemicals, with private septic tanks proving a hidden threat.

Campaigners are so concerned at its condition that they are “terrified” for the future of the lake, as climate change and drought exacerbate the effects of the pollution.

Few places in England better evoke its bucolic ideal than Windermere, with millions people visiting the World Heritage Site every year. Yet in recent years it has suffered from toxic algae, sewage and fish die offs.

“I’m terrified, absolutely terrified,” Matt Staniek, a zoologist and founder of the Save Windermere group told i, “What is in front of us is a catastrophe on so many different levels, from the environment, to the economy to just even the visceral feeling that people have within their hearts of what Windermere stands for.”

Phosphorus levels in parts of the lake are above ecologically sound levels, triggering toxic algal blooms and eutrophication, where the oxygen in the water is used up by the algae, suffocating other life.

Data from the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology shows that oxygen levels in the deeper parts of the lake are now too low for native Arctic Charr, a cold-water fish left stranded in the Lake District at the end of the Ice Age, to survive. Their numbers have been in decline since the Nineties.

Mr Staniek said he only expected the situation to get worse with climate change. Drought conditions reduce the amount of water in the lake, concentrating pollutants, while warmer water encourages algae growth. Temperatures have already risen by more than one degree Celsius since the Eighties. More concentrated rainfall in winter, meanwhile, could lead to more frequent sewage overflows.

The phosphorus in Windermere comes from three main sources: treated wastewater, septic tanks and agricultural runoff.

Data provided by United Utilities, which runs the local water and sewage networks, to Mr Staniek and seen by i, attributes 26 per cent to septic tanks, 30 per cent to agriculture and 40 per cent from the company’s treatment plants.

High levels of phosphorus will be in the treated water that flows out of a sewage works unless it has a specific phosphorus treatment in place.

These are only a requirement if the Environment Agency sets permissible levels for local watercourses.

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Campaign groups told i that many of the environmental permits on pollution levels in the Windermere catchment dated back to the late Eighties and early Nineties when visitor numbers to the area were much lower. They also said that too many permits were “descriptive” rather than providing a precise level below which phosphorus levels should be maintained.

Sampling of the lake’s tributaries done by the WildFish campaign group found significant declines in the number of invertebrates below sewage works, with one site recording a 61 per cent fall.

Mr Staniek said that he had become so concerned by the levels of phosphorus in the lake that he was now urinating in jars and spreading it in his garden rather than contribute further to the problem.

The issue of septic tanks, meanwhile, is far less well understood and regulated. Campaigners described the situation to i as “a cowboy world”. There are thought to be 2,000 of the tanks within Windermere’s catchment, with many likely to be in holiday homes.

As well as high levels of phosphorus, Windermere and its catchment are subjected to torrents of raw sewage from storm overflows.

In 2021, the year with the most recent data available, there were more than 5,000 hours of sewage discharges within the lake’s catchment.

On Thursday, Mr Staniek filmed large brown clumps of what he claimed was sewage in the stream next to Far Sawrey sewage treatment works. He called it the worst thing he’s seen so far.

A United Utilities spokesperson said: “We do not know when this video was taken, or exactly what it shows. Our routine checks which took place at the site on the day the video was published did not find any matter like this in the stream. We also have no record of Mr Staniek reporting the discovery to us so we could investigate.”

Save Windemere is campaigning to end all discharges into the lake and its tributaries.

James Overington, water policy officer at WildFish, told i United Utilities, the regulators and the Government had “failed” and that all three would “need to invest considerable amounts of time, resources and money to begin to rectify the situation.”

The Environment Agency, alongside United Utilities, the national park authority and several other groups launched a Love Windermere partnership last summer to help begin to turn the situation around.

United Utilities told i that it cared “passionately about the environment” and pointed to its 4-star environmental performance rating from the Environment Agency as evidence of its work.

“We’ve invested more than £45 million upgrading the wastewater treatment plants and sewer network along the shore of Windermere in the last three years. The treatment technology is the most advanced available and it removes phosphorus to the lowest achievable limits.

“More than 65 per cent of phosphorus in Windermere is from other sources, which is why only a collaborative plan of action involving ourselves, landowners, farmers and private septic tank owners can make the changes we all want to see,” a spokesperson said.

The Environment Agency was approached for comment.

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