Livetime CSO releases - you hold the data - now please tell us when you poodump - we pay for it!
Dear Welsh Water,
Please release into the public domain, as instantly as soon as they happen, ie ideally within one minute, full details of every individual combined sewer outlet release into the River Dee and watercourses feeding it.
I ask for reasons of Public Safety. People using the river need to know exactly when where and how it is polluted. I also ask because the public are paying for this data and at present you are not releasing it. All you are releasing is a small amount of combined and fuzzy data to surfers against sewage. This is not enough.
There needs to be full livetime public access to all of the data right now. It can be on some of obscure portal, it doesn’t matter. Just stop hiding it. Please!
It is now five years since I spoke to Martin Williams operations manager of Welsh Water who said that in principle this would be feasible thing to reveal to the public. I spoke to him again today and he still could not say when the data would come. Hence this request born from contamination and frustration.
Yours faithfully,
Barry Johnston
Dear Mr Johnston
Request for information
We refer to your request for information, which was received on 6th
September 2022.
We are dealing with your request as one made under the Environmental
Information Regulations 2004 (“the Regulations”).
In accordance with the Regulations, we will respond to your request within
20 working days of the date of receipt.
For completeness, we advise that the Information Commissioner’s Office
states that the time period for responding should be calculated from the
day after the request is received.
In the meantime, if you have any queries, please contact us on email
[1][email address]
We have assigned reference EIR/1264/2022 to your request. Please kindly
note this in all correspondence with us regarding this matter.
Yours faithfully
Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water
Our Reference: EIR/1264/2022
Dear Mr Johnston,
Request for Information
We write further to your request for information received the 6^th of
September 2022, which we have been considering under
the Environmental Information Regulations 2004.
Firstly, to address your concerns around public safety, for people using
the rivers we currently provide bathing water alerts for a number of
bathing waters across our Operating area in Wales and England (including
alerts from 2 Assets on the River Dee). This to inform the public when
stormwater overflows may temporarily affect bathing water quality in
particular areas.
For more information on our river water quality, please use the link below
to assist you further:
[1]https://www.dwrcymru.com/en/our-services....
With reference to real time spill alerts, we are currently unable to
provide this data to our customers for all of our assets, however we are
committed to providing this service in the future.
To explain, developing systems and tools which will be able to provide
accurate and validated near live spill alerts for all 2300 CSO's will take
some time, however we are committed to developing this project in 2 phases
over the next 3 years.
The first phase will provide real time spill alerts of all assets which
are near all bathing waters within our Operating area by December 2023.
With our second phase being for all CSOs by 2025.
We hope that this response is clear. Should you have any questions, you
can contact us at [2][email address].
If you are dissatisfied with the handling of your request, you have the
right to ask for an internal review. Internal review requests should be
submitted within 40 working days of the date of receipt of this response
and should be addressed to Company Secretary, Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water Linea,
Fortran Road, St. Mellons, Cardiff, Wales, CF3 0LT.
If you are not content with the outcome of the internal review, you have
the right to apply directly to the Information Commissioner for a
decision.
Yours faithfully
Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water
_______________________________________________________ Dwr Cymru Welsh
Water is firmly committed to water conservation and promoting water
efficiency. Please log on to our website www.dwrcymru.com/waterefficiency
to find out how you can become water wise. Mae Dwr Cymru Welsh Water wedi
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