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The water companies call them "combined sewer overflows" but campaigners call them unregulated and a danger to wildlife in our rivers. But now many water companies are resisting attempts to impose regulations on them.

Just before the privatisation of the water companies thousands of these pipes were temporarily lifted out of regulation. Twenty years later and they are still unregulated. Which means when something goes wrong there's no legal redress.

Here's the science of sewage. These pictures come from Manchester where this drain released raw sewage. This causes an explosion in bacteria which use up all the oxygen. Fish die because they can't breathe.

According to the ;

"Discharges from Combined Sewer Overflows (CSOs) are a regular occurrence and can happen following as little as 2mm of rain."

is the legal arm of The Angling Trust and they've been fighting a battle over these pipes for some time. Under freedom of information legislation they discovered over 3000 of them across the country, over 500 in the Midlands.

We've been to track some of them down, but if you want to see if there is one near you you can download this NoticeanSchedule_ST.pdf[243KB PDF] from Severn Trent or if you live in Herefordshire this NoticeanSchedule_WW.pdf[271KB PDF] from Welsh Water. Ordnance Survey locations are included. If you find any near you let us know what sort of state they are in.

In January the legal battle to regulate these pipes continues and we'll keep you posted.

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