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The Unseen Crisis: What We Learned from Extrapolated Sewage Data
At the Quarterlands Group, we’ve long been concerned about the scale of untreated sewage entering Northern Ireland’s waterways. Recent extrapolated data paints an even more alarming picture than we expected. By using figures from monitored wastewater treatment sites and .ai, we’ve projected the potential impact from the many unmonitored sites, and the results are staggering.
How We Extrapolated the Data
Currently, only 132 of Northern Ireland’s 2,444 wastewater treatment sites are monitored using Event Duration Monitors (EDMs). This means only 5.4% of sites are being tracked for spills and overflows, leaving 94.6% of sites unchecked. Based on the data we do have:
- The 132 monitored sites recorded 3,751 sewage spills, totaling over 20,000 hours of pollution in just one year.
- Using this data, we extrapolated the likely scale of spills and pollution for the remaining 2,312 unmonitored sites.
The results suggest that tens of thousands of additional spills and hundreds of thousands of hours of pollution may be going unnoticed every year. This extrapolation reveals a potential flood of untreated sewage impacting rivers, lakes, and coastal areas across the region.
A Metaphor for the Madness: A Hotel with Taps Running Wild
Imagine a massive hotel with 2,444 rooms, and in every single room, the taps are running. Some sinks are overflowing, spilling water all over the floors, down the walls, and into the foundations of the building. But here’s the catch: you’ve only placed a bowl under the sink in 132 of the rooms. From what you can see, the bowls in those rooms are filling up and spilling over regularly. Now imagine what must be happening in the 94.6% of rooms where no one is watching, and no one has placed a bowl.
This is the reality of Northern Ireland’s wastewater monitoring system. While we can see the spills and overflows in the monitored sites, the unchecked sites could be pouring sewage into our waterways at an unimaginable scale. If the data from monitored sites is reflective, our rivers and seas are bearing the brunt of an environmental catastrophe that is both avoidable and urgent.
The Bigger Picture: What Needs to Happen
This crisis highlights an urgent need for action:
- Expand Monitoring: Every wastewater treatment site should be equipped with Event Duration Monitors (EDMs) to fully understand the scope of the problem.
- Hold Polluters Accountable: NI Water and other stakeholders must take responsibility for reducing spills and improving infrastructure.
- Protect Our Environment: Untreated sewage damages ecosystems, harms biodiversity, and poses risks to public health. Tackling this issue is critical for Northern Ireland’s natural heritage.
What You Can Do
We need your voices to make a change. Share this information with your friends and family, sign petitions, and demand action directly from policymakers. By working together, we can ensure that every sink in the hotel is fixed and every spill is stopped before it’s too late.
Visual Insights
To help illustrate the scale of the problem, we’ve created these charts based on the extrapolated data:
These visuals make clear how much is being missed by not monitoring all sites, emphasizing the urgency of addressing this crisis.
Together, we can demand change and need to protect our waterways for future generations. Let’s turn off the taps and stop the overflows before the entire hotel floods.
