Proposals have been unveiled for a £3.6bn tunnel at Windermere, England's largest lake, which attracts around 18 million visitors each year. The 12-mile tunnel is designed to prevent sewage from being discharged into the lake, which sits within the Lake District and holds Unesco World Heritage status.
The tunnel, backed by local water company United Utilities and clean water campaigners, would divert sewage away from the lake. Despite the lake's popularity, raw sewage and treated effluent continue to be discharged into it, with campaigners claiming this causes sections of the lake to turn green each summer through algal blooming.
Government decision pending
The BBC reports that it now falls to the government to determine whether the plan can be developed further and whether the £3.6bn price tag is a worthwhile investment. The proposal, known as "Only Rainwater into Windermere", would see 12,800 people connected to the sewage network for the first time, alongside up to 86 miles of new sewage infrastructure.
Louise Beardmore, chief executive of United Utilities, told the BBC the proposals represented a "100-year solution for this lake". She said: "In the UK we invest in five-year periods and so we come along all the time and we do a bit, then we go away and we come back and do a bit more. This is saying we need to do something differently."
Funding options considered
One potential way of meeting the enormous cost would be to pass it on to United Utilities' customers, adding up to £3.17 to their monthly bills. Alternatively, the cost could be spread across the whole of England, adding 35p a month to people's bills.
Nigel Wilkinson, from the Love Windermere group, argued that the latter would be the preferable option, stating that "we believe Windermere is of such national significance and international significance that it is justifiable to treat this as a national asset and fund it accordingly".
Wider sewage problem
Sewage pouring into waterways is a widespread problem across the UK, affecting lakes, rivers and the sea alike. Storm overflows function as pressure release valves, diverting excess water into local waterways and preventing sewage from flooding back into homes and streets when heavy rain exceeds sewer capacity.
Years of underinvestment and a failure to expand capacity for a growing population have left systems ill-equipped, and climate change threatens to make matters worse. United Utilities warned: "Rising temperatures will increase these pressures while more intense rainfall places more stress on wastewater infrastructure."
