Southern Water’s Sewer Santas Protect a River on Xmas Eve

Intelligent sewer flags potential pollution

Work doesn’t stop for Christmas or any bank holiday at Southern Water – our teams are working 365 days a year to keep taps flowing and toilets flushing.

And our proactive sewer squad was out on Christmas Eve after our intelligent sewer network flagged a blockage forming near Yapton, Sussex.

Left unchecked, the River Arun would have been polluted and sewers could even have backed up further to spoil gardens and eventually flood inside homes   - not the yuletide surprise anyone would wish for.

The blockage was spotted by sewer sensors near homes in the village and a team was dispatched to clear the line immediately. The manhole which would have overflowed would have spilt into a small stream that joins the Arun.

Daniel McElhinney, Proactive Operations Control Manager at Southern Water, said:

“Instead of turning up after the event to clean up and commiserate with devastated customers we’re spotting hundreds of potential blockages before it’s too late so our teams can scramble round with high pressure water jets to clear the sewer.”

Blocked sewers are the single biggest cause of pollution incidents – from manholes spilling into streams to gardens filling with sewage. But the very worst kind is internal flooding where sewers back up and pour into sinks, showers and loos.

But now, thanks to around 32,000 sewer lever monitors, we can constantly check on flows and spot anything out of the ordinary which might highlight a blockage or leak. This is what led us to Sedlescombe to clear out the nasty fatberg.

Says Daniel:

“The sensors measure the level of sewage flowing under manholes in blockage hotspots, but the real innovation is how machine learning or artificial intelligence learns the normal behaviour of sewers and can tell the difference between morning and evening rushes, rain in the system and a blockage forming.

Most customers do not realise the average suburban sewer is only the diameter of an orange or a tennis ball. It doesn’t take much cooking fat to combine with other ‘unflushables’ such as sanitary products, wet wipes or even ear cleaning sticks, to form a fatberg.

After detecting sewer blockages, our teams call round the neighbourhood to tell them about close calls and educate them on how to keep sewers flowing freely.