SAS Are Ready To Provide Free Real Time Sewage Alerts For All Beach Users
At the start of the bathing season, May the 15th, we’re proud to be launching a new real time sewage warning system that will tell you exactly when sewage is being discharged into the sea at key locations around the UK. We have developed an online map that will automatically update you in real-time with information on combined sewer overflow (CSO) spills at surf spots. You’ll even be able to sign up for free text messages alerting you to sewage spills at some of our nation’s best... Read more
SAS are concerned to learn that Foundation of Environmental Education (FEE) is considering rewriting the rulebook to relax regulations on sewage discharges from Combined Sewer Overflows (CSOs). Our directors are writing to the director of FEE calling for Blue Flag beach users to be protected from raw sewage discharges and we need you to do the same. Scroll down to sign and send our letter.
We have learned that FEE is considering amending the criteria that beaches have to meet to achieve the coveted Blue Flag status including watering down criterion 28 relating to real-time public warnings when raw sewage is discharged from Combined... Read more
Clean water campaigners Surfers Against Sewage (SAS) are celebrating this bank holiday Monday as Keep Britain Tidy commit to warning systems informing the public after sewage discharges on Blue Flag beaches. This commitment is a direct response to SAS exposing over 25% of the UK’s Blue Flags as currently failing to meet the imperative Blue Flag regulations and failing to warn the public after sewage spills. SAS are confident that next year’s Blue Flag beaches will provide beach lovers with an enhanced beach experience.
On 06/08/10 SAS raised their own brown flags on Blue Flag beaches that they believe have Combined... Read more
Clean water campaigners Surfers Against Sewage (SAS) are calling for 34 British beaches to be stripped of their Blue Flag status. SAS have uncovered information revealing these beaches can not meet the strict standards requiring public warnings after sewage discharges set by the international body responsible for the Blue Flag programme. SAS flew their Brown Flag at Whitburn beach in the North East. Whitburn has a Blue Flag but yet the European Commission (EC) is taking the UK to the European Court of Justice for "too frequent" and "excessive" spills from storm water overflows at Whitburn.
English Blue Flags not meeting the... Read more
Surfers Against Sewage (SAS) campaigners are today relieved to announce that the Ultra Violet (UV) treatment that renders sewage effluent clean and safe, has finally be turned back on by Anglian Water at the popular beaches of Cleethorpes and Mablethorpe. Unfortunately for surfers this is just as the best surf season finishes.
Anglian Water turns off their UV treatment outside the bathing season (1st of October until the 15th of May). Unfortunately for surfers this is the best season for surf. Turning off the UV results in a dramatic increase in the potentially harmful pathogens released to the sea. Pathogens that... Read more
This is the last year as a teenager for Surfers Against Sewage (SAS) as next year is our 20th anniversary. Our 19th year was one of our busiest and most successful years campaigning.
2009 started with yet another shipping accident, this time our beaches were covered in timber. Let's hope we escape a serious shipping catastrophe in 2010.
January and February brought a couple of campaign victories. Firstly new regulations came into force to prevent sewage discharge from ships.
And after more than 20 campaign actions in Guernsey, the island finally committed to full sewage treatment! Great news for Guernsey as currently 65,000... Read more
Surfers Against Sewage fighting for first time EU bathing water designation at Portballintrae
Surfers Against Sewage (SAS) campaigners and local surfers hand delivered a petition to the HQ of the Department of Environment Northern Ireland (DOENI) today, 17th November, when this years bathing water results were issued. SAS's Love Your Beach campaign petition, with more than 450 signatures, calls for the popular yet undesignated recreational waters at Portballintrae's Runkerry Strand to receive full EU bathing water designation.
In February 2009 SAS launched their Love Your Beach campaign, which will enable recreational water users to apply for 'bathing water' designation for their recreational... Read more
Clean water campaigners Surfers Against Sewage (SAS) have received strong support for a pilot scheme to warn beach users ofpotential poor water qualityat a meeting organised by MP Julia Goldsworthy. The pilot project will be running on (some) beaches in the South West for the 2010 bathing season.
Attending the meeting with SAS and Liberal Democrat MP, Julia Goldsworthy, were the Environment Agency, the RNLI, Cornwall Council, Consumer Council for Water and South West Water (SWW).
Since SAS starred in this summer's Panorama, "Britain's Dirty Beaches", the most watched Panorama of the year, SAS have been lobbying for short term pollution warnings.... Read more
Clean Water campaigners Surfers Against Sewage (SAS) are outraged, but not surprised, by bathing water results released today by Defra. 30% of UK beaches failed to meet guideline standards, a shockingly high figure that confirms SAS's fears that our bathing waters and surf spots are being contaminated by raw sewage discharging from Combined Sewer Overflows (CSOs). And yet water companies are appealing against Environment Agency attempts to regulate 4,000 unlicensed CSOs. This combination of bad news for the environment has inspired SAS to launch the new "Adopt A CSO" campaign. This initiative will warn beach users of the impacts CSOs... Read more
SAS are pleased to hear the European Commission (EC) has decided to take the United Kingdom to the European Court of Justice over non-compliance with EU environment legislation. SAS has spent the summer highlighting the inadequacies of the UK's sewerage system, specifically with Combine Sewage and Stormwater Overflow drains (CSOs), culminating in the hard-hitting Panorama programme "Britain's Dirty Beaches". The EC is concerned that the urban waste water collecting systems and treatment facilities in London and Whitburn in North East England and have deemed them "inadequate and a threat to human health."
SAS have highlighted time and again concerns over the... Read more
