Surfers Against Sewage are to hold a Paddle Out event at Appley Beach in Ryde this coming Saturday (20th May).
The environmental charity, which is dedicated to the protection of the ocean, waves, beaches and wildlife, has ambitions to end sewage discharges into UK bathing waters, something which is unfortunately extremely prevalent here on the Island.
In the latest set of captured data, the Isle of Wight had 27,349 hours of combined storm overflows and sewage discharge from April 2022 to the end of March 2023. The longest single-duration discharges were for Sandown, Ryde and Cowes each with a single spills going for over 320 hours at each site.
Those who are interested are being encouraged to head down to Appley this Saturday at 12:00.
Guest speakers will also be present and will give insight into the issues faced by those who use bathing waters across the Island.
Event organiser Chani Sasiow has said:
“Please come along, bring placards or other fun props, surfboards, paddle boards, rafts or just be on the beach and perhaps tip your toes in the water. Anyone is welcome and Ryde is a fantastically accessible beach. Let’s show Southern Water we are the community that care and are ready to take action together.”
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Ahead of the event, Nick Mills, Head of Southern Water’s Clean Rivers and Seas Task Force, said:
“Although Appley Beach is rated as ‘good’ by the Environment Agency, we want to work with partners to get it up to ‘Excellent’.
“We have identified improvements at Appley by increasing our pumping operation and also improving storage, which will help reduce storm overflow releases.”
This will add to the work we’re already doing on the Isle of Wight which is one of our major ‘pathfinder’ areas. Where we are using innovative engineering and nature-based solutions to slow the flow of surface water into our combined sewer network to reduce storm overflows
Hi. I have been challenged on my wording of the stat I gave here so here is the accurate terms.
There was a duration of 27349 hours when the event for discharge was open but in this period 16787 hours there were spills. In addition emergency sewage spills occurred to the environment for 118 hours over 2022.
Please attend the paddle out tomorrow. We need to ensure we all take action to #endsewagepollution. Thank you.