Emergency overflows
A separate class of overflow, hidden from the usual data. Meant to discharge only when a pumping station fails — yet some spill into the River Dart for hundreds of hours a year.
What is an emergency overflow?
A pumping station lifts sewage over hills toward a treatment works. An emergency overflow (EO, or PSEO) is a relief outlet that discharges raw sewage straight to the river if that pump fails — a power cut, a mechanical failure, a blockage — to stop it backing up into homes and streets. It is permitted, but only for genuine emergencies. An EO firing for hundreds of hours is not an emergency; it is a chronic fault.
Why there is no live feed
EOs carry the same EDM monitoring hardware as storm overflows, but their data sits in a different regulatory category: it is not published in the near-real-time storm-overflow feed this site tracks, nor in the Environment Agency's annual storm-overflow return. The only way to see it is to ask. The figures below were obtained by an EIR request (EIR26209) — a snapshot, not a feed, refreshed when a new disclosure is made.
These are not emergencies.
An emergency overflow should fire for minutes, a handful of times, when something breaks. In their worst single year, these fired for the durations below — the equivalent of days or weeks of continuous discharge.
Every emergency overflow, 18 in all
Hours of discharge per year, 2020–2025. Sort by any column. Together they account for about 5,171 hours of recorded discharge. Duration is the honest measure here — the spill count uses the EA's 12/24-hour block method, which folds one long discharge into just a few “spills”.
| ’20 | ’21 | ’22 | ’23 | ’24 | 25 ytd | Spills | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
WARFLEET No2 DARTMOUTH 203641 · DARTMOUTH STW works · EDM 2023 | — | — | — | 2,514 | · | · | 2,514 | 106 |
DART BRIDGE BUCKFASTLEIGH DRA 1464 · BUCKFASTLEIGH STW works · EDM 2022 | — | — | 186 | 920 | 14 | 19 | 1,140 | 110 |
BLACKROCK BUCKFAST 201570 · BUCKFASTLEIGH STW works · EDM 2022 | — | — | 131 | 375 | 189 | 217 | 913 | 116 |
SOUTH TOWN DARTMOUTH 203470 · DARTMOUTH STW works · EDM 2022 | — | — | 55 | 128 | 35 | 7.0 | 225 | 117 |
NELSON CLOSE STAVERTON 201593 · STAVERTON_STW_STAVERTON works · EDM 2022 | — | — | 18 | 164 | · | · | 182 | 21 |
WARFLEET CREEK SPS PSEO DARTMOUTH 202402 · DARTMOUTH STW works · EDM 2016 | · | 0.78 | 4.7 | 78 | 1.8 | 3.1 | 88 | 14 |
DARTHAVEN MARINA KINGSWEAR 202398 · DARTMOUTH STW works · EDM 2022 | — | — | 1.3 | 28 | 22 | 1.6 | 54 | 32 |
MALTSTERS TUCKENHAY 201563 · ASHPRINGTON_STW_ASHPRINGTON works · EDM 2022 | — | — | · | 14 | 16 | 1.4 | 31 | 21 |
DARTMOUTH STW DARTMOUTH 202518 · DARTMOUTH STW works · EDM 2022 | — | — | · | 1.8 | 18 | 0.23 | 20 | 28 |
DEAN PRIOR DEAN PRIOR 202151 · BUCKFASTLEIGH STW works · EDM 2022 | — | — | · | 0.43 | 0.90 | 0.12 | 1.4 | 5 |
COLES COURT DARTMOUTH 203157 · DARTMOUTH STW works · EDM 2022 | — | — | · | 1.4 | · | · | 1.4 | 2 |
NELSON ROAD DARTMOUTH 200293 · DARTMOUTH STW works · EDM 2022 | — | — | 0.04 | 0.45 | · | 0.14 | 0.63 | 3 |
BRIXHAM ROAD PAIGNTON 201526 · TORQUAY/ PAIGNTON/ BRIXHAM ) STW works · EDM 2022 | — | — | · | 0.06 | 0.06 | 0.20 | 0.32 | 3 |
MAYORS AVENUE DARTMOUTH 202401 · DARTMOUTH STW works · EDM before 2016 | · | · | · | · | 0.08 | 0.20 | 0.28 | 2 |
NORTHERN VILLAGES TOTNES 201603 · TOTNES STW works · EDM 2016 | · | 0.04 | · | · | · | · | 0.04 | 1 |
ST PETERS QUAY TOTNES 201508 · TOTNES STW works · EDM 2016 | 0.01 | · | · | · | · | · | 0.01 | 4 |
FULLAFORD PARK BUCKFASTLEIGH NRA-SW-7507 · BUCKFASTLEIGH STW works · EDM 2022 | — | — | · | · | · | · | 0 | 0 |
PERCHWOOD HOUSE TUCKENHAY 203147 · ASHPRINGTON_STW_ASHPRINGTON works · EDM 2016 | · | · | · | · | · | · | 0 | 0 |
Where they are
Sized and coloured by total recorded hours. Clustered around Dartmouth, Totnes and Buckfastleigh — at the pumping stations that lift sewage to each town's works.
How to read this, and what it cannot show
- A dash means there was no monitor that year — most EOs were only fitted with EDM around 2022, so a zero before then is absence of data, not absence of spills.
- 2025 is year-to-date and incomplete; it is excluded from the “last full year” figures.
- The spill count follows the EA 12/24-hour block method: a discharge's first 12 hours count as one spill, each further 24 hours as one more — so a very long spill shows a low count.
- This is an EIR snapshot (EIR26209), not a live feed. It will not change until the next disclosure. Figures are as supplied by the water company.