Cumbria typically sees widespread flooding each year in October and November due to heavy and persistent rainfall.
And 2025 has been no exception with rivers bursting their banks and roads becoming impassable between November 3 and November 9 as well as a three day period between November 12 and November 14.
Between 10.19pm on November 12 and 12.01am on Sunday November 16, United Utilities discharged sewage into the River Derwent for 73 hours 41 minutes.
Water companies are permitted to discharge sewage into water courses when sewers become overwhelmed by heavy rainfall.
The incident could be seen on the live sewage map which displays active spills as well as those that have taken place in the last 48 hours.
A spokesperson for United Utilities said: “Due to the sustained heavy rain that we have seen over the last week, with parts of Cumbria experiencing more than 100mm of rainfall, a number of our storm overflows have been operating as designed to avoid the flooding of homes and businesses.”
At the time of writing, a United Utilities appliance was discharging waste water into the River Esk at Carlisle for over an hour.
Sewage was also discharged into the River Calder at Calderbridge for a period of six hours and 35 minutes on Monday while an outflow occurred into the River Eamont at Pategill for two hours and eight minutes on November 18.
United Utilities that it is “committed to driving down the number of times that storm overflows operate.”
They said: “In 2024, we delivered a 31 per cent reduction in spill duration, with the number of spills from storm overflows falling by 20 per cent. We are working at pace to deliver the largest ever upgrade to the wastewater network across Cumbria, which will help to reduce overflow operations further.”
Ministers announced in July that water regulator Ofwat will be scrapped and replaced by a single organisation with sweeping powers, which will take responsibility for all water functions.
Water regulation is currently shared out between Ofwat, the Environment Agency, Natural England and the Drinking Water Inspectorate.