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A staggering 900,000 tons of raw sewage has been dumped in the Thames five days after a smaller overflow in the same area killed hundreds of fish.
River users claim Thames Water failed to inform people after the second discharge yesterday, which followed another storm.
"Huge tracts" of human waste - enough to fill 360 Olympic swimming pools - were visible on the water's surface in areas popular with boaters and walkers to the west of London.
The owner of one boat moored in the area said he had stopped several children from paddling or swimming, as they and their parents were unaware of the situation.
Thames Water and the Environment Agency worked to minimise the impact on the river's ecology but excused the release of the material by saying, "there is nowhere else for it to go".
Gary Cowen, who owns a Second World War patrol boat moored in Brentford, said: "The river has become a sewer. It goes back to last week, long before there was a downpour. There was loads and loads of sewage coming out into the river. It was noticeable. I went down to Kew Bridge and there was a lot of it down there as well and I thought, 'This is outrageous'."
Fish which environmentalists reintroduced into the river have suffocated as oxygen levels in the water plummeted.
Environment Agency spokeswoman Laura Dowsett said: "Rain during the afternoon and evening of 7 July resulted in Mogden and Crossness Sewage Treatment Works and Abbey Mills Pumping Station discharging around 750,000 tonnes of storm sewage into the estuary. In addition to this, Central London sewer overflows discharged approximately 150,000 tonnes of storm sewage.
"These were legal and consented discharges to the river. There is currently nowhere else for storm sewage to go."
She said the sewage treatment works were being expanded to cope with heavy rainfall in future.
Simon Evans, of Thames Water, said: "We can't just make sewage disappear. It has to go somewhere, which is why these discharges are legal."
Reader views (2)
Can it be steered towards Westminster, by any chance? MPs would feel RIGHT at home.
- Marianne, SW France/London, 09/07/2009 21:43
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I'll give my morning dip a miss tomorrow then.
- Steve, London, 09/07/2009 16:34
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