Historic day for reconnecting London and Londoners to the Thames

Is the author sure these are quotes from Andy Mitchell and not from Nick Tennant, his Communications Manager? It is wrong to say that the Tideway Tunnel is the "final step in halting the regular pollution of the Thames." It is just one of many other steps. It should be clarified that the tunnel does nothing for pollution of the Thames since it is only the Tideway that is affected. Having clarified that, following the upgrade of Mogden sewage treatment works, the upper Tideway now has "Good" water quality according to Environment Agency data and as required by the EU 2000 Water Framework Directive. The tunnel will not improve that status. Once the Lee Tunnel is commissioned this year, remaining CSO pollution will be halved to 18 million and not the "tens of millions" Mr Mitchell's quote claims. Even that 18 million m3 is questionable since there has been no empirical measurement of Thames Water's discharges through CSOs with the exception of West Putney where the actual discharges were found to be inflated by CH2M Hill, on behalf of Thames Water, by 40%. The ratio CSO discharges is about 8 parts rainwater to 1 of foul water. Mr Mitchell's statements are confused by ignoring the cumulative effect of Sustainable Drainage Systems requirements. CSO's are only present in Inner London, the old Metropolitan Water Board area. London is redeveloped at a rate of about 1% of land area a year. All new developments integrate SuDS and Water Sensitive Design to one degree or another and sustainability principals dictate that client's (apart from certain residential developers) not only want but embrace those principals. In 2012, Thames Water were claiming that SuDS were part of the solution but today they are mute about that assertion. Why have Thames Water only now woken up to the obligation of their licence? The tunnel will do nothing to "transform" the Thames (i.e. the Tideway). People will notice nothing other than disruption during construction, thousands of additional diesel lorries on London's roads and most of all, above inflation increases to their bills. The "once in a generation opportunity" is actually a once in 125 years opportunity, that London will miss to modernise. Instead of doing what the rest of world is doing to resolve exactly the same problem caused by out-dated combined sewers, the tunnel perpetuates the problem and is no less than a Victorian solution, a detention tank to detain a maximum of 1.24 million cubic metres of mixed rain water and foul water. The naming of the IP consortium after a Victorian engineer demonstrates just how stuck in the past Thames Water and its allies are. If it is such a good project why were there only two bids to finance it and why are neither of the consortia signatories to the equator principals that excluded the vast majority of British banks and institutions from bidding? Thames Water wrote the tender documents and controlled the tender process. As the IP's only client, is there a conflict of interest? Yes. Expensive and unnecessary? Absolutely.