Storm overflow register · Anglian Water

Hibaldstow sewage works: storm overflow spills 2025

Hibaldstow sewage treatment works, run by Anglian Water, has 2 monitored storm overflows discharging to Hibaldstow Catchwater River An, Trib New R Ancholme. In 2025 they recorded 66 spills totalling 732 hours, against 57 spills and 1,038 hours in 2024. By hours spilling, it ranks 19 of 419 Anglian Water works, where 1 spilled longest.

Works size: 4,598 population equivalent (HIBALDSTOW STW, UWWTD 2018). Used for the spill volume estimate.

Every spill in 2025

Each blue mark is one spill, placed by when it started and sized by how long it lasted. Hover over a mark for the date and duration.

JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDecHibaldstow Water…8 spills, 151.1 h, 5 Jan to 12 Jan5 spills, 18.1 h, 31 Jan to 2 Feb23 spills, 371.2 h, 10 Dec to 27 DecHibaldstow STW (SPS)3 spills, 38.3 h, 6 Jan to 8 Jan2 spills, 48 h, 20 Jan to 22 Jan2 spills, 0.8 h, 27 Jan to 27 Jan2 spills, 2.5 h, 10 Feb to 10 Feb14 Feb 2025 12:15 GMT, 15 min20 Feb 2025 16:45 GMT, 60 min14 Jul 2025 10:15 GMT, 4.3 h19 Jul 2025 14:45 GMT, 105 min20 Jul 2025 13:15 GMT, 15 min5 spills, 3.5 h, 20 Sep to 21 Sep28 Sep 2025 08:30 GMT, 30 min4 Nov 2025 20:15 GMT, 15 min3 spills, 0.8 h, 10 Nov to 10 Nov11 spills, 6.3 h, 14 Nov to 15 Nov3 spills, 0.8 h, 18 Nov to 19 Nov5 spills, 1.8 h, 23 Nov to 23 Nov16 spills, 5.8 h, 29 Nov to 29 Nov7 spills, 1.8 h, 1 Dec to 1 Dec27 spills, 10.8 h, 4 Dec to 6 Dec5 spills, 1.5 h, 7 Dec to 7 Dec24 spills, 13.5 h, 9 Dec to 9 Dec12 Dec 2025 14:30 GMT, 30 min6 spills, 2.8 h, 15 Dec to 16 Dec27 spills, 44 h, 17 Dec to 20 Dec

Estimated spill volume by month, 2025

Hours spilling each month × the estimated spill rate for a works of this size. The bars are central estimates and the whiskers show the low-high range. Method.

025k50k75k100kJan 2025: 244 h spilling ≈ 19,200 m³ (range 7,648-48,202 m³)JanFeb 2025: 16 h spilling ≈ 1,284 m³ (range 512-3,224 m³)FebMar 2025: 0.0 h spilling ≈ 0.0 m³ (range 0.0-0.0 m³)MarApr 2025: 0.0 h spilling ≈ 0.0 m³ (range 0.0-0.0 m³)AprMay 2025: 0.0 h spilling ≈ 0.0 m³ (range 0.0-0.0 m³)MayJun 2025: 0.0 h spilling ≈ 0.0 m³ (range 0.0-0.0 m³)JunJul 2025: 6.2 h spilling ≈ 488 m³ (range 195-1,226 m³)JulAug 2025: 0.0 h spilling ≈ 0.0 m³ (range 0.0-0.0 m³)AugSep 2025: 4.0 h spilling ≈ 315 m³ (range 126-791 m³)SepOct 2025: 0.0 h spilling ≈ 0.0 m³ (range 0.0-0.0 m³)OctNov 2025: 16 h spilling ≈ 1,221 m³ (range 486-3,066 m³)NovDec 2025: 446 h spilling ≈ 35,138 m³ (range 13,996-88,215 m³)Dec
Cubic metres (m³), estimate. Hours are measured by the event duration monitor.

Longest single spills

Started (GMT)OverflowDurationEstimated volume
25 Dec 2025, 00:00Hibaldstow Water Recycling Centre1.0 days753 - 4,747 m³
24 Dec 2025, 00:00Hibaldstow Water Recycling Centre1.0 days753 - 4,747 m³
23 Dec 2025, 00:00Hibaldstow Water Recycling Centre1.0 days753 - 4,747 m³
22 Dec 2025, 00:00Hibaldstow Water Recycling Centre1.0 days753 - 4,747 m³
21 Dec 2025, 00:00Hibaldstow Water Recycling Centre1.0 days753 - 4,747 m³

Estimated 2025 spill volume and pollution

Estimate, not a measurement. Monitors record how long an overflow spills, not how much. This calculator back-calculates a spill rate from the size of the works, using the Environment Agency's permit formulae, and multiplies it by published storm-sewage concentrations. How it works.

Volume, central estimate57,638 m³range 22,959 - 144,704 m³
In litres57.6 millionrange 23.0 million - 144.7 million L
Olympic swimming pools23at 2,500 m³ each
Organic load, as people's raw sewage86,458person-days of untreated BOD

Assumed spill rate while spilling: 8.7 - 54.9 L/s (central 21.9 L/s), from a dry-weather flow of 8.7 L/s.

Pollutant releasedLowCentralHighConcentration used (low / typical / high)
BOD₅ (organic load) 918 kg5,187 kg28,941 kg 40 / 90 / 200 mg/L
Low/high: Europe range, Ellis & Jenkins 2005; typical: UK, Ellis & Jenkins 2005 (both via botturi)
Suspended solids 2,411 kg24,496 kg104,331 kg 105 / 425 / 721 mg/L
Low/high: Europe range; typical: UK, Ellis & Jenkins 2005 (via botturi)
Ammonium-N 44 kg363 kg1,346 kg 1.9 / 6.3 / 9.3 mg/L
Low: Germany, Brombach 2005; typical/high: Paris range 3.3-9.3 midpoint and top, Gasperi 2012 (via botturi); no UK value found
Total phosphorus 28 kg150 kg781 kg 1.2 / 2.6 / 5.4 mg/L
Low/high: Paris, Gasperi 2012; typical: Slovakia (via botturi). UK figure of 10 mg/L treated as an outlier
E. coli 2.3 trillion organisms57.6 trillion organisms1.4 × 10¹⁵ organisms 10,000 / 100,000 / 1.0 million per 100 mL
Median range at CSO and retention-tank outlets, Stott et al. 2018 (via botturi); typical = log midpoint

Low combines the low spill rate with low concentrations, and high combines high with high, so the true figure is very likely inside the range. Long spills become more diluted as they go on, so the central figure tends to overstate the load of long events. The calculator does not estimate the effect on the receiving water, which depends on river flow or tide at the time of the spill.

Hibaldstow Water Recycling Centre

Storm tank at sewage works · discharges to Hibaldstow Catchwater River An

Spills 2025
26 (540 hours) · down 52% on 2024
Spills 2024
54 (1,036 hours)
Long-term average
33.5 spills a year (monitored since 2022)
Monitor uptime
100% of the year
Investigation
Env Act (SODRP) investigation ongoing, Operational investigation completed
Improvement
Operational improvement ongoing
WFD catchment
Ancholme from Bishopbridge to the Humber (GB104029067520)
Outlet location
SE9800004700 (OS grid reference) · View on Apple Maps
EA ID / permit
AWS00592 · AW3NFF200 · company name: HIBALDSTOW STW

Hibaldstow STW (SPS)

Inlet overflow at sewage works · discharges to Trib New R Ancholme

Spills 2025
40 (191 hours) · up 1233% on 2024
Spills 2024
3 (2.5 hours)
Long-term average
15.8 spills a year (monitored since 2022)
Monitor uptime
100% of the year
High-spill reason (company)
Not asset maintenance - Hydraulic capacity
Investigation
Env Act (SODRP) investigation ongoing, Operational investigation completed
Improvement
Operational improvement ongoing
WFD catchment
Ancholme from Bishopbridge to the Humber (GB104029067520)
Outlet location
SE9796004700 (OS grid reference) · View on Apple Maps
EA ID / permit
AWS00591 · ANNNF2373 · company name: HIBALDSTOW STW

How the estimate works

  1. Dry-weather flow (DWF) = population × water use per person × (1 + infiltration). Water use is 136.5 L per person per day, England's per-capita consumption for 2024-25 [EA]. Infiltration of groundwater into sewers is taken as 0-40% of that flow [Escritt, via HBF]. The Environment Agency defines DWF as PG + I + E [EA].
  2. Population. The size of each works comes from the load entering it as reported under the Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive, in population equivalents (1 p.e. = 60 g of BOD a day) [UWWTD]. We treat population equivalent as population. That overstates flow where trade effluent adds load, and no official source links the two. Works serving fewer than 2,000 p.e. are not reported, so their size has to be entered by hand.
  3. Low spill rate = DWF. This is the method used by Giakoumis & Voulvoulis (2026), which they note likely underestimates storm loads [G&V].
  4. High spill rate = Formula A − flow to full treatment = (DWF + 1360P) − 3DWF. This is the largest flow the permit expects the storm tanks to handle before it passes on to treatment or overflows [EA]. The central rate is the geometric mean of the low and high rates.
  5. Volume = spill rate × hours spilling, with hours taken from the event duration monitor.
  6. Pollution = volume × published storm-sewage concentrations [Botturi et al.] [US EPA]. Organic load is also shown as person-days of untreated sewage at 60 g of BOD per person per day [UWWTD].

What this cannot tell you. It gives no real flow for any single spill, and no effect on the river or sea, which depends on the flow, tide and the other pressures on the water at the time. It gives no figure for spills from overflows on the sewer network, which serve catchments of unknown size. It is a way to put hours into rough physical terms, not a substitute for flow monitoring.

Sources

  1. EA: Water companies - environmental permits for storm overflows and emergency overflows
  2. EA: Water resources 2024 to 2025 - per capita consumption
  3. HBF: Foul sewer design - historic conventions (citing Escritt 1984 on infiltration)
  4. Giakoumis & Voulvoulis (2026), Environ. Sci.: Water Res. Technol., doi:10.1039/D5EW00860C
  5. Botturi et al. (2021), Crit. Rev. Environ. Sci. Technol. 51:1585 - CSO quality review, Table 2
  6. US EPA (2004) Report to Congress on CSOs and SSOs, chapter 4
  7. Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive, Article 2(6): 1 p.e. = 60 g BOD5/day
  8. Olympic-size swimming pool: 2,500 m³ at the nominal 2 m depth

← All Anglian Water works · Contains Environment Agency data licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Spill start and stop times: © Environment Agency copyright and/or database right 2026. All rights reserved. They are water-company data and have not been verified by the Environment Agency. Works size: EEA Waterbase UWWTD. How to read the data.