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Alex Lipp
@alexlipp.github.io

www.theguardian.com/business/202... I really question how useful this type of reporting is in practice. The question to ask is "Is This A Big Number?" and I just don't think we have enough years worth of data (3 years tops) to work out if 4m is, or is not, a big number...

theguardian.comNearly 4m hours of raw sewage dumped in England’s waters last yearDuration of spills by water companies up on previous year, in data described by environment secretary as ‘disgraceful’
Alex Lipp
@alexlipp.github.io

...of course from one perspective if x > 0 (i.e., there is *any* sewage spills) that means x is large, but that is not very helpful in practice. Unfortunately the data which *would* be helpful (i.e., the specific stop-start data from monitors) is not (generally) published by the EA or water co's!

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Alex Lipp
@alexlipp.github.io

Stop-Start data (i.e., *when* spills happened) is much more informative as it identifies potential links to rainfall, capacity etc... but only Thames Water actually readily share this data (see screenshot from sewagemap.co.uk). So, water co's don't help themselves! More open-data please!!!