Episode 3 Watermen: A Dirty Business

Getting clean water...

is a dirty business.

Nice!

Mmm.

DOORS SLAM

We followed one of Britain's biggest water companies

as they cover 5,000 square miles and three million homes

over a long, hot summer.

'I've calmed down and I've counted to ten...'

Come in, it's, er, it's lovely and warm!

Reacting to emergencies...

Any sort of contamination is really, really bad.

-'..and domestic problems...'

-Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa!

-DOG YELPS

Ignore the smell.

..to keep the customer onside.

-Are you short-staffed?

-No.

It comes out the sea, they get it for nothing,

so why charge everyone for it?

I mean, a lot of people think, they flush the toilet

and they forget it, it disappears.

And we're the big hole under everybody's houses

where it disappears to!

No job's too big...

-'..or too small...'

-Think I ought to come out now, mate. That'll do.

..for the watermen.

Looks like we're going to get wet.

See you in the morning, boys?

Just another day in the office.

THEY CHUCKLE

PHONE BEEPS Hello. Thank you for calling. You're through to Jamie.

Can I take your name, please?

In Warrington, the company's call centre receives

-over 1,000 calls a day.

-'Sorry, just a minute.

'Ethan, turn the duck off, will ya?

'Sorry. Making a bloody racket when I'm on the phone.'

'I just want it sorting. I don't know what to do now.'

Some of them, unbelievable.

Just as well I'm in the office!

Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!

No, that's not true.

-I love the customers.

-Mondays are a pain.

-And how bad is the leak?

-We tried to plug it with a bit of wood.

-They're busy, nine times out of ten.

-'I don't know who to speak to...'

I don't know...what I can do to make this hurry up.

-There's nothing.

-It's been fine this morning.

I say this, and there'll be a mega mains burst somewhere,

and it'll all kick off.

Sandbach, Cheshire.

A burst water main has left an estate without any water.

It's a massive inconvenience, actually.

Water analyst Will is one of the first on the scene.

It's a major burst, affecting

hundreds of properties, probably just under a couple of thousand.

Er, so, basically, this job is more

an adrenaline rush, in terms of, how can I sort of stop the destruction

that it's causing? And then you get customers coming

and talking to you and moaning and kicking off.

You can't even do your washing. And you've got kids.

My cousin's got a baby.

And she can't do her bottles,

and bath her, so...

Getting a joke.

It looked like a simple fix,

but they've found a more serious problem.

We've repaired the main, but while we were in there, we noticed

that there was a leaking sewer as well, so we've got the possibility

of bacteria entering the repair,

so we've got to do some special measures now, really,

to make sure that we, er,

we get rid of the risk of any bacterial contamination.

Any suspected bacteria in the supply poses a risk to public health.

John is in charge of the clean-up.

Bacterial contamination can make people ill,

you can get...tummy bugs, that sort of thing.

So, it's like faecal contamination, E. coli.

So there's a... That's why we're taking real proper precautions,

really, to make sure that the water is absolutely clear.

-We're not taking any risks.

-Did you get number two?

Number two's here, isn't it? No, there's nobody in there.

-Oh, right.

-Any sort of contamination

is really, really bad. That's why we react how we react -

shutting the mains off, shutting the taps off.

We avoid it at all costs.

..haven't got any taps running downstairs,

then we'll open up the stop taps, and they've got supplies on that,

with the boiled water.

John is in constant touch with the incident team based at company HQ.

In terms of numbers, roughly?

Erm, roughly about 49?

Next item is customer vehicle...

'Yeah, it arrived about half 12,

'Alice and I are sat in the vehicle now.'

-Who's manning it?

-'We're manning it!'

The kids keep coming round for ice creams from this van,

so we have to keep chasing them as well.

-CHUCKLING

-Yeah, all right.

Funny, funny.

Right, so, next on the agenda, sampling...

We've just got two more customer properties to do and it's all done.

Are you arranging for those to come into the lab,

is someone dropping those off?

Yeah, I can, I'll be leaving site in about half an hour,

so I'll drop them off at the lab on my away into Lingley.

Can you make sure there's a request that they're fast-tracked?

-'Yes.'

-Thank you.

The contamination is isolated to 49 properties.

The residents are told to boil the water,

but by law, the company has to maintain a supply

and send an alternative -

bottled water.

These residents have been without water for...

28 hours.

They've had bottled water, and we've given them bowsers.

This is the exciting part of the job. Your day-to-day stuff is...

It's nice to see customers and solve their problems,

but this is the bit where you feel like you actually

earn your corn, this is where you prove your worth.

Until we get that OK from the bacteriological point of view,

it's...we can't guarantee that it's safe to drink.

'It stinks - it stinks to high heavens,

'and I know what sewage smells like cos I work in an effluent plant.'

Oh, do you? It's not the nicest smell in the world, I must admit.

No, no, no, no.

You never actually told me the full story - what happened?

I don't like losing. I'm not going to lie.

-It's about the taking part!

-No!

I came second twice. Now, to me, second place is just first loser.

And I MAY have defaced my certificate.

First...

-winner!

-And then it says, "Lisa is ace!"

-And Emma stinks.

-And Emma stinks!

Most calls are about blocked drains.

Jeopardy, Rachael speaking.

Jeopardy, Rachael speaking.

I like waste water.

Waste water's good.

Rachael dispatches the teams who unblock them.

A little army, little army of men!

And women - don't forget the women.

Because we've got a few women out in the field as well -

CSTs. And we've also got, erm,

we've got a lady over on N8, Vicky.

And she's an actual gang.

She normally pairs up with a lady CST, Babs.

So they're like, it's like the dream team.

-Where are we going first, Wirral?

-Yeah.

Ready for my driving?!

Vick and Babs are the company's first all-female crew.

I'm just logging on now.

C-H...

My first day driving the wagon - I only passed yesterday,

so, er, let's see how we get on!

Let's go!

So, you're not scared of my driving, Babs, no?

No, no!

Think you're quite confident! Considering you've only just passed.

Well...

It's quite unusual to see an all-female crew out there.

'I think it's quite... Yeah, it's good.'

There's no, erm,

no barriers here, not for women, anyway.

You can go just as far, being a woman.

Their first job is near Liverpool.

It's an overflowing drain at the back of the owner's house.

-Hiya, it's Barbara from United Utilities.

-Hi, Barbara.

-Hi, I'm Vicky.

-Hi, Vicky. Shall I show you what the problem is?

-Yeah. Thank you.

-Come through.

-Well, you're probably...

-Yeah, we can check that anyway...

-You're probably immune to the smell by now.

-Yeah.

-Yeah, you can smell it. Yeah.

-But it's... It came up there.

-But yesterday it covered a massive, massive area here.

-No problem.

-Can we get access?

-Just the... the first road on the right and

you'll be able to back down there, no problem.

Aw, don't tell me that. It's me first day in a wagon today.

I only passed me test yesterday.

Got to go down the back alley, but we gotta reverse all the way down.

It would be today, though, wouldn't it?

The toughest... Get down the smallest gap in the world.

We'll see. Thrown in at the deep end.

SHE LAUGHS

Babs... Babs, what we'll do... what we'll do, hon,

we'll just set up here and just drag the hose off.

-Sweating it!

-I know, yeah.

Challenge two passed.

As you can see, one blocked manhole.

-Did you bring the...

-Yeah.

What I'm going to do, I'm just checking for the depth

and the way that the sewer runs.

There you go.

Got lucky.

And that's how you clear a blockage.

-We've got the... We've cleared the blockage.

-Excellent.

When I actually started doing this job,

I come to do the accounts and stuff.

And when I actually got there, I seen what the lads were doing

and I was like, "I want to do that!"

So obviously my boss said, "Really?

"There's no other girls that do this. Are you sure?"

I was like, "Just give me the chance and I'll do it."

-We prove them wrong, don't we, Babs?

-We do.

This has been an ongoing problem, so they need to locate the cause.

Roots.

So through my experience of doing this,

there's going to be probably a lot more roots in the line.

-There you go.

-You see the roots there.

You see?

So that's what's obviously been causing the blockage.

Raw waste in sewers provides the perfect fertiliser

for roots to thrive in.

So even though we've cleared the blockage and the sewage

has got through, we're going to have to now jet it, clear all them out.

This is the jet we're going to use for this one...

It's called a warthog.

See the holes there?

And it basically spins in the line with the pressure of the water,

and cuts the roots out.

So the pressure of the water going through it, it drags it straight

out your hands. But with roots, you've obviously gotta work it,

so you don't want it to just go past it - you want it to cut them all up.

-Yep.

-Cool.

But I love the job. I absolutely love it.

And my mum when I get home, she goes, "How can you do that?

"It's horrible. It stinks."

But I just love it. I love the job.

That's us, isn't it? Done.

That's great. Thanks very much.

In Sandbach, residents are still drinking boiled or bottled water

while a suspected contamination in their supply is dealt with.

Went to clean me teeth and found out I'd got no cold water.

So I thought, "Eh up, we've got problems."

Simple things like flushing the toilet, you know.

The more you want to go, the less you can go

because you can't flush the toilet.

Got to take everything out of a bottle.

Makes you appreciate...what water's like coming out of a tap.

To kill off any harmful bacteria, a high concentrate of chlorine

is being flushed through their mains pipe.

It's a disinfectant agent.

It'll kill any bacteria, bugs,

anything else that might be... have got into the water supply.

It's about 40 times more concentrated than...

normal mains water.

Tap water samples are taken every eight hours.

-BUZZER Hello, I...

-Hi.

-Oh, it's you. How are you?

-Well... Come on through.

-Yeah, well, what we're doing, we've turned the water on...

-Yeah.

-We're sampling now.

-Right.

I've just been told we've got to sample again

-at seven o'clock tonight...

-OK.

-..and then we're going to do it again tomorrow.

-Right.

And depending on these three samples,

-we'll then give you the go-ahead.

-OK.

It does worry me.

Anything that I swallow - food-wise,

drink-wise or anything - could make me very seriously ill.

I've just spent most of...

Well, six months in hospital,

and I really don't want to go back there again.

-There's no substitute for...

-No.

-..for running water.

-No, there isn't.

We, as far as I'm concerned, are like...

the fourth emergency service.

You can do without electricity, you can do without gas...

But you can't live without water.

That's...that's all I need, then. Thank you very much.

-OK, thank you.

-And we'll see you at seven o'clock.

-Yeah, OK, then.

130 technicians work at the company's lab

checking random clean and waste water samples.

But today, the Sandbach job is given priority.

Results will be sent to Public Health, England.

Mark is in charge of the team.

Let's have a look.

The things that we look for are, we call them indicator organisms,

so they are organisms that indicate there's been

a possibility of faecal contamination.

And there could be other harmful organisms there.

We've got three failures from the incident, so...

OK, right, clostridia, right.

These appear as black colonies, actually, on this media.

Hey, Sandra, it's Becca in the lab.

I've got three clostridia failures

for you from the incident yesterday at Sandbach.

They've found traces of a bacteria called clostridia,

proof that the Sandbach water is contaminated.

Because it's an incident and something's gone on, I think

the fact that we've got three failures is of concern.

We'll have to see what they decide to do in terms of re-sampling.

Some guys on site will be taking more samples tonight

about eight o'clock and bringing them in, and we'll take a further

set of samples tomorrow, about seven o'clock in the morning,

and bring those in.

As soon as we've got two sets of clear samples then we're good to go.

In Lancashire, residents near Blackburn will no longer

get their water supply from the Rivers Brennand and Whitendale.

Instead, it'll be piped directly from a reservoir.

This requires six miles of new pipeline.

Colin Fairclough will manage this £10 million project.

He's worked with the company for 20 years.

Shit happens sometimes.

A digger has accidently broken part of the water main.

We've been very lucky when you see the distance we've gone.

We don't know where these tappings are,

you just take it by chance.

Is that you, Craig? It's Colin.

Yeah, not so bad. We're just on Spark Road.

Have you got anybody that will just knock the main off

while we repair...? We need somebody here pretty quickly cos the

water's pouring out down here.

The problem is these branches just appear off it at any point.

You can't pick them up, cos they're plastic,

you can't pick them up with a CAT scan.

So he's been coming through carefully,

he just caught it, unfortunately,

and it's pulled the saddle off the pipe.

And, of course, the saddle, at about 40 psi, it looks bad,

but it's probably just a small hole that's on the pipe.

Took a lot of closing, that valve.

Well, alls we need to do is shut it off maybe for about 15 minutes,

repair it, and we're back on again.

It's not a big problem, but it is as far as we're concerned.

Well done.

It'll take a year to lay a pipeline,

which will cause major traffic disruption.

It's Colin's job to reassure customers.

All the people can just park their cars again

on here next week, so all those people will be off me back.

However, I've got another road

down there where everybody's going to be on me back again.

Smart enough? Tie tidy? Let's go and do it.

-DOORBELL RINGS

-Hello.

Good afternoon, my name is Colin Fairclough,

construction manager for United Utilities.

-That's my identification.

-OK, hello.

Our pipeline is coming down this side of the road,

-so I presume you have a car?

-Yeah. Well, it's not mine. It's my mum's.

Hello? My name's Colin Fairclough from United Utilities.

You're the one that charges all this money for the water?

It all comes into me. I've got a big bank account.

When we pass through here, we're only going to be

three or four days coming through here.

As I was talking to the guy, trying to explain to him about

what we're going to be doing, he had about five dogs running round wild.

Go on, dog...

I felt this, something cold on me leg, and when we...

When he'd gone away, one of the guys said to me,

"He's actually used your leg as a toilet."

HE LAUGHS

I've got me trouser press and me spare shirt in the office.

When I get back I can just change me trousers.

HE LAUGHS I find it ever so funny.

You have to laugh, don't you?

Every half hour's different than every previous half hour.

It's just everything's new.

I think if you do the same job for all of your life,

same repetitive thing, you're soon going to get bored, aren't ye?

I think you need constant challenges,

constant things coming up against that you've got to resolve,

problems you need to resolve, and it's... Keeps life interesting.

Last Wednesday was my 50th year of working.

I just celebrated a complete 50 years,

so I'm in me 51st year now.

Hopefully, I can go on for another five years.

I don't do it for the money. I do love it, and everybody that knows me

knows that I like working for a living.

I don't think a lot of people realise what's involved with water,

what we have to do to provide water to the taps.

Let's go!

See ye in a bit, mate.

Vick and Babs are heading to Ellesmere Port.

The first job we've got is a blockage job

that's close to flooding.

It's an intimate... I always call it an intimate flooder.

Intimate flooder.

Just means that it's close to overflowing at the top

of the manhole, so that's why we've got to...

We've got to go there before it actually does flood.

-You ready to rock and roll, Babs?

-Let's go.

-Let's do it.

Hello, it's Barbara calling from United Utilities.

Just to let you know we're on our way.

We should be on site in the next 15 minutes. Thank you. Bye-bye.

-Very professional there, Babs.

-Why, thank you.

We are the dream team, Babs.

We're going to stay together and show the lads how to do it.

Show 'em how it's done.

Hi-ho, hi...

-And what's been the problem, sorry?

-Blocked up.

It's blocking up, is it?

Yeah, no problem.

-There's fat in that, straight.

-Lot of fat in it.

-Yeah.

I was surprised to see all the young ladies doing all this work.

I... Taking all the jobs from the men, aren't they?

Smell it, it's rammed with fat, that.

Fat's the worst as well.

Once you get it on you, there's no getting it off.

It stinks, yeah.

Just get the jet out to jet it

cos obviously the blockage is past this connection, so...

I'm going to use the warthog, which cuts it up

and breaks all the fat up, so hopefully we'll get a clear

vision and see down the pipe, see what the problem is.

Bit old-fashioned, I am.

Don't associate ladies with this terrible work, you know.

Yeah, they've sent us women to get it done properly,

you know what I mean? They don't call us the A Team for nothing.

-The A Team?

-Yeah, you better believe it.

Give us two minutes with this, I bet it's clear.

Just wait for Babs, make sure she's ready.

Maybe I'm getting too old and I'm not informed. I don't know.

I'm not up-to-date.

They just don't expect women to be doing this type of job at all.

There we go.

-How high was the pressure you've got there behind that?

-Erm, woo.

-2,000 psi.

-Oh, right. When I was pushing, it couldn't...

Let's go and get the camera.

The footage shows the sewer is intact.

It was definitely fat that caused the blockage.

-You've got a cha...

-It goes down there into that...?

-Yeah.

Oh, does it go into the main sewer system? Is it just...?

That's what it did then, it's sort of like...

Just flops in. No U-bend or anything there to...

-No, no, no, no.

-It's just straight in?

Yeah, but that's all clear now.

No fat left in the line. It's pretty clean really, isn't it?

The job is done in 20 minutes.

That's what I like.

Get in there, get the job done.

And you go in, do what we came to do, and leave.

So, you know, and they're happy, the job's done, and that's me happy.

And Babs happy.

In Sandbach, the drinking water

has been regularly tested for three days.

Residents are still waiting for the all clear.

We've got no failures.

Yeah, it's looking really good for those samples, yeah.

Just literally a case of filling out the zeros now on the sheet.

That's our confirmation that says that they're all clear.

Then they will get entered onto the computer.

And that then, later on today, we'll push the results over to

the water quality team, and then they can start letting

the residents know that they don't need to boil their water any more.

Confirmation then, so we've got enough clear samples

and we're good to go. We can lift the boiled water?

-Yes.

-The news was good, so we're just going to get the letters printed

out now, get them taken down to site,

and we'll get them drinking their water again,

if that's what they choose to do with a bank holiday weekend.

The 49 homes left without drinking water for three days

are entitled to compensation, plus a goodwill bonus gesture.

Always try and watch for dogs coming out.

I've got bit a couple of weeks ago, so...

INDISTINCT SPEECH Yeah.

-Where's me dog?

-Oh, I don't know.

-Not going to bite me, is it?

-I don't know.

Ooh. Oh, ey up. DOG BARKS

Hey - whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

Oi! Oscar! In! Will you shut up?! In!

-DOG GROWLS

-Will you shut up?!

-HE LAUGHS

-In!

I've got a letter for you...

Basically...letting you know your water supply's back to normal...

-Oh, right.

-..so you can start drinking it without having to boil it.

I've got a letter for you, apology letter...and

there's also a compensation cheque in there for £100.

-Oh, that's very generous. I wasn't expecting that.

-Yeah.

The incident could have turned, you know, quite nasty.

We could have had mutiny, so to speak, from the customers.

We reacted quite quickly with it.

We got a team mobilised really quickly.

If you have got any questions, feel free to call us.

Cost to the company, just in compensation alone,

you're looking at well over £4,000.

There's a cheque in there for 100 quid.

-Oh, brill, thank you.

-Thank you.

-Thank you.

-Cheers.

The Blackburn pipeline will supply water to over 30,000 customers,

but not all of them are happy.

At the top of the fields there, where you've dug,

where you've dug your pipeline, you've dug a great big ditch,

about four or five foot high, right at the top of the field.

Now, you've put that big ditch in that way,

into that and joined it all up,

so all that water then is going to

come down there, is going to come this way.

Just had a phone call from an irate resident...telling me that some

works that we have done is causing flooding problems in his garden.

We'll get it sorted.

I'll have this guy smiling before we leave today...hopefully.

Who's your colleague? Is he...?

-Yes, he's... He's my next door neighbour.

-Right, OK.

-And he's a plumber. He knows all these systems.

-OK.

At the field boundary up there, we cleaned out an existing ditch.

-No, you extended it.

-You made it bigger.

No, no, you've extended it further on.

You counteract the water that's been coming round

the field over that wall.

You've counteracted it, whether you've put a drain in or not,

you've counteracted it.

So all the water that's collecting into that big gulley now,

which has been extended about ten yards, is going to collect

and is going to come all the way down here.

So that ditch overruns, overflows then, is that what you're saying?

-Yeah.

-Yeah, if you get too much water, it will.

-Right.

-Can we go and have a look?

-Yeah.

The customer is worried that the trench for the pipeline

above his property will divert rainwater into a ditch that

leads directly to his house.

So what you're saying, previously, all the water that

came off that field, normally went down there.

And what we've done since, we've extended that bit.

You've extended it, so this is the natural flow, isn't it?

Yeah. It takes the easiest route, doesn't it?

-Of course it does, so this is the easiest route.

-And what we've done,

we could have potentially caused you a problem by doing this.

We've got to alleviate this, so we don't make your problem worse.

-That's right.

-So if we take a surface water drain

-and we can disperse it...

-Yeah, yeah.

-..underground over there.

-Yeah, yeah.

As long as we don't get flooded.

Hey, we don't always get it right.

But, hey, we can always put it right later.

Colin's system will drain any excess rainwater away from the property.

THEY LAUGH

I've just told your wife it was your fault, not my fault.

I want to know, if this is for telly, how are we getting paid?

You shouldn't say that when I got a stick in me hand.

We've sorted if for you anyway, end of story,

all sorted, all resolved, so...

Everybody can have a cup of tea now to celebrate our good news there.

Because I'm the construction manager, all the guys,

they're not working for me, we're all working as a team.

And because I'm driving it,

it's like driving a vehicle, and all these people

are sat in the car with me, they're all doing their own little bit.

But between us, we've put the pipeline from right over there

as far as you can see, all through the fields,

through the towns, right up here, and...

And at the end of the day, a year's time from now,

I'll get a wonderful feeling of satisfaction that we did that.

We have made a big difference.

We provided water from there to there.

Every year, 1,500 people apply to get onto

the company's apprentice scheme.

-Go!

-'Only 30 are selected.'

Today, the apprentices are team building.

I think it... It can be, sort of,

quite intimidating for these guys coming into a company for what's

potentially the first time, and it's a big change from moving from

what's probably been an educational setting into the world of work.

And I think that's why we're sort of keen to do events like this

to try and help bridge that transition and build

the relationships they're going to need to help them move forward.

All to the right!

All to the right! All to the right!

All to the left!

All to the left!

Starting as a water network apprentice, so there's five

different roles I'll be trained in over the next couple of years.

And then in the third year we'll specialise in one particular role.

That's the way. Fantastic.

24-year-old Faiyaz hopes to work as an engineer.

I wanted to work for a FTSE 100 professional company

in the North West and the opportunity came, so I took it.

I've always had an interest in engineering from a young age.

I've played with Lego from when I was a little boy

and it's always progressed from there.

I am ambitious, that's why I'm working at United Utilities.

They always try to push you

and make you progress within the company.

Most of the managers here have worked themselves to the top,

so there is definitely an opportunity to do that.

He may be destined for the boardroom, but not any time soon.

Today, Faiyaz is out in the field, where the real work is done,

with the waste water team.

It's my first day, so I'm really just

unaware of what's out there.

Adrian is his boss for the day.

-First things first, are you OK driving?

-Yeah.

Cos I'm taking the easy route today. All right?

I can't imagine he's applied for this job and, you know,

not have a good idea of what he's going to be faced with.

But sometimes it can be a bit of a shock to the system

when you first go out - it certainly was for me on my first day.

But we'll take him out and just see how he finds it.

He may...he may think it's not for him, but I'm sure we'll get on well.

Just come back in off... from paternity leave.

My wife's just had a...

-Congratulations.

-..our second child.

So, I'm a bit tired meself, and I'm probably a bit, a bit, a bit

rusty through lack of sleep, but I'm sure we'll get there together.

-Congratulations.

-Thank you.

Superman would be great at this job.

If he could see underground where all blockages are.

Are you trying to say you're superman, Adrian?

-Well, it's been said.

-Is it?

At an end of terrace house in Rochdale

a drain has been overflowing.

-We've lived here 45 years, 46 years...

-Yeah.

-..and never had a blocked drain.

-Right.

Now, whether it's coming from somewhere else and building up,

-I don't know.

-Possibly, yeah.

Stephen's wife Sheila has tried to unblock the drain herself.

We've had this...smell for quite a while.

And obviously we've tried everything, all the products...

nothing's happened. And then I went down and looked at it,

and there's all sewage floating on the top.

Not pleasant, is it? And I must admit,

I am a little bit...you know, on smells.

You know what we're like, us ladies.

I must have half a dozen plug-in in here

to try and make it smell nice, but you won't get rid of it.

The mains sewer is checked for any blockages that could be

affecting Stephen and Sheila's drain.

Right. It just looks like it's full of debris,

-so it's restricting the flow a bit, but it is still running.

-Yeah.

-I've slight doubts whether it's related to their issue.

-Yeah.

We'll just get this running best we can and then...get some

of that debris out and then we'll have a look at what's going on.

-Got a brick in there as well, haven't they?

-Yeah.

Think we'll bob some dye in his gulley first, eh?

Yeah. Try that.

Make sure it's definitely coming in here.

-We'll let Faz do that, eh?

-Yeah.

We're going to get him to put some dye into the affected gulley

at the customer's property, just to make sure it is running

through to this line and we're not doing all this work for nothing.

Check that out. It's lime green.

Tend to use me with the new starters.

This is me first time with an apprentice,

but anybody else that's, you know any new starters.

I've trained four up so far

and they've all gone on to do all right, so...

No trace of the dye comes through to the main sewer,

so I now know for sure the problem is back at the house.

With all the rain everywhere, it's just...

There's so much water that's held up in that drain.

Just trying to get it through.

Small Victorian sewers like this are notoriously fragile,

so a low pressure jet is used.

When I give you the thumbs up, you give him the thumbs up.

If I want it off, you do that.

If I want the pressure up, you do that.

It's not a large job in terms of

a collapsed sewer or a major internal flooding.

There's nothing like that here.

Nightmare.

What is all this? Is that tissue paper and...?

And poo.

-Foul, is it?

-Yeah, poo.

I'm not used to it yet myself at all, to be honest.

It is very messy at the moment.

I wasn't it expecting it to be this bad, to be honest with you.

I think I'm actually imagining that I'm smelling it

when I'm upstairs, even though the windows are shut,

but I suppose it does get up, doesn't it?

Into different parts of the house.

Right, we'll get to the bottom of it.

-Yeah, yeah, what a job you've got.

-We might have to stay a while,

-but we'll get to the bottom of it, all right?

-Yeah, yes.

The company needs around £1.6 billion

each year to maintain their supply and services,

so they rely on customers paying their bills.

Good afternoon. I need to speak to somebody who's

responsible for paying the bills, please.

When they don't, an estimated £15 is charged to those who do.

-AUTOMATED VOICE:

-The other person has hung up.

-OK, she's hung up.

I need to speak to your accounts payable department.

Account manager Jill is trying to get money off a business

they think owes £64,000.

The other person has hung up.

Debts as high as this are tackled by a dedicated task force

headed by Ian and Caroline.

We're on it. We're chasing those people down.

We're like Arnold Schwarzenegger in The Terminator, we will find them,

and we will take the action that we need to make sure that we get paid.

CLASSICAL MUSIC PLAYS

The business rents space out of a converted mill in Oldham.

We're here with a team and with the police,

so the plan now is we're going to disconnect the water supply

and tarmac it in.

The consequence of that then is there'll be no running water

in the mill, so they'll have to stop trading today.

The amount is an estimate.

The meter has not been read for three years

as company staff felt too intimidated to enter the building.

Looks like we've got a welcome committee out for us already.

When our engineers attend on site to locate the meter,

read the meter, they fear for their safety.

-Get a bit nervous.

-HE LAUGHS

A bit nervous, but it's gotta be done. It's gotta be done.

As a precaution, the police are also on site.

-So those guys are ready to go?

-Yeah.

So our team came out, was it...?

-Friday.

-On Friday.

And they refused access, so we put these on here to let them

know that we've actually been out.

With the debt rising and no payment forthcoming,

they decide to cut the supply off.

What he's doing now is compacting the tarmac,

so obviously if they try and dig it out they're going to find it very,

very difficult to do it themselves.

-Where's the other one?

-Just up the road here.

They've just got their heads down and getting on with the jobs.

We've got the police in attendance.

Should be out of here soon, anyway - it's a quick job.

They know what you're doing.

-There's somebody in reception there.

-All right, thanks very much.

Once the water's been cut off,

an official notice of disconnection is served.

-Right, is that it, then?

-Yeah, that's it.

-Nothing else.

Erm, right, the letter... We only got a letter come yesterday

afternoon that said that you was coming to do that and I had to speak

to you, but he wasn't here.

-So he was supposed to phone yous this morning.

-Right, OK.

Don't know if that is anything to go off, mate,

but he wasn't here yesterday afternoon

-when we actually got the letter...

-All right, OK.

..that you was coming to do it.

My guys are on stand-by to receive a call when he calls anyway.

-Right, no worries, mate.

-Thank you.

-I'll pass this on as soon as he come in.

-Thank you.

-All right.

-Bye-bye.

Thanks for your support. INDISTINCT SPEECH

I think it went to plan. I think the preparation paid off.

It's been disconnected now at half past six,

so I'm about to call our guys back at site just to update them

so they can update the account to reflect what's happened.

And there's every chance that they could call in now.

There's a chance that they may pay, there's a chance that they won't.

But if they don't pay, it doesn't stop there.

So, yes, they'll stay disconnected,

but the next step in the process will be we'll take them to court.

In Rochdale, apprentice Faiyaz is with waste water team Paul

and Adrian on a blocked drain job.

We're just going to give it another jet.

It looks like it might be coming back up again a little bit,

so we've possibly partially cleared it at this point.

It's turned out to be more of a blockage,

so a heavy blockage considering what we initially expected.

He seems to be doing all right, actually, doesn't he?

It is a bit of a shock, the first time you see something like that.

But, in fairness, this is pretty tame to what,

you know, you can see on site.

It-it-it'll be a good indicator at dinner time

to see how well he's coping with it. We'll have to see what he orders.

If he orders mushy peas, then we know he's coping all right.

How's it looking?

-Yeah, all right, that.

-I think you loosened it.

I think I loosened it.

We'll just wash it all down.

We'll use the lie of the land to wash it to the

manhole that's down there.

-Here you go.

-It's all right.

-Go on, shove it in the bucket.

You have to get your hands dirty at some point.

It's all right. It's all right. What is it?

It's just a...just a rag.

-What do you mean, a rag?

-Toilet wipe.

-It's all right.

-It's been cleaned.

-Well, shovel it down.

Shovel it down.

You need to have a really good strong stomach to continue...

continue doing this on a day-to-day basis.

I was just testing him to check his commitment as well.

Er, Adrian thrives on it, I think.

It's not for everybody.

We'll pack up then and get out of your way, if that's all right?

-No, it... Honestly.

-How was...?

I'm not worried about a bit of shit.

-Been dealing with it all me life.

-HE LAUGHS

That's it. They've solved the problem, that's all that matters.

It's very easy to call people, but to compliment them...

is few and far between. But I've got to compliment them, yeah.

And he doesn't give compliments out easily,

I can tell you, so there you go.

Looking forward to your sandwiches?

Yeah, just make sure I've got no poo on me hands before I get stuck in.

Nice.

We attended the property at 6am this morning

and there's two water supplies going into the mill,

so both of those have been disconnected

on the public highway.

At HQ, someone from the kitchen business calls in.

-PHONE RINGS

-Might be them now.

Good morning, United Utilities, you're speaking to Jill.

How can I help?

Hiya. I just want... First of all,

-I apologise for bills not being paid, yeah.

-Right.

I want to sort all this out.

I want to set up like a...

some, er, some payments more...

WOMAN: Tell 'em the bill's dated wrong.

Yeah, you know the bill? It's dated wrong.

-I'm only moved to the mill on a March...

-May.

..May, 2011.

I can hear somebody in the background feeding you

the information. Can you...?

It's just my secretary just passing me the paperwork.

Can I just confirm to you that our calls are being recorded here?

-Yeah, yeah.

-And what's your position?

I'm-I'm a proprietor.

-You're the proprietor. So the owner of the business?

-Yes.

And do you actually own the building?

Yeah. Sorry, no, I'm renting the... I'm renting it.

You're renting, and have you, at any time, contacted us to let us

-know you're occupying the property?

-No.

The only way, at this present moment,

that we're going to reconnect you, is if you make a payment in full.

Full payment is wrong. Sorry, it's wrong.

-Right, OK.

-I'm not going to pay you 63 grand if I'm...

I'm not going to pay for three years for someone else.

Right, well, as I said to you before,

because you haven't provided us with that information,

unfortunately, we can't do anything about that.

You need to get those details to us. Hello?

Hello?

He obviously got uncomfortable when you started asking questions.

I could hear, in the background, the feed coming through

-from somebody whispering.

-We'll listen to the call.

Possibly, Vicky, I don't know...

with the information regarding the account details.

Caroline listens to the recording.

You hear the words clearly, a female's voice, saying,

"Tell them the bills are wrong."

And then he repeats that to say the bills are wrong.

He then says, when Jill says, "Do you own the mill?"

He says, "Yes." And then he says, "Er, er, er, no."

More interestingly, wherever that call's coming from,

there's numerous people in the background.

My concern now is that mill's still open.

I'll listen to the rest of the call now,

see what other nuggets we can pull out.

Clifton Country Park is a beauty spot in Lancashire.

Today, there's something in the water.

A sewer under the bed of the River Irwell has burst

and is spewing waste from nearby Bolton.

I needed the storage, so that if we got a line solution in,

we can cure a liner in 12 hours.

Project manager Stewart Bell is in charge of repairing

it as quickly as possible.

There's a pressurised pipeline that runs beneath the river

and that pipe's failed, and it's now leaking.

It's pre-treated sewage.

It's leaking through, you know, fractures in the pipe, so we're not

getting a great deal of solids entering the water course.

But there is, you know, there is an element of sewage effluent

entering the river.

Polluting the river spells environmental disaster

and can incur unlimited fines.

We get big fines from the Environment Agency,

and so we need to try and control it as quickly as we can.

It'll be things like sanitary products, wipes, condoms,

they're the type of nasties that we get,

and we really don't want them things floating in the river.

It's not good.

The flow rate in this pipeline is around 700 litres a second.

If you can imagine a carton of milk, a one-litre carton of milk,

700 of those per second, so it is quite a substantial flow.

You know, if ultimately we had a total failure,

the effluent exiting the pipe there could potentially be up to,

you know, 20 feet in height.

So far, only 10% is getting into the river.

The plan is to seal off the flow of sewage going into the broken pipe.

But Bolton's sewage has to go somewhere -

that somewhere is into a temporary pipe built

over ground that will snake through the local park.

You can't rush these guys.

These guys are specialists and they're allowing

us to keep this main live, which is obviously the critical thing.

We don't want anything to go wrong.

Oh, yes, little bit of stink.

-Would you like a cupful?

-HE LAUGHS

-Makes your hair grow.

-He's right.

-THEY LAUGH

A workforce of 30 will work round the clock to get

the temporary pipe ready.

My guess is this job's going to cost £1 million, easy.

Er, but I think, really, for companies like us,

it's more about doing the right thing. Reputation is everything.

We do not want to pollute the environment.

Oldham.

Caroline and Ian have returned to the mill.

They suspect the business is still trading and using water illegally.

Oop.

That's one way to open a gate.

That was a bit spectacular.

'We were given a reading two days ago, which is 1398.

'We've just read the meter now, and it's 1402,'

so there's four units difference in two days...of the meter.

Erm, now we've shut it off on the street, on the pavement,

so there's nothing going into that building to go through the meter.

So it just... It-it-it can't register consumption

because there's no consumption for it to pick up.

-So...that is what... That is what's been taken out.

-Yeah.

Innit?

So that's been taken out it.

-So could it be possible then that's been connected up...?

-Possible.

..and that would explain why there's four digits difference...

-Possible.

-..in two days.

-Can't prove it. Possible, yeah.

So it's round four digits. It's been shut off there.

Draw your own conclusions as to what's happened, potentially.

Dawn the following day.

Caroline sanctions a team to concrete over all outside access

points to the water supply.

-So I think we just concrete them all in, all three.

-Yeah.

-Let's not...

-Right, let's go and do them.

-Yep.

-There's three valves down there.

We're going to lift each individual one up and fill them with concrete,

and then we're going to pour water on it and it'll set solid.

So they can't do what they've done over this last couple of weeks,

dig them out and re-use the water.

Plan A didn't work. Whatever's been done has been undone,

so this is Plan B.

And Plan C will be, most likely, that we cut the pipe in the street.

It's a big job to get this out.

They're going to have to pull the whole grid up to get to it now,

so it's a big job.

Is there any way to lock those in position...?

-Unfortunately not.

-No.

We came, we saw, we concreted, basically.

We'll check it in a few days

because someone could come at it with...a jackhammer.

If this is disturbed again, then it will be...

We'll have to go to more extreme measures, and it

might be we dig up and we cap the supply.

You absolutely don't want to do that,

but we're not going to keep coming out.

We're not playing cat and mouse.

Finally, after three years, they get in to take a meter reading.

The eye-watering £64,000 estimate is reduced to just over £15,000.

A few weeks later, the bill is paid in full and supply reconnected.

The Lake District, Cumbria.

15 million people visit the region every year,

putting a strain on the sewer network.

Carlisle Wastewater Treatment Works is one of the plants under pressure.

Andy is process controller.

On average we treat around 35 megalitres a day of sewage,

which is quite a sizeable amount.

When a waste stream comes in,

it needs to be checked to make sure it is what it says it is.

So that... In the past we have had companies bringing

stuff in that they say is septic tank waste, and they turn out

to be a little bit of septic tank waste and some industrial chemical

that they've taken a cash-in-hand thing, but not so much now.

So we'll just take it, we'll have a look at it, we'll smell it,

and we'll check the pH.

Carlisle is getting ready to treat all the waste

from a local music festival.

We've got Kendal Calling, a festival down in Kendal,

and basically the population of the town is virtually going to

double, so they'll have a lot of chemical toilets on site.

I couldn't think of anything worse.

It's for a certain type of person, a festival, isn't it?

Me daughter would go. Daughter would gladly go, but not for me.

Les is in charge of sampling.

I'm sure there'll be a bit of drinking goes on at the festival,

so I'd say the toilets will be pretty busy.

You can smell alcohol in it, definitely.

As soon as they bring it back there's a difference.

Obviously it's chemical toilets that you're dealing with too,

but you can smell that there's alcohol in it.

An influx of 15,000 are due to party this year.

I don't think they do a lot of eating at festivals, do they?

They just drink. I don't think there's much eating

at festivals, so it'll just be...

Just be a lot of pee and that's it, really,

so it shouldn't be too bad.

The Portaloos have to be emptied constantly.

Chris works for the supplier.

Well, I'm doing this most of the time.

So, in one way or other, septic tanks, or these. Yeah.

Doing all those jobs that nobody else wants to do, so...

Oh, there's not many volunteers to take over, anyhow.

Shed your undies, clean bot.

Oh, socks, underpants, yeah.

They run out of toilet paper and they use owt that's at hand.

HE LAUGHS

They must live like animals if they treat their own toilets like this.

Two weeks ago, we found a darts trophy in one.

It's just surprising what people eat.

HE LAUGHS

Yeah, I wouldn't want to be sitting down in a thunder box, would you?

Ugh! On a hot sunny day, four little plastic walls,

all that crap underneath you. Nah, it's not going to smell nice, is it?

Dave works for an independent waste collection service.

These lads are doing some of the smaller toilets,

the thunder boxes as we call them.

They can get with the... Travel on the wet ground.

So these lads are fetching it to us and we're taking it off site.

Well, I'm fairly full but...

-You got enough room?

-I'm not sure.

If we haven't, you might need some wellies.

As you can see on the sight glass, we're nearly full.

You see the readings go up 200 at a time.

We're sitting at 3,500 now. We'll go to four.

Dave does four trips a day to Carlisle treatment works.

I added it up and I think we've got to 58,500 gallons.

You've got to have certain tolerances.

It's got to come between certain guidelines.

These lads in here'll tell you.

Got to do this without getting covered.

Testing to see what the pH is.

It's gotta be above five and it's got to be below ten.

If it's not in the count we can't do it onto that. We can't tip it.

Had plenty of women turn me away, but not at a treatment plant, no.

If the sample is rejected, Dave will have to keep

the waste in his truck or dump it at a landfill site.

-5.20. Water'll be about what? Seven, is it?

-Yeah.

See it? Away it goes.

I'll still be smelling that, what did we call it?

Ammonia, whatever it is.

Still be smelling it.

That's it.

'I'll not sleep tonight thinking about it.'

It's been ten days since a burst sewer

began polluting the River Irwell.

A team of engineers has laid a temporary sewage pipe running

through Clifton Country Park.

I've just been fishing down here.

They come down with all their heavy-duty machinery

and started digging it up.

And now it's just like threaded, as you can see,

straight through here, straight across the river.

I couldn't believe the scale of it.

-Didn't expect to find this.

-No, it is a big shock.

Yeah, just a bit awkward at the moment with the...mobility scooter.

The wheels are not going to make it up there.

-You're not going to get it up.

-A challenge.

It is a very big challenge.

No, we'll have to go all the way back again. Come on, Fudgey.

-Come back when it's all sorted.

-Right, let's go.

Now, they just have to make sure there are no leaks.

We'll then... We'll follow the line up the path,

just monitor the pipe for the next half an hour, an hour,

just to make sure there's no leaks or anything.

Exciting stuff.

ON RADIO: The guys on the bridge,

can we...stop anybody going over the bridge while we

charge this pipe up, please?

Can you start the pumps and put them on a slow ramp?

Pray to the gods now.

This is it.

Pumps on now. Pumps on.

Pumps are starting now, so you should,

Paul, if you're down by the river, you should notice effluent

start, then it will stop as soon as this line stops in place.

OK, nothing yet. I'll tell you when I see it.

OK, take her up to 70.

Going up to 70%, lads.

If anyone has a problem anywhere on this pipeline,

shout and I'll get these pumps switched off.

Paul Rigby, you noticing anything down at that riverbed?

Really reduced flows down here at the minute.

It's not stopped yet, I'm assuming it'll take a couple of minutes,

but it's a lot, lot lower than it was previously.

Excellent. Well, that...that's good news. That ties in with this valve.

The increase in the pump rate is too much for one section.

MAN ON RADIO: We've got a leak halfway round.

It's spouting out about three foot out the pipe.

What side of the bridge is that, Zach?

Erm, Salford side. Actual pressure in the pipe that's causing it.

It's a two-foot squirt coming out the top of the pipe.

Are we thinking it's air or is it effluent streaming out of there?

I'd say effluent.

Repeat that, please?

Leak has stopped on the bridge.

Bit of good news.

Anyone got any leaks of any sort of magnitude they want to report?

I'm clear, Stewart. No leaks here, mate.

Paul Rigby, can you just give us an update from the river?

Yeah, the bubbling's stopped completely now.

Still got the mistiness coming from it, so hopefully...

once this main empties itself, hopefully that'll stop.

-Great result.

-But the bubbling's stopped completely,

just the mistiness in the river.

Just needs to watch see if the discolouration

disappears in the river, and then we're home and dry then.

Just looking down on you Paul from up here.

The mistiness looks like it's gone.

Cheers, gents.

The effluent discharging into the Irwell has stopped,

so at this stage it looks like the line's stops have been effective.

Looks like we've... looks like we've done it.

Just checking for gold.

Before you start a job, you always check for gold.

-BEEPING

-Gas leak.

Just stir the soup up.