Swimming in Sewage

Surfers Against Sewage have found that, this year, water companies discharged raw sewage almost 3000 times on to bathing water beaches in England and Wales (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/nov/06/raw-sewage-dumped-into-english-and-welsh-beaches-2900-times-this-year). They are apparently allowed to release sewage as part of 'emergency overflow' provisions but the practice doesn't sit at all well with 'blue flag beach' designations or the health of the general public (I appreciate that salt water kills many pathogens but it's not nice to be swimming with the brown stuff). One company (Southern Water) reportedly doesn't even put up notices for the public advising them about the discharges. I appreciate that there can be emergencies but suspect that more could be done (at cost) to reduce the need to discharge.