Shades of Orwellian double-speak and an interesting contradiction. How can ‘good progress’ be equated with the first rise in incidents since 2012  – to 1902 incidents – (an increase of 160 pollution incidents) from the nine major water companies?

The EA’s report found the majority of the UK’s water companies achieved close to or exceeded targets set to improve water quality. The majority of the UK’s water companies achieved close to or exceeded targets set to improve water quality, according to a new report published by the Environment Agency today. Wessex Water and United Utilities were the top performing water companies, repeating last year’s success. In a year when the Environment Agency introduced tougher standards, water companies made good progress in meeting the new targets. However, the total number of pollution incidents increased by 160 in 2016, the first increase since 2012.

While water companies continue to improve their reporting of pollution to ensure impact can be minimised and wildlife protected downstream, the Environment Agency has urged some water companies to make significant improvements to bring down pollution levels.

The report which ranks the nine big water and sewage companies in England on a range of measures needed to protect the environment also showed:

• All companies achieved the target to complete work to build and upgrade infrastructure which will improve water quality, water resources and river biodiversity.
• Eight out of nine water companies gained full marks for protecting water supply security. This is crucial following the dry winter as some rivers, reservoirs and groundwaters are lower than normal for the time of year but there are no water supply issues.
• Safe recovery or disposal of sewage sludge took place 99.9% of the time and was mostly used to improve agricultural land, generate heat or power. And compliance with permits at sewage treatment and water treatment works is at 98.6% on average, while good is still short of the 100% target.
• The number of serious pollution incidents has continued to decline. However there was an increase in total numbers of incidents and of the most damaging pollution incidents, nine up from four in the previous year. Click here to download the report.