The EA has released ‘Water and sewerage companies in England: environmental performance for 2020’.

Chair’s foreword

The progress made against the Environmental Performance Assessment’s (EPA) metrics over the last 5 years shows that clear targets and regulatory focus combined with investment in the environment delivers change. From 2020’s results there is welcome news that for the first time over half the sector has achieved the highest rating (industry leading status, 4 stars), of those Wessex Water, United Utilities and Severn Trent Water have sustained industry leading performance for most of the 5 year period. Northumbrian and Yorkshire Water have also shown improvements based on a range of measures including pollution incidents, and compliance with permits.

However, the performance of some companies gives us serious cause for concern. Southern Water and South West Water remain at the bottom of the table. South West Water has received a 2 star rating for the entire 5 years of the EPA and this drags down the whole sector’s reputation. Anglian and Thames Water have not shown significant improvement over the past 5 years, and more than half of all serious incidents in 2020 were from the assets of these 2 companies.

When under pressure on the issue of pollution, there is still a tendency for some water companies to reach for excuses rather than taking action to reduce serious pollution incidents to zero. Last week’s record £90 million fine against Southern Water for causing 6,971 unpermitted sewage discharges, shows that fines for environmental offences are starting to reach the same level as the highest fines for crimes in financial services. No one should profit from undermining environmental laws.

Read more.

Performance messages for 2020

For 2020, the main performance messages for the sector are:

• 5 companies, the most ever, achieved the industry leading EPA rating (4 stars) – we were clear what was required and these companies have shown it is possible to meet environmental targets
• Severn Trent Water, United Utilities and Wessex Water sustained strong performance, achieving industry leading status (4 stars) at least 3 times in the last 5 years
• serious incidents (category 1 and 2) declined for the second year in a row and were at the lowest number ever – however the sector as a whole needs to accelerate to zero serious incidents
• 2% of sewage treatment works (STW) and water treatment works (WTW) were compliant with permit conditions for discharging treated waste water – this is the highest number ever of treatment sites (not storm overflows) meeting pollutant numeric limits set to protect the environment
• the total number of pollution incidents (category 1 to 3) was less than in 2019, but the second highest number since 2015
• incident self-reporting at 77% was lower than the record high of 80% in 2019 – but this was still the second highest rate of self-reporting in the period 2011 to 2020
• we rated Southern Water and South West Water as requiring improvement (2 stars) – their performance has been consistently unacceptable during the last 5 years
• Southern Water and South West Water were significantly below target (red) for the EPA sewerage incidents metric – South West Water for the tenth year in a row
• South West Water was the only company significantly below target (red) for the EPA serious incidents metric – but over half of serious incidents were due to Anglian Water and Thames Water
• 2% of planned environmental improvement schemes were completed against Asset Management Plan (AMP) targets, with 3 companies failing to fully meet their deadlines
• Anglian Water and South West Water failed to achieve a score of 100 for the Security of Supply Index (SoSI) for water availability
• we assessed water company sludge performance data but continued to suspend the sludge disposal and use metric
• the sector has not met the performance expectations for 2015 to 2020 which we set out in 2013 – water companies still need to make and sustain substantial improvements

All the company performance information can be accessed here.

The Guardian leads on ‘Water industry in England failing on raw sewage pollution’. Read more.

Progress made but too many water companies still falling short – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)