From the outset of the Cameron Conservative Government their mantra has been ‘As Conservatives, we are committed to leaving the environment in better condition than we inherited it’. If anyone was looking for evidence of how that hasn’t happened they need look no further that sewage pollution of rivers and the coast and the shambolic U turn of the last […]
From the Guardian The head of the Environment Agency has called for the government to reinstate a £120m grant to help increase surveillance of water companies and cut pollution in rivers. Sir James Bevan, the chief executive of the agency, told MPs that water companies and the farming industry, the two main polluters of rivers, were not […]
Ofwat David Black 18 June 2021 ‘Dear Chief Executive, Improving performance on the use of storm overflows In my new role as Ofwat’s Interim CEO I have been keen to meet with companies and stakeholders to hear more about the steps the sector is and will be taking to meet the challenges and ambitions of […]
The information on the situation with storm overflows continues to grab the attention: this week: The Rivers Trust – see below – have produced a map of sewage overspills in 2020 The BBC Panorama Programme has accused the water companies of illegally dumping sewage in rivers: watch the programme The only inland bathing water has […]
EA ‘The Environment Agency has published the Event Duration Monitoring (EDM) data for 2020, which tracks the operation of storm overflows. This data has always been available by information request, but following the commitment made by the Storm Overflows Taskforce to increase the transparency and accessibility of this data, it’s now available on GOV.UK. This year […]
The Rivers Trusts ‘Data released today by the Environment Agency (EA) shows that storm overflows (SOs) discharged untreated sewage and storm water more than 400,000 times, and for more than 3 million hours during 2020 in England. This is a shocking volume of untreated contaminated wastewater reaching our rivers and shows that our current approach […]
Measures to reduce harm from storm overflows to be made law Defra ‘New legal duties on water companies and government will reduce sewage discharged into waterways. Measures to reduce sewage discharges from storm overflows will be put into law, the government confirmed today (Monday 29 March), as part of an ambitious agenda to build back […]