Image description: A polluted river with a plastic bottle floating on the surface. Photo by engin akyurt on Unsplash
Thousands of serious pollution incidents by water companies in England were allegedly downgraded by Environment Agency (EA) staff without visiting to investigate, the Guardian has exclusively revealed via a whistleblower’s account.
New data was unearthed by freedom of information (FoI) requests by a former agency staff member, Robert Forrester, who left the EA in January and recently had his identity as a key whistleblower revealed in the Channel 4 factual drama Dirty Business.
According to the Guardian, the data shows 2,778 serious pollution incidents by water companies were reported in 2024. The FoI data shows around 2,735 (98%) were subsequently downgraded to minor incidents by officials. Officers attended just 496 sites before downgrading the pollution event, with data suggesting the rest were deemed minor events on water company evidence alone.
Water companies paying agency budget creates ‘conflict of interest’
The Guardian estimates this represents nearly a 1,500% increase on the 174 downgrades in 2021, of which 60 were attended. Out of the initial 2,778 serious incidents that were provided by water companies, the EA officially recorded only 75 serious incidents, which it said was a rise of 60% from 2023.
EA staff member turned whistleblower, Forrester reportedly left the agency after several years during which he was put under suspension, and given restricted duties, following what he believes were suspicions that he was blowing the whistle.
But Forrester believes this model, where water companies pay for the budget of agency enforcers, created a conflict of interest: “The key thing is that water companies are still controlling our attendance. As an officer with 21 years’ experience I saw it change from 12 to 15 years ago when we would actually get out on site, and we were encouraged to protect, investigate and enforce.”
EA warned staff not to speak to the media
In 2017 Forrester first began trying to expose what he saw as an increasingly intimate relationship between the regulator and the industry when a key report on the toxicity of sewage sludge was withheld from the public. A 2020 Greenpeace investigation eventually published its findings after Forrester spoke with them, revealing sewage waste marked for application to crops in the UK was contaminated with dangerous “persistent organic pollutants” such as dioxins, furans, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons at “levels that may present a risk to human health”.
In 2021, while Forrester was on a 12-month suspension, the Guardian reports then chief executive of the agency, James Bevan, warned all staff against speaking to the media.
His warning was condemned by Andrew Pepper-Parsons, the head of policy at Protect, a UK whistleblowing charity, who said at the time: “Regulators have an important role to play in encouraging whistleblowing to staff and the sector it regulates, and it is not in the spirit of promoting speaking up to warn staff against speaking to the media.”
EA response to allegations
An EA spokesperson said: “We receive 100,000 reports a year and respond to every water pollution incident, all of which are carefully assessed. We focus our resources on the most serious incidents using all our investigative tools, from real-time data to on-the-ground inspections.
“Using our largest ever budget for water enforcement and compliance, we have fundamentally changed our approach. More people, better data and increased powers mean we are taking action and this year we are on track to do 10,000 inspections of water company assets, rooting out wrongdoing and driving better performance.”