How convenient Thames Water promoted a new £5billion London sewage pipe the same day government data collared them as the nation’s worst river polluter.
I am no master of the dark arts of spin, but this sounds very much like it to me.
A distraction from the devastating news that last year, once again, England’s rivers got dumped on with millions of hours of raw sewage discharges – in the east, west, south and north, hardly a river untouched by sewage.
A gift from water companies that since privatisation, over thirty years ago, have failed to build a single new reservoir nor taken the steps to future-proof creaking infrastructure from extreme weather events fuelled by climate change. Odd then that they greedily lined the pockets of shareholders through dividends; or paid interest on debt accrued since their slate was wiped clean by Maggie Thatcher.
Now, as we have revealed, rowers in our most historic Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race contend with keeping themselves safe from E.coli. Our World Health Organization (WHO) verified pathogen incubator shows 10 times more E.coli than is permitted in the worst rated bathing waters. As a result, River Action, in partnership with British Rowing and Rivers Trust, has issued health guidance to the rowers including keeping wounds like blisters covered, washing thoroughly and not throwing the winning team’s cox in the water!
This crisis is because Thames Water spilled sewage in the river not only during exceptional storm events but during dry spells too. They are not alone in doing this. All the water companies are guilty.
Fat-cat water bosses should get a grip of the crisis their businesses have helped create through chronic under-investment that has resulted in them spewing millions of hours of raw sewage into our rivers every year, 3.6 million hours in 2023, double the amount in 2022.
We want to see water company executive pay linked with performance and that shareholders should pay for catching up on decades of delayed infrastructure investment not make bill payers take the hit.
However, there is a much bigger issue.
We face a freshwater emergency in the UK, the water companies are ill-prepared for weather related events like storms and droughts fuelled by climate breakdown.
Perhaps just as worrying, the industry regulators – Ofwat and Environment Agency in England – continue to allow water companies to get away with leaking raw sewage into rivers and wasting valuable clean water.
Following a decade of budget cuts in regulation, a staggering three billion litres of drinking water is leaked every single day. Fixing this must be the top priority of all water companies, not rewarding boardroom failure.
We have had enough.
It is time our politicians of all stripes collaborated and gave teeth and funding to regulators as well as delivered the water company bosses a stern talking to – demanding they get their house in order or face the full force of the law.
Failing water companies like Thames Water should be refinanced and made to prioritise the supply of safe drinking water to millions of households, not bunging up our rivers and seas with raw sewage.
