
Press & Media
The Guardian: English water companies offer apology and £10bn investment for sewage spills
Water companies in England have apologised for repeated sewage spills and pledged to invest £10bn this decade in an attempt to quell public anger over pollution in seas and rivers.
The Times: Water firms fined £10m for sewage spills as bosses get £30m in bonuses
Water firms were fined just £10.5 million for sewage spills that killed tens of thousands of fish over seven years, while industry executives earned bonuses worth £30 million in two years.
The Telegraph: Water in national parks ‘more polluted’ than in rest of country
Baroness Boycott asked whether national parks such as that surrounding Lake Windermere would have greater protection as a result of their status. She gave the example of “Windermere Lake, which is incredibly polluted at the moment, on a very bad level of people getting parasites – I know someone who had a three-week parasite” and added “does the fact you’re in a national park give you any greater protection over your water than we seem to have in other waterways?” She said that the parasite came directly from human sewage."
The Westmorland Gazette: Matt Staniek looking for volunteers for invertebrate sampling
Matt Staniek is looking for volunteers to help him hold water companies to account.
The Save Windermere campaign and WildFish are looking for 20 volunteers to establish a SmartRivers monitoring hub, due to start on May 23-24.
BBC: Local elections 2023 - How sewage topped the political agenda
Two weeks before voters in parts of England and in Northern Ireland go to the polls to choose new councillors, those in office are swimming against a tide of public anger at water companies dumping untreated, raw sewage.
Most waste water travels to sewage works to be treated but under "exceptional circumstances", companies are allowed to pump the excess into the sea and rivers to prevent homes and roads being flooded with it.
However, EA figures show this is not occasional. Last year, sewage was pumped into England's waterways for a total of 1.75 million hours - 825 times a day on average.
The Mirror: Labour planning local ad blitz if Tory MPs block sewage dumping crackdown plan
The party plan to hold a binding vote on Tuesday to introduce a bill that would implement legally binding targets to reduce sewage dumping, and impose automatic fines.
Figures suggest 7,785 days’ worth of raw human sewage was dumped in Tory-held ‘red wall’ seats last year.
Analysis of Environment Agency data, broken down by constituency by campaign group Top of the Poops shows that in 2022, raw sewage was discharged into these ‘Red Wall’ seats for 186,861 hours, the equivalent of a continuous flow of sewage for a staggering 48 months.
Research also points to 35,219 sewage dumping events having taken place in ‘Red Wall’ constituencies last year. This equates to an average of 96 sewage dumps per day or a new sewage dump taking place every 14 minutes.
Mail Online: Revolutionary app highlights toxic levels of sewage in Britain's beautiful rivers and lakes
A new system will allow the levels of the harmful blue-green algae to be known in real time, letting wild swimmers and lake users know if it is safe to go into the waters.
Save Windermere have now started an £8,000 fundraiser to pay for the IO Light microscopes, which will be sold at a discounted price, and for the AI software by partners Bloom Optix which can identify the harmful cyanobacteria 'as well as a trained scientist'.
The Times: Cumbrian village suffered 321 sewage spills in past year
On Wednesday, the EA said its investigators had found that United Utilities had been spilling sewage from the local Cark pumping station into the river, even during periods of dry weather.
Water companies are allowed to spill sewage only under exceptional circumstances, when it is raining so heavily that the system cannot cope with the amount of water and effluent.
BBC Radio Cumbria: Interview with Matt Staniek about new campaign film
Listen to an interview with Matt on BBC Radio Cumbria about new campaign film and the Save Windermere’s demands to United Utilities.
iNews: United Utilities offer £75 compensation to customer following complaint about sewage dumping in rivers
An environmental campaigner who is protesting against sewage dumping by refusing to pay part of his water bill has accused his supplier of “attempting to shut him up” by paying him £75 in compensation.
The Guardian: Finally, there’s something to unite Britain – disgust at what is happening to our waterways and seas
What’s unusual is that the outrage cuts across traditional political divides, uniting everyone from laidback surfers to retired pillars of the community living in seaside towns who worry that the beaches aren’t safe for their visiting grandchildren. Born-again wild swimmers, evangelical about the mental health benefits of cold water, are naturally up in arms. But so are lifelong environmentalists, anglers, owners of tourist businesses dependent on the sea, and people who are none of those things but see in these murky waters another sign of national decline.
The Times: Unlimited penalties for water firms that pollute
Water companies will face unlimited fines for polluting rivers and the sea under government plans to protect the environment.
Thérèse Coffey, the environment secretary, will announce plans next week to scrap the £250,000 cap on civil penalties for companies.
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