England’s rivers and coasts have long been beset with a major problem: an astonishing discharge of untreated sewage by water companies, some of it illegal, which critics say has sickened bathers and polluted the country’s critical ecosystems.
“It’s disgusting when you’re in the water and see and smell sewage,” said Josh Harris, a spokesperson for Surfers Against Sewage, a pollution monitoring charity and one of the groups leading a growing public outcry against the pollution. of the English waterways. .
Private water and sewer companies in England admitted on Thursday that they had not done enough to tackle sewage outflows and announced a plan totaling £10 billion, or about $12.4 billion, to repair the country’s sewers to modernize.
Last year alone, the companies sent more than 1.75 million hours of wastewater into rivers and seas, amounting to a total of 301,091 discharges, or an average of 825 per day, according to government data, a slight decrease from the previous year, largely due to drier weather, no preventative action from water companies, England’s Environment Agency said.
“The message from the water and sewerage industry today is clear: we’re sorry,” Ruth Kelly, the chairman of Water UK, a body representing Britain’s water companies, said in a press release, adding that companies were listening. “The public is right to be angry about the current quality of our rivers and beaches.”
The apology comes after actions over the past year by environmental regulators in England to hold water and sewage companies accountable. Regulators came under pressure from activists who also accused them of not being strict enough to regulate or enforce existing rules around pollutant limits.
Businesses in England are only allowed to discharge untreated sewage in exceptional circumstances, such as during severe storms that strained Victorian-era infrastructure.
The government has promised to make changes, including introducing tighter timelines for when companies can discharge untreated sewage and tougher penalties for breaking rules. Since 2015, regulators have taken legal action that have penalized water companies with more than £144 million, or about $178 million in fines, and in 2021 the Environment Agency launched investigations that have brought more attention to the companies’ dumping practices.
Government officials and regulators welcomed Thursday’s announcement, saying they would work closely with water companies to ensure they make improvements. The plan only applies to England, as Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland manage their own sewage treatment plants. But residents of those countries have also pressured officials to curb waste spills.
While environmental groups and experts called the apology a start, they questioned why water companies were allowed to dump so much sewage for so long and why customers would have to pay for the increased investment.
“This is not a show-off moment,” said Darren Reynolds, a health and environment professor at the University of the West of England in Bristol, adding that the apology came after the water industry repeatedly denied there was a problem. “We’re talking about meeting a minimum competency level.”
Private water companies, seeking to maximize costs to their shareholders, had shied away from accountability and regulators had failed to do their jobs effectively, he said, in part because of chronic underfunding. Still, the situation represented a systemic failure at a time when the effect of pollution on waterways could have longer-term consequences for future ecology.
“It’s not just falling asleep behind the wheel,” Professor Reynolds said. “We have been actively destroying our aquatic environment.”
Even with the apologies, it was hard to trust that the new plan amounted to actual change, said Surfers Against Sewage spokesman Mr Harris, who said the current limits on water utilities didn’t go far enough.
“They have overseen decades of mismanagement of our sewage network while diverting tens of billions to shareholders,” he said.
Water UK said on Thursday that investors would pay the cost first and the investment would be paid back “in modest increments” through the water bill each year. But the country needed a long-term plan to radically change how water systems are managed, Professor Reynolds said.
“When we talk about making the world cleaner and healthier, it’s pretty devastating,” he said, adding that England was lagging behind in water innovation. “You have to lead by example – and we clearly didn’t.”