Water company bosses enjoy £15m bonuses despite sewage dumping
WATER company bosses were paid almost £15 million in bonuses last year despite overseeing 825 unlawful sewage discharges a day, leaving every river in England and many coastal waters polluted.
Labour vowed today to “hold water bosses to account for negligence over unlawful discharges” and a campaign group is gathering tens of thousands of signatures on an online petition calling for the bonuses to be scrapped.
The petition has been launched by pressure group 38 Degrees, whose name derives from the angle at which fallen snow turns into an avalanche.
The group said: “Despite sewage being pumped into our rivers and seas 825 times a day last year, water company CEOs received nearly £15 million in bonuses.
…
UK Extinction Rebellion joins other groups to protest UK govt policy of open sewers throughout UK
UK Extinction Rebellion joined with other groups on Saturday’s Dirty Water national day of action protesting UK government’s policy of open sewers throughout UK.
Target date for cleaning up waterways in England is moved back by 36 years
Targets to clean up the majority of England’s rivers, lakes and coastal waters suffering from a cocktail of agricultural and sewage pollution have been pushed back from 2027 to 2063.
…
Until Brexit the UK government was signed up to the water framework directive, which required countries to make sure all their waters achieved “good” chemical and ecological status by 2027 at the latest. The UK government later reduced the target to 75% of waterways reaching the single test of good ecological status by 2027 at the latest. The target for the majority of waterways to achieve good status in both chemical and ecological tests has now been pushed back to 2063, according to the documents.
By 2027, only 4% of waters are currently on track to be in good overall condition.
…
Target date for cleaning up waterways in England is moved back by 36 years
Environment Agency under fire for extending schedule for tackling pollution in rivers, lakes and coastal waters to 2063
Targets to clean up the majority of England’s rivers, lakes and coastal waters suffering from a cocktail of agricultural and sewage pollution have been pushed back from 2027 to 2063.
Not one English waterway, including rivers, lakes, estuaries and coastal waters is in good ecological and chemical health at present, with pollution from water treatment plants and agriculture the key sources of the damage. The Environment Agency said on Thursday £5.3bn was being invested for the next five years to stop the further deterioration of waterways.
But the summary documents within the plan reveal the target for all 3,651 water bodies to achieve good chemical and ecological status – a state in which they are as close to their natural state as possible – was now decades away in 2063.
Until Brexit the UK government was signed up to the water framework directive, which required countries to make sure all their waters achieved “good” chemical and ecological status by 2027 at the latest. The UK government later reduced the target to 75% of waterways reaching the single test of good ecological status by 2027 at the latest. The target for the majority of waterways to achieve good status in both chemical and ecological tests has now been pushed back to 2063, according to the documents.
…
dizzy: 2063, does that mean never that waters need to be cleaned up by? Filthy waters for the UK population then and greater profits to the effectively unregulated privatised companies responsible. I’m sure that someone warned that Brexit was about deregulation …
French politicians say that UK waters and politics are full of shit
Hundreds of coastal overflow sites ‘not included’ in government sewage plan
Government plans to reduce sewage spills in English waters fail to include hundreds of storm overflows into estuaries and the sea, according to new analysis.
In the government’s draft storm overflow discharge reduction plan the only coastal overflows that must cut spills are those near designated bathing sites, but it’s not clear what distance is classified as “near” one, according to the Marine Conservation Society.
Its analysis found that around 600 coastal sites therefore won’t have to reduce the number of times they spill sewage into the sea, some of which could be near Marine Protected Areas.
Meanwhile, for inland waters and designated bathing waters water companies must not discharge sewage more than an average of 10 rainfall events per year by 2050, according to the draft targets. A rainfall event is up to 12 hours of rain.
…
By 2050? Looks like UK government shits are quite content with UK swimming in shit. I suppose it’s only poor, insignificant people after all. Rich people can swim at European beaches of course …
Merde! French fury over UK’s ‘despicable’ sewage dumping that ‘reflects image of government’
Britain’s “despicable” dumping of raw sewage into the sea threatens human health, fishing grounds and marine life in the English Channel and the North Sea, says a French MEP leading a campaign to sue the British government.
Stéphanie Yon-Courtin told i that she was shocked by the surge in cases of Britain’s sewage overflows seeping directly into the sea, which “reflects the image of the government.”
…
“reflects the image of the government.” = full of shits
Liz Truss ‘has sewage on her hands’ over Environment Agency cuts
The Tory leadership frontrunner, Liz Truss, was responsible for cutting millions of pounds of funding earmarked for tackling water pollution during her time as environment secretary, the Guardian can reveal.
Truss, who was in charge at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) between 2014 and 2016, oversaw “efficiency” plans set out in the 2015 spending review to reduce Environment Agency funding by £235m.
This included a £24m cut from a government grant for environmental protection, including surveillance of water companies to prevent the dumping of raw sewage, between 2014-15 and 2016-17, according to the National Audit Office.
…