water pollution

Bathers warned away from 25 beaches polluted by sewage in Wales

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https://leftfootforward.org/2024/05/bathers-warned-away-from-25-beaches-polluted-by-sewage-in-wales/

“You weren’t expecting to go swimming this bank holiday weekend, anyway, were you?”

Coastal tourist hotspots in Wales should be teeming with people this Bank Holiday weekend. But instead, people are being told to avoid them because of sewage pollution. 

Surfers Against Sewage, a leading UK marine conservation campaign charity, monitors water quality at over 450 river and coastal locations so people can swim, surf or splash without the risk of becoming ill. This week, the campaigners issued alerts that more than 25 beaches in Wales have been polluted by storm sewage or given a poor water classification.

Some of Wales’ most popular tourist destinations, including Criccieth, Tenby, Colwyn Bay, and Swansea, have been deemed as unsafe due to sewage pollution.

The campaigners warned how storm sewage had been discharged from sewer overflows within the past 48 hours at many beaches. They informed how short-term pollution is caused when heavy rainfall washes faecal material into the sea from livestock, sewage and urban drainage via streams and rivers.

Posting a report of the alerts on X, environmental campaigner Feargal Sharkey, who is vice chair of River Action, mocked: “You weren’t expecting to go swimming this bank holiday weekend anyway were you?”

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https://leftfootforward.org/2024/05/bathers-warned-away-from-25-beaches-polluted-by-sewage-in-wales/

Continue ReadingBathers warned away from 25 beaches polluted by sewage in Wales

A ‘car crash’ of different disasters has left UK with among the worst bathing conditions in Europe, campaigners warn

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https://leftfootforward.org/2024/04/a-car-crash-of-different-disasters-has-left-uk-with-among-the-worst-bathing-conditions-in-europe-campaigners-warn/

Campaigners are attributing privatisation, extreme weather, and politics to collectively creating the water pollution crisis.  

Almost all of Britain’s waterways are polluted. In 2023, sewage spills into England’s waterways more than doubled. Recently released figures from the Environment Agency show that there were 3.6 million hours of spills compared to 1.75 million hours in 2022.

A separate report from the Rivers Trust confirms the ‘desperate state’ of the country’s seas and rivers.

The State of Our Rivers Report concluded that no single stretch of river in Northern Ireland or England is in good overall health. The report follows an earlier damning verdict by a House of Commons Committee report in 2022, which concluded that no river in England was free from chemical contamination.

Within Europe, Britain’s polluted waterways have been described by Loughborough University as an “anomaly,” which have fallen behind other European countries in reporting significant improvements in bathing water quality in recent decades. In France, for example, authorities have spent billions of euros improving storm water and sewage treatment in an effort to clean up the River Seine for Olympic swimming events this summer.

As research lays bares the deterioration of the state of the nation’s waterway quality, anger is mounting over the dumping of untreated sewage into Britain’s seas and rivers, which are now ranked among the worse countries in Europe for water pollution.

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https://leftfootforward.org/2024/04/a-car-crash-of-different-disasters-has-left-uk-with-among-the-worst-bathing-conditions-in-europe-campaigners-warn/

Continue ReadingA ‘car crash’ of different disasters has left UK with among the worst bathing conditions in Europe, campaigners warn

Michael Gove gets rinsed over claim Britain’s waters are cleaner under Tories

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https://leftfootforward.org/2023/08/michael-gove-gets-rinsed-over-claim-britains-waters-are-cleaner-under-tories/

“The Tories are now going for outright gaslighting on water quality”

Image of a burst water main.
Image of a burst water main.

Michael Gove has faced fierce criticism for attempting to defend his party’s reputation on water pollution by claiming Britain’s water quality has got cleaner, while stating standards had got higher.

It comes as the Levelling Up Secretary scrapped EU-era water pollution restrictions for new homes, which will see taxpayers picking up the bill for pollution caused by housebuilders.

In an attempt to justify the latest Tory assault on environmental regulation, Gove insisted on Times Radio that rivers are ‘cleaner than they have been in the past’.

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Commentators accused Gove of lying and suggested the reason EU countries were spending less money on improving water supplies was because they do not need the vast scale of improvements required in the UK due to decades of water company mismanagement.

Singer and clean water campaigner Feargal Sharkey offered Gove some assistance in getting the facts straight.

“Let me help with that,” Sharkey replied. “Not a single river in England passes the chemical test, not one, they all fail, every single one.

“The ecology test? In 2009 25% of rivers were in ‘Good’ condition, 2016 fell to 14%, govt’s prediction by 2027 that will have fallen to 6%. Shame on you.”

Furthermore, recent analysis has suggested that illegal levels of toxic pollutant, like ammonia, released into rivers by water companies goes undetected due to a flawed ‘self-monitoring’ system by the Environment Agency.

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https://leftfootforward.org/2023/08/michael-gove-gets-rinsed-over-claim-britains-waters-are-cleaner-under-tories/

Continue ReadingMichael Gove gets rinsed over claim Britain’s waters are cleaner under Tories

Water company bosses enjoy £15m bonuses despite sewage dumping

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Campaigners gather on Fistral Beach, Newquay, as they take part in a National Day of Action on Sewage Pollution. Picture date: Saturday April 23, 2022.

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/b/water-company-bosses-enjoy-ps15m-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.

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/b/water-company-bosses-enjoy-ps15m-bonuses-despite-sewage-dumping

Continue ReadingWater company bosses enjoy £15m bonuses despite sewage dumping