Britain's top water company dumped 1,374 illegal spills into rivers | water

Two of Britain's biggest water companies have dumped raw sewage into rivers across the country after allegedly illegally breaching their permits despite receiving the highest possible ratings from regulators for their environmental performance, the Observer can reveal.

Severn Trent Water and United Utilities were responsible for 1,374 sewage spills in breach of permits on more than 80 waterways over the past two years, according to an analysis of previously unreleased operational data. The suspected illegal emissions are believed to have occurred during dry weather or when the plant was not operating.

Both companies received a four-star rating from the Environment Agency this year for their performance in 2023. Over the past five years, the two companies have paid a total of $2.8 billion in dividends to shareholders and paid millions of pounds in bonuses to their bosses. , both of which have repeatedly cited the regulator's top ratings.

Commenting on the revelations, Water Minister Emma Hardy said: “For too long, water companies have poured record levels of sewage into our rivers, lakes and oceans. This government will ensure that something like this never happens again.

Ashley Smith, founder of campaign group Windrush Against Sewage Pollution (Wasp), which carried out the study, said it was shocking that two companies were given the highest rating despite clearly allowing large-scale illegal discharges.

He said: These environmental performance assessments are at the heart of the trick that has allowed the privatized water industry to pay huge dividends and bonuses.

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This was a check-the-box exercise aimed at profiteering and preventing regulatory failure. It is a national disgrace. Water companies said they believed the findings were based on assumptions and could not be trusted.

The Environment Agency provides an annual assessment of the environmental performance of the nine water and wastewater companies operating in the UK. Severn Trent has received the highest rating for the fifth year in a row. United Utilities received top ratings in 2020, 2021, and 2023.

In response to the new findings, the agency said a four-star rating does not mean the company has perfect performance. They also announced that they are discussing changes to the environmental performance assessment.

A spokesperson for the agency said: The overall performance of water companies, including Severn Trent and United Utilities, has not reached the level required and a key area of ​​improvement for the company is stopping spills on unacceptable dry days.

Water companies faced public outrage after Guardian first revealed in July 2020 that they had discharged raw sewage into British rivers more than 200,000 times in just one year.

Sewage treatment works near the village of Colwall in Herefordshire were discharged 72 times in 2021 and 2022 for suspected breaches of permit conditions. Photo: Francesca Jones/The Observer

The company is allowed to discharge raw sewage during heavy rains, but the latest analysis found there was a possibility of illegal discharge. Rivers campaign group Wasp compared rainfall records with water company operational data and regulatory permits for wastewater treatment works (2021-2022) to expose the scale of suspected illegal discharges.

The analysis found that Severn Trent committed 494 alleged illegal sewage discharges in 2021 and 309 in 2022 across its 50 wastewater treatment plants. A sewage treatment plant in the village of Colwall, Herefordshire, was discharged 72 times in 2021 and 2022 for suspected breaches of permit conditions.

Data shows that a treatment operation in Derby illegally discharged sewage into the River Derwent on 35 days over two years. There were also suspected illegal spills in the Severn, Trent and Cam in Gloucestershire.

United Utilities' wasp analysis found the company committed 308 suspected illegal spills in 2021 and 263 in 2022 at its 35 wastewater treatment plants. Newbiggin Sewage Treatment Plant in Morecambe Bay, a designated Special Conservation Area, had 84 cases of suspected illegal discharges in 2021 and 2022.

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It is through the tireless efforts of citizen scientists that we now know about the condition of our rivers.

Peter Hammond, author of the Wasps report, said there may have been hundreds of illegal leaks from the company, but in these cases data from recording equipment could not be considered robust enough to distinguish between legitimate and illegal leaks. Hammond said the government should replace the current devices with flow meters to record frequency, duration and volume. Any bonuses based on unreliable environmental data should be clawed back, he said.

Hammond and Smith, who are classified as sewage detectives, previously used machine learning to detect untracked sewage discharges, with a paper published in March 2021. Eight months later the Environment Agency announced its largest ever criminal investigation into possible breaches of sewage environmental conditions. It has a therapeutic effect.

Industry regulator Ofwat last week ordered water companies to return $158 million to customers through bills due to poor performance. However, Severn Trent and United Utilities have reportedly exceeded their targets and will be able to charge customers more next year.

Colwall Orchard Group volunteers testing the water quality of the River Severn. Photo: Francesca Jones/The Observer

Charles Watson, chairman of the charity River Action, said: It is only through the tireless work of citizen scientists that we can know the state of our rivers while regulators are dysfunctional. It is infuriating that dividends and bonuses were paid out by a company that was consistently involved in widespread illegal activity.

Severn Trent chief executive Liv Garfield has been handed a £3.2m salary contract for 2023/24, including a bonus of £584,000. Louise Beardmore, CEO of United Utilities, was paid $1.4 million per year through March 31, 2024, including an annual bonus of $420,000.

A United Utilities spokesperson said: The methodology used in this report is not one used by regulators or companies and continues to be based on assumptions rather than actual evidence or measured data. A spokesperson said they understood people's concerns about sewage discharges and were embarking on the largest environmental investment in infrastructure in 100 years.

Severn Trent said: “Our sites have complex hydraulic configurations with multiple interdependencies that must be evaluated using site-specific assurance data, while desktop analyzes such as this can only produce assumptions and unreliable conclusions.

We have made progress to improve the health of our rivers and are accelerating delivery with an additional $1 billion raised by investors, with $450 million invested to reduce runoff this year alone. The company said Colwall's operations were operating in accordance with permits and that the Environment Agency's performance assessments were rigorous and intensive, making it the only water company to achieve the highest rating for five consecutive years.

A government spokesman said new water legislation passing parliament would tighten regulations, including powers to ban bonus payments to bosses of polluting companies. A review of the water sector will also be conducted.

A spokesperson for Water UK, the industry trade association, said: Sewage spills are absolutely unacceptable and we have a plan to fix this. Water companies have proposed investing $11 billion to reduce runoff by 40% by 2030. Now we need Ofwat to give us the green light to continue this work.

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