The Environmental Audit Committee (EAC) is warning today that poor water quality in English rivers is a result of chronic underinvestment and multiple failures in monitoring, governance and enforcement - not a single river in England has received a clean bill of health for chemical contamination.

MPs on the House of Commons Committee are warning that only 14% of English rivers meet good ecological status, with pollution from agriculture, sewage, roads and single-use plastics contributing to a dangerous ‘chemical cocktail’ coursing through our waterways.

The EAC sets out a string of hard-hitting criticisms in a new report published today Water quality in rivers following a wide-ranging inquiry.

Outdated, inadequate and underfunded monitoring

According to the EAC, it is currently difficult getting a complete overview of the health of rivers and the pollution affecting them is hampered by outdated, underfunded and inadequate monitoring regimes. “It is clear, however, that rivers in England are in a mess,” the report says.

Budget cuts to the Environment Agency have hampered the ability to monitor water quality in rivers and detect permit breaches or pollution incidents from the water industry and farming. At the moment, river quality monitoring does not routinely identify microplastics, persistent chemical pollutants or anti-microbial resistant pathogens flowing through rivers.

The Committee heard that, until the passing of the Environment Act last year, there had been a lack of political will to improve water quality, with successive governments, water companies and regulators seemingly turning a blind eye to antiquated practices of dumping sewage and other pollutants in rivers. “Successive governments, water companies and regulators have grown complacent and seem resigned to maintaining pre-Victorian practices of dumping sewage in rivers.”

Public health risks

The EAC warns that bacteria found in sewage and animal slurry can cause sickness and that disturbing evidence suggests they are becoming breeding grounds for antimicrobial resistance.

However, few river users are able to make informed decisions about when it is safe to use rivers downstream of storm overflows and wastewater treatment works. The report recommends that the Environment Agency work with water companies to ensure that easily accessible information on sewage discharges, in as near to real time as possible, is made publicly available. The MPs are also calling on the Government to encourage the designation of at least one widely used stretch of river for bathing in each water company area by 2025.

Freshwater eco-systems at risk

The report says the build-up of high levels of nutrients, such as phosphorus and nitrogen, from sewage and animal waste, is choking rivers with algal blooms that reduce oxygen levels, suffocating fish, plants and invertebrates. Along with the stresses of plastic and synthetic chemical pollution and climate change, this is creating multiple pressures undermining the health and resilience of freshwater ecosystems.

The MPs are warning that as a result of pollution in rivers, freshwater species are at risk and that “it should ring alarm bells that wild salmon are classed as ‘at risk’ or ‘probably at risk’ in almost every river they traverse.

Water companies “appear to be dumping sewage in rivers regularly in breach of permit terms”

The report highlights the damage caused by sewage pollution, saying that the impact of wastewater from sewage treatment works and sewer overflows is preventing 36% of water bodies from achieving good ecological status. The Committee was alarmed at the extent of sewage discharge and of misreporting and large spills by water companies.

Liv Tyler, chief executive of Severn Trent, came in for particular criticism from the Committee. The report says she had “repeatedly claimed that the company did not discharge raw sewage” and that, because storm overflows discharged a mix of sewage ‘heavily diluted’ with rainwater, the contents of any discharge were ‘pretty much already rainwater’.

The report states:

“While this claim may have been intended to reassure us about the discharges from overflows on the Severn Trent network, we do not find it convincing…

“We therefore found the claim made by the chief executive of Severn Trent that its sewer overflow discharges were ‘pretty much already rainwater’ to be disingenuous.

"As water companies do not routinely test the quality of the discharges from storm overflows, they are in no position to make this claim. Discharges from overflows can be highly contaminated with raw sewage and other pollutants. To claim otherwise shows a disregard for the public’s concern about water quality in rivers.”

In the MPs’ view, citizen science analysis of water company data suggests that the true number of sewer overflow discharges may be much higher than those reported by the water companies to the Environment Agency.

Water companies appear to be dumping untreated or partially treated sewage in rivers regularly, often breaching the terms of permits that only allow this in exceptional circumstances. An urgent review of water companies’ self-monitoring is needed, the report concludes.

Agriculture pollution

The EAC identifies the impact of diffuse pollution from rural areas as the most common factor preventing rivers and other water bodies from achieving good ecological status, affecting 40% of them.

The report cites evidence given from a range of witnesses on the issue, including the Salmon and Trout Conservation who told the Committee:

“We believe that [the farming] industry remains the greatest threat to the future health of riverine ecology throughout England, albeit that pollution from sewage treatment works is still a major threat, especially in rural sites where infrastructure investment has been severely lacking.”

The Committee also heard from Environment Agency Chief Executive Sir James Bevan that “statistically, the largest sector that is impacting our waters, in one way or another, is the farming sector.” According to Liv Garfield, chief executive of Severn Trent”… while the water sector has improved year on year for the last few years, all of that gap has been eaten up by agriculture, so our rivers have no better quality.”

The report says that intensive livestock and poultry farming is putting enormous pressure on particular catchments, such as that flowing into the River Wye, as it may be raising the river's phosphorus levels. However, the National Farmers Union (NFU) argued that the under-reporting of sewage pollution incidents, citing the recent Southern Water case, raised doubts about the apportionment of nutrient pollution attributed to agriculture by the Environment Agency.

The Committee is calling for each catchment to have a nutrient budget calculated and for pollution from all sources in the catchment to then be progressively reduced until it does not exceed the capacity of the river to handle the nutrients. In addition, new poultry farms should not be granted planning permission in catchments exceeding their nutrient budgets.

Road run off, fatbergs and wet wipe reefs

A major source of plastic pollution in some rivers are the tiny particulates worn away from brakes and tyres which then get washed into watercourses from busy roads. The Committee heard concerns that National Highways, local authorities and the Environment Agency were not doing enough to prevent this pollution entering rivers.

Fats, oils and greases, and cleaning and hygiene products containing plastic, are also causing huge problems for drainage systems when they are poured away in sinks or flushed down the toilet, while the removal of 'fatbergs' from sewers is costing companies and their customers in the region of £100 million a year.

Current monitoring arrangements characterised as "outdated, underfunded and inadequate"

The report says that all of the issues raised in the inquiry, from overall water quality to the abundance of insects and fish populations within rivers or the frequency, volume and bacterial load of sewage spills, require some form of monitoring.

Many of the witnesses suggested that the availability of a comprehensive overview of the data to monitor the health of England’s rivers, and the pollution affecting them, has been hampered by monitoring arrangements variously characterised as outdated, underfunded and inadequate.

The EAC says it received evidence raising serious concerns about the robustness of the Environment Agency’s systems of water quality spot sampling and the system of operator self-monitoring it relies on to regulate sewage treatment works.

The Agency has issued permits for some 18,000 overflows on the sewerage network in England covering storm overflows at wastewater treatment works and combined sewer overflows (CSOs) elsewhere on the network. There are around 15,000 CSOs on the network in England, of which 13,350 discharge to rivers and streams.

The report says:

“We have identified multiple potential points of failure in the regulatory arrangements for monitoring, governance and enforcement of water quality. The Southern Water case has given rise to obvious and urgent questions about the system of operator self-monitoring and Environment Agency compliance monitoring.

“Given the duration of time when misreporting and large spills were routine at Southern Water, we cannot discount the possibility that similar practices have been occurring undetected at other water companies in England.”

However, independent analysis of publicly available monitoring data, using machine learning techniques, has produced insights into the performance of the sewerage network which “appears to have been beyond the current capacity of the Environment Agency to achieve, let alone water companies,” the report says.

The MPs say that the Environment Agency must improve its capacity to handle the very large volumes of data which will be provided in the course of automated monitoring of water quality and of storm overflows.

The report recommends that the Environment Agency invite manufacturers to submit products for evaluation so that the Agency can rapidly introduce cost-efficient and effective sensors at an increased number of locations.

The EAC is also recommending that water companies take immediate steps to install volume monitors at all points where overflows may discharge from their sewerage networks in order to provide continuous real-time monitoring of the volume of discharges.

Photo: EA Chief Executive Sir James Bevan 

However, the report also highlights that grant funding for the Environment Agency has been reduced by around two thirds over the last ten years, with funding cut by 63% from £120 million in 2009 to £40 million in 2020. Sir James Bevan told the EAC that he would like to see the grant restored to ‘something like where we were 10 years ago.’

A step change in approach is urgently required

The Committee says a step change in regulatory action, water company investment, and cross-catchment collaboration is urgently required to restore rivers to good ecological health, protect biodiversity and adapt to a changing climate.

MPs are demanding far more assertive regulation and enforcement from Ofwat and the Environment Agency. The report recommends that financial penalties for pollution incidents and misreporting must be set at a level that puts the issue on the agenda in water company board rooms.

The MPs also want Ofwat to examine the powers it may have to limit the payment of bonuses to water company executives until widespread permit breaches cease.

In addition, Ofwat should also require water companies, as a condition of their continued licensing, to deliver year-on-year reductions in the number of pollution incidents, with a target of zero serious incidents by 2030.

Infrastructure investment to prevent sewage spills and pollution incidents

According to the EAC, the chronic pollution problems have prompted questions about the adequacy of long-term investment in the upgrading of the sewerage and stormwater network since water companies were taken into private ownership in 1991.

The report cites Ofwat:

“Concerns have been raised that some investors in English water companies have been extracting dividends and equity from those companies that could otherwise have been reinvested in infrastructure improvement.

“There is no doubt that that some investors in the sector have over-leveraged their structures. And they have extracted large dividends and withdrawn equity, rather than invested to secure the long-term resilience of a vital public service, their businesses and the environment.”

Commenting on the likely levels of investment required to increase overflow storage capacity, the report refers to a number of separate estimates, including:

• The water industry has estimated that it would cost £200 billion to go about eliminating sewer overflow spills with hard infrastructure across the entire network.
• Research commissioned by the Storm Overflows Taskforce set up by Ministers suggested that the complete separation of the entire wastewater and stormwater network (eliminating the need for storm overflows altogether) would cost between £350 billion and £600 billion.

The MPs comment:

“We were told that Ofwat’s Price Review process had prioritised keeping bills low at the expense of the investment in assets necessary to bear down on the use of storm overflows. Salmon and Trout Conservation argued that infrastructure had not kept pace with population growth because the water industry’s asset management plans have not required water firms to do so.

"Heidi Mottram provided us an example of this, explaining that an £80 million plan to manage surface water and reduce flooding proposed by Northumbrian Water had been refused by the regulator.”

The MPs conclude that Ofwat’s regulatory approach to date “appears to have placed insufficient emphasis on facilitating the investment necessary to ensure that the sewerage system in England is fit for the challenges of the 21st century, and able to cope with housing growth and the impact of climate change while restoring good ecological health to rivers.”

 The EAC says investment must be accelerated so that damaging discharges from wastewater treatment assets, including storm overflows, cease and that any spills occur only in genuinely exceptional circumstances.

 The report states:

“We recommend that Ofwat prioritise the long-term investment in wastewater assets as an essential outcome of its price review process. We further recommend that Ofwat incentivise the use of nature-based solutions in wastewater management, including ongoing funding for maintenance and operation.”

According to the EAC, the Government acknowledges that reductions in discharges from the sewerage network will require significant investment across the water estate. “The price estimate made by the Storm Overflows Taskforce of the cost of full separation of the entire sewerage network should be carefully scrutinised by the Government as it produces its plan, required by September 2022 under the Environment Act, on the actions required to reduce discharges from storm overflows in England,” the report says.

However, commenting on affordability, the MPs say that the Thames Tideway Tunnel “demonstrates that substantial capital projects can be secured without unaffordable bill increases.“

The EAC also concludes that the value of biodiversity in rivers in England “does not appear to have been priced adequately into the economic decisions made by companies and by regulatory agencies.”

The report says:

“Ofwat’s economic regulation of the sector through previous price reviews does not appear to have given sufficient priority to the preservation of natural capital. We recommend that, when it publishes its review methodology in 2022, Ofwat set out how it intends to reflect natural capital fully in its economic regulatory decisions for Price Review 24. PR24 must encourage water companies to make a substantial increase in their investment in nature-based solutions”

The MPs are calling for the Government to make it clear in strategic guidance to Ofwat and to National Highways, that “from now on natural capital needs to be taken into account in all economic decision making, and priced at a level that preserves and enhances it.”

Commenting on Environment Agency funding, the Committee is recommending that the level of financial support provided to the Agency is reviewed “as a matter of urgency in the light of its new statutory responsibilities and the scale of the regulatory task it faces.”

“Our inquiry has uncovered multiple failures in the monitoring, governance and enforcement on water quality”

Environmental Audit Committee Chairman, Rt Hon Philip Dunne MP, said:

“Rivers are the arteries of nature and must be protected. Our inquiry has uncovered multiple failures in the monitoring, governance and enforcement on water quality. For too long, the Government, regulators and the water industry have allowed a Victorian sewerage system to buckle under increasing pressure.

“Today, we are calling for these relevant bodies to come together and develop a system fit for the future. Monitoring regimes need to be reviewed, enforcement needs to be ramped up, and even public awareness needs boosting on what can and cannot be poured down drains or flushed down the toilet. So many emerging pollutants are being missed by inadequate and insufficient monitoring, and court actions against polluters have fallen dramatically.

“To deliver real change and improve the state of our rivers, a wide range of stakeholders must come together including the Government, regulators and water companies. The Environment Act signalled the first welcome sign of political will to tackle this issue. I hope this marks the start of Government regulatory and polluter action to improve the state of our rivers for all to enjoy.”

Water companies want to invest more and are pushing Government to encourage Ofwat to enable ncreased spending 

A Water UK spokesperson said:

“We support the Committee’s urgent call for action to improve the health of England’s rivers. Many of the recommendations mirror proposals set out in our recent 21st Century Rivers report, which calls for Government, regulators, water companies, agriculture, and other sectors to come together and create a comprehensive national plan to transform our rivers.

“Now is the time to have an honest conversation about whether the current approach is adequate for addressing the challenges faced by our environment, which is why we particularly support the Committee’s call for regulators to take a long-term focus.

“The Committee is also right to emphasise the need for further investment to eliminate harm from storm overflows and treatment works. Water companies want to invest more and are pushing the Government to encourage the economic regulator, Ofwat, to enable this increased spending over the next decade.”

Click here to download the report in full