The new report could push the United Kingdom to clean polluted waterways: NPR

Marlborough, England – After years of illegal pollution by the British water industry, an independent report provided for liberation in the coming days could lead to a tightening of regulations while causing costly modernization conduct.

The report, led by a former deputy for the Bank of England, Jon Cunliffe, was commanded by the government of Prime Minister Keir Starmer last year, after at least a decade of calls from environmental activists who asked for the end of the illegal pollution of the United Kingdom waterways. The rivers in England “Green and Pleasant Land”, to quote a Famous anthemIn recent years, have often been brown and dirty due to generalized and frequent wastewater releases by some of the country’s largest private water companies.

This was visible during a recent visit to the quiet banks of the Kennet river near a historic rural city called Marlborough, in the county of Wiltshire, about two hours west of London. Humans live in the fertile valley of the Kennet river for thousands of years, and today, James Wallace, the director general of the defense group River action.

After having made his way through a green undergrowth to what he says was formerly a place of family swimming darling on Kennet, he stops while a herd of ducks flies above. “It’s beautiful,” said Wallace, while he approaches the muddy shores of the river. “But as we head towards the water’s edge, we can see this carpet going along the bottom of the seaweed, which stifles the opportunity of life.”

In the minutes he was held there, there was no sign of fish in a river known for a long time for his brown and rainbow trout, something that Wallace attributed to a single cause. “On the surface, we see a dynamic and healthy habitat, and below, we see a dead man, and it is because of the pollution of wastewater,” he said.

Wallace says that protected natural environments, such as Kennet, are “ransacked by business benefits”. He underlines a wastewater treatment plant several kilometers upstream. It is operated by Thames Water, the largest private water company in Great Britain, which has become notorious at the national level for its untreated wastewater discharges, growing debts and substantial dividend payments.

A van belonging to Thames Water, a British private public service company which manages the supply of water and the treatment of wastewater, is located outside the Mugden wastewater treatment work, in the west of London, on June 4.

Toby Melville / Reuters

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Toby Melville / Reuters

A history of payment of fines to pollute

In May, the Water Thames was a fine of more than $ 165 million By the British water regulator, known as of-wat, for the release of untreated wastewater in rivers without sufficient explanation. He was sentenced to a fine separately for paying high but unjustified dividends to his shareholders.

Reacting to the verdict, the company said in a press release: “We bring our responsibility to the environment very seriously and note that Offat recognizes that we have already made progress to solve the problems raised in the survey relating to the overflows of storms.”

Behind a green metal door, the installation of Marlborough, like many elsewhere in Great Britain, must today serve a larger population and change the precipitation models thanks to climate change, recognizes Wallace. But he says that expenses to upgrade infrastructure or build new installations like this have failed to follow the changing requirements.

“The system has been designed to deal with years ago, but not now, due to a lack of investment in industry … all of Great Britain is exposed to a serious water pollution crisis,” he said.

This crisis is systemic, warn the experts and the eating of wastewater Popular swimming spots The public’s indignation on several occasions, causing political recriminations while throwing a severe projector on the country’s regulatory system. Several very publicized incidents have helped to emphasize that the water system of the British Victorian era, privatized by former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in the late 1980s, has largely struggled to serve the population of modern Britain.

Ofwat, the water regulator, has historically prioritized the low invoices since privatization, according to Bertie Wnek, an infrastructure expert Public firstBritish political advice. This prevented private companies with local water monopolies from expanding their income by unilaterally increasing prices. Consequently, says Wnek, companies have rather been encouraged to take massively in order to invest in any new infrastructure, or to generate substantial benefits.

“What we have is a situation where companies were somehow encouraged to train a bunch of debts on the system over time,” said Wnek. “We somehow pay the price of this behavior.”

Hugo Tagholm, British executive director of the non -profit association OceanaCalls this behavior a “financial scandal” and criticism of companies like Thames Water for having extracted tens of billions from the industry, while not investing enough in their water pipes and their treatment work. “This is something that is rabid the public,” explains Tagholm, swimmer and sea surfer who formerly led a high -level campaign group called Surfers against wastewater. “The system needs massive investments, and it should really come from shareholders rather than the customer.”

But water companies and their representatives say that there are no simple solutions to this complex problem.

Ashley Book, responsible for waste operations at Mogden Catchment, is walking between the ventilation routes used to treat wastewater of more than 2 million people, at Mogden Sewage Treatment Works, operated by Thames Water, west of London, June 4.

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Some hope that the Cunliffe report will address long -standing complaints concerning unequal regulatory measures and prices restrictions that have hampered the construction of new expensive water infrastructure.

“The way of obtaining investments is clear regulation, solid Bouvillons from governments and a system that provides finances and investment projects that improve these networks and increase our offer,” explains Jeevan Jones, chief economist at Water in the United KingdomThe main British commercial group of the water industry. “The water industry was really, really clear that what this sector needs is investment and the investment will unlock upgrades.”

The Cunliffe exam should propose several complete changes which would focus on strategic planning, legislative reform, regulatory monitoring and reduction of debt charges on infrastructure and existing assets.

Stop nationalization

But on the basis of its provisional conclusions, published earlier in summer, Cunliffe seems little likely to recommend a renationalization of industry, because the Labor government of Starmer pursues the British railways, for example. A potential change could lead to a regulatory style more supervision, where ofwat or its equivalent focuses more on the specific challenges with which water companies are faced – aging pipes, for example, or not enough tanks – rather than on a form of reference that does not make sense in a country where each region – and therefore a monopoly of private water – faces different challenges related to the water.

Bhikhu Samat, a legal director specializing in water regulations at the Shakespeare Martineau law firm, believes that such resetting should have occurred earlier, and that more -term investors – like pension funds, rather than investment capital companies and commercial banks that have also increased more and more in the British water industry – would also help build a resilience financial in the longer term.

“This is really a great way for us as a nation to look at our goals with the water shortage and climate change that impacting us enormously,” said Samat about the next Cunliffe report on the industry. “Reset is late, and fundamentally, when the final report is released, we hope that the recommendations will be implemented roughly.”