Government and regulator have broken the law on sewage, watchdog says

By Henry Moore

The Government and regulators broke the law by allowing water firms to discharge sewage outside of "exceptional circumstances", the green watchdog has ruled.

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Combined sewer overflows (CSO) are only supposed to be opened in rare circumstances such as flooding or heavy rain.

However, according to the Office for Environmental Protection, the Environment Department (Defra), the Environment Agency (EA) and Ofwat failed to comply with these laws, dumping sewage into England and Wales’ water.

The bodies have two months to respond or risk being taken to court.

Conservation charity WildFish said the public bodies had allowed water companies to pollute English rivers unlawfully for years, and called for storm sewage pollution to be brought to an end.

Helen Venn, the OEP's chief regulatory officer, said: "The core issue identified in our investigation is the circumstances in which the regulatory system allows untreated sewage discharges to take place.

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"We interpret the law to mean that they should generally be permitted only in exceptional circumstances, such as during unusually heavy rainfall.

"This is unless an assessment of the CSO concludes that the costs to address the issue would be disproportionate to the benefits gained.

"While the public authorities are now taking steps to ensure their approaches are aligned and reflective of the law, we have found that this has not always been the case."

Dumping sewage into waterways can harm wildlife, destroy ecosystems and be the course of E.Coli when ingested by swimmers.

Ms Venn added there had been positive steps to address the issue, including Defra's consultation on updated guidance, the EA's consultation on storm overflows including permit conditions for spills from CSOs and draft orders and investigations into water companies by Ofwat.

Ms Venn said: "We will decide next steps when we have considered the responses to these decision notices. That could include court action."

Guy Linley-Adams, in-house solicitor for WildFish, said: "What the OEPs' announcement has clarified is that much of the storm sewage pollution that is plaguing English rivers would not be occurring had Government and regulators done their jobs properly.

"Storm sewage pollution should have been - and must now be - brought to an end under 30-year-old statutory and regulatory obligations."

WildFish chief executive Nick Measham added that the organisation would be watching the Government and regulators extremely closely to see how they brought the "current illegality to a rapid end".

"This widespread law-breaking by water companies must be dealt with," he said.

Responding to the investigation findings, an Environment Agency spokesperson said: "We recognise regulation of the water industry needs to improve, which is why we are transforming our approach with more people, powers and data alongside better training for our staff.

"We've also made significant progress in addressing the issues identified by the OEP and are consulting on updates to our permitting approach and regulatory framework for storm overflows."

A spokesperson for Ofwat said: "We are actively taking steps to remedy the issues the OEP has identified.

"We will continue to prioritise our enforcement investigation into all wastewater companies which started in 2021 to ensure that companies are meeting their environmental obligations."

It comes as Ofwat looks likely to announce a massive increase to water bills on Thursday. A Labour spokesperson said the findings laid bare the "Conservative's utter failure to regulate the water industry" and "the result of their catastrophic policies has left record levels of sewage pollution in Britain's rivers, lakes and seas".

The spokesperson said the Labour Government had acted "decisively" to place water companies under special measures, with new powers to ban bonuses and bring criminal charges against polluting water bosses.