The water companies came in for sharp criticism yesterday for their ongoing failure to inform the public of their regular discharges of raw sewage into the country’s rivers.
An article in the Sunday Times said a decision by the Environment Agency which allowed them to use a network of unregulated overflows into rivers and the sea was effectively a “licence to pollute”. The newspaper described the water companies’ repeated refusal to provide information on pollution and sewage discharges as a “secretive and defiant stance”.
The comments have come in the wake of last week’s decision by the information tribunal which has ruled that the water companies are exempt from the Environmental Information Regulations 2004. The Sunday Times said the decision had established a legal precedent and they now had the “full backing” of the information commissioner to refuse requests for information from the public on pollution incidents.
The case was originally brought by Smartsource Drainage & Water Reports Limited, a specialist business that provides information about water and wastewater billing, pipe locations and related data.
On 18 December 2008 Smartsource requested various types of information from a total of 16 of the water and wastewater companies. The water and sewerage companies were each asked for the following seven items of information: (1) their asset mapping database; (2) water and sewerage billing records; (3) a list of all properties subject to “building over agreements”; (4) sewer flooding register; (5) water pressure register; (6) water quality reports; and (7) trade effluent register. The water only companies were asked for items (1), (2), (5) and (6).
The water companies agreed to provide the information requested under categories (6) and (7) but declined to provide the remaining information.
The tribunal’s decision relates solely to the position of water companies in England and Wales. In both Scotland and in Northern Ireland there is a single water company which are both in public ownership.
Although there has been marked improvement in sector performance over the last 14 years, the water companies still rank high in the list of UK polluters by sector, with prosecutions undertaken against them by the Environment Agency on a regular basis.
In its latest Green Business Report for 2009, the Agency said that while the number of serious pollution incidents had reduced steadily over the last few years, the number of minor incidents had remained steady at around 2,200 per year.
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