15 May Who is poisoning our water?
We all know about the immense £20 million with which the Environment Agency fined Thames Water last year. It was the biggest pollution case ever undertaken by the Environment Agency. But what if I tell you that you have taken just a peek at the Thames Water pollution history?
It was in March 2017, when the Environment Agency merged six pollution cases into one, and took Thames Water Utilities LTD to Aylesbury Crown Court. The death of birds, fish and invertebrates, as well as visible sewage along 14km of the river, were all caused by the illegal discharges of sewage in the River Thames and its tributes. Those were repeated, and recognized as risky discharges, even by Thames Water own staff. For weeks the company was diverting millions of litres of untreated sewage per day to the rivers.
Thames Water Utilities Limited is registered in the Water Treatment and Distribution sector company. They operate in London and the Thames Valley, and distribute more than two billion litres of water to nine million people every day, 65% of which are pumped from rivers. It is their “statutory duty to protect and, where possible enhance, biodiversity and landscapes of natural beauty under the water industry’s Code of Practice on Conservation, Access and Recreation 2000.”
Now, as a company in the Water Treatment and Distribution sector, which pumps more than a half of the sources that provides, from rivers, one would expect from them to safeguard water resources and aquatic life. One would expect them if not else, at least to take all precautions necessary, to not pollute the already polluted enough water sources in England. Or rather, one should expect them to not.
Indeed, Thames Water Utilities is among one of the worst water and aquatic life pollutants in England, in the last seventeen years. This company has survived and prospered, despite the 150 prosecutions for waste crimes and water quality, and despite their negligence against rivers and lakes.
Only in the last six years, Thames Water thrived in severely polluting the Danson Park Lake in London, the Horsenden Stream in Buckinghamshire, the Grand Union Canal, and River Blackwater in Surrey.
Danson Park Lake was unfortunate enough to be polluted three times by the giant. In 2013, however, blockage in sanitary sewer resulted in discharging of untreated sewage from surface water to the lake. Sanitary sewer or foul sewer is an underground pipe system that takes the sewage from households and delivers it to wastewater treatment plants. So, sewage must be treated before discharged into water because it usually consists of human waste, as well as various pollutants, organic materials and chemicals. Or as with this case, would cause serious effects on the water quality.
The Horsenden Stream case remains one of the most curious and unforeseen stories in the polluting history of Thames Water. It was February 2013, an officer from the Environment Agency was conducting a fisheries survey of the stream. When suddenly, out of the blue, he noticed he had to run out of the stream because of the level of sewage. Reduced height of the storm weir in Buckinghamshire led to ongoing discharges to the stream for five months. This has caused the death of invertebrates in more than 2.7km of the stream, and there was a total of 21 of storm discharges for the same period. Environment Officer, Holly Linham said: “A biological survey of the stream noted that the impact of the sewage was chronic and was likely to have been prevalent for some time.”
Then, in the period between July 2012 and April 2013, Thames Water hit the record-breaking six pollutions in less than a year, all in the Wendover Arm of the Grand Union Canal. The company discharged partially treated sewage, containing high levels of, suspended solids, iron and aluminium into the canal. Suspended solids could smother flora and fauna in rivers and cover the spawning grounds of fish, and aluminium and iron can have toxic impacts on macro-invertebrates.
But the most dreadful was the pollution of River Blackwater, Surrey. One of the factors that makes it so alarming, is that this time the discharging of partially treated sewage and illegal storm was into a river which flows through a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI). SSSI are normally protected by law and their geology and wildlife need to be conserved. But what was more devastating is that, the incident also “had the effect of suffocating fish in its path by depriving them of oxygen over a distance of approximately 1.5 kilometres.”
Thames Water Chief Executive said: “We deeply regret each of these incidents at six of our sites during the period 2012-2014. Since then we have reviewed how we do things at all levels and made a number of key changes. These have included increasing the numbers of staff in key operational roles and investing heavily to improve reliability. As a result, our performance has significantly improved. We understand our huge responsibilities to the environment, have learned from these serious events, and continue to invest at the rate of £20 million a week to our customers and the environment.”
The significance of those pollution cases is in the impact they had on aquatic life. As we already know, untreated or even partially treated sewage cause instantaneous and serious decline in the levels dissolved oxygen in the water, and the flora and fauna in water start suffocating which leads to a serious reduction in their numbers.
Flora and fauna are from great importance to human existence. Our life, our paramount necessity we’ve got to breath are extremely dependent on the oxygen, produced and released by the flora. The fauna produces and releases carbon dioxide that is essential for the photosynthesis of the flora. It is an all – connected and all – dependent world, where we often forget just how much we rely upon the environment for survival.
https://ea.sharefile.com/share/view/sc0a08121f7a4abca – this is a table revealing all of the prosecutions undertaken by the Environment Agency in the last seventeen years.
As you can see from the table, Thames Water is not the only heavy pollutant of water resources. The document is full of names of waste management and water distribution companies, followed by construction and demolition companies, who have been neglecting the law multiple times. Southern Water Services – 119 prosecutions, Wessex Water – 44 prosecutions, South West Water-176 prosecutions. But the heaviest polluter remains the individual – with 10,854 prosecutions, almost a half of all prosecution entries in the table. This represents 10,854 individuals who have been prosecuted for polluting matters. Of course, the table does not consider all other pollutions which occurred but for one reason or another were never found or never taken to court.
Surely, same applies to the companies in this list. Some of them are still under investigation for various polluting offences, and some of them would be eventually proven, and hopefully taken to court. Others, however, will disappear over time because of lack of witnesses or evidence and their crimes against the environment will remain unpunished.
Indeed, companies are responsible for responsibly treating and discharging their sewage, and yes, they are accountable for protecting the environment. But so is the individual. We cannot talk judgementally about companies that discharging our sewage untreated, while we dispose numerous pollutants down the drain. We, as individuals, need to start taking responsibility and safeguard the environment while there is still an environment to safeguard. We need to finally learn that every action has a reaction, and that even our day-to – day activities contribute to severe pollution intro streams, rivers, lakes and oceans. They contribute to the, often grotesque death of aquatic plants and animals, and thus they also pose danger to our own survival on the planet.
So here are some tips, for how we as individuals could stop polluting and start protecting the water. For starters, use only as much water as you need to. When shaving or brushing your teeth don’t let the water run, turn the tap off. For every minute of the running water, five gallons of it run down the drain.
– Same applies with washing your dishes. Just stop leaving the water running.
– When you do your laundry, wash a full load – washing machines normally use 40 gallons of water.
– When taking a shower, switch to the low flow shower head. And remember keep it short.
– Installing faucet aerators will reduce the water usage by up to six percent.
– Don’t dispose paint or oil, or any other pollutants into drains because they would pollute the rivers, and eventually the sea.
The Butterfly Effect states that if a butterfly flaps its wings in New Mexico, that would slowly but surely cause a hurricane in China. And just like the butterfly’s flapping wings, a small step by the humankind today will mean a big step towards saving the environment tomorrow.
