Southern Water Found Guilty

[wilkeskf]

Not in Wales but of interest from another (coarse fishing) site:

Today (9th July 2021) His Honour Mr Justice Johnson handed down a £90m fine to Southern Water, after the company admitted to 6,971 illegal spills from 17 sites in Hampshire, Kent and West Sussex between 2010 and 2015. Southern Water had tried to claim these events were due to negligence on their part, but the Judge dismissed this, saying the offences had been “committed deliberately” with the full knowledge of the Southern Water board at the time. He went on to say, “These offences show a shocking and wholesale disregard for the environment, for precious and delicate ecosystems and coastlines, for human health, and for fisheries and other legitimate businesses that operate in the coastal waters,”.

For more try this link

www.maggotdrowning.com/forums/threads/guilty-angling-trust-welcomes-record-fine-for-polluters-southern-water.234693/

[henben]

I got this today:

"Parliament is going to debate the petition you signed – “Ban Water Companies discharging raw sewage into water courses.”.


petition.parliament.uk/petitions/582336


The debate is scheduled for 15 November 2021.


Once the debate has happened, we’ll email you a video and transcript.



Thanks,

The Petitions team"

[daiben]

And this from the Angling Trust:-

anglingtrust.net/2021/10/22/jamie-cook-environment-bill/

[daiben]

The response from Welsh Water/Dwr Cymru:-

www.dailypost.co.uk/news/north-wales-news/sewage-dumped-welsh-rivers-100000-21989717?fbclid=IwAR0CLbonUrPkETgrI673Eno3hf8TEReGeWUsyz3iKdODsIhQmEnP67OvwZE

[henben]

This today from the Wye and Usk Foundation:


"In August we reported on our work with a group of Herefordshire farmers to reduce the impact of agriculture on the health of the river Wye.


Hosted by Kate Speke-Adams, the Foundation’s Head of Landuse, this meeting was also attended by representatives from the Environment Agency and experts from Lancaster University, both of whose modelling has concluded that the river’s phosphorus inputs (the cause of the severe algal blooms) are approximately 70% of agricultural origin. The consensus of the group was that the industry needed to take its share of the responsibility for the current state of the river, to be proactive and to make significant changes to reduce agriculture’s impact.


This consensus was further demonstrated at this October’s Wye Nutrient Management Board meeting when John Reed, the Agriculture Director at Avara Foods and an active member of the Herefordshire group, confirmed that the company was “accepting a level of responsibility……. We are part of the issue and will be part of the solution.”


This is very welcome news for the Wye. An acceptance by those contributing to a problem that they are part of it is a vital step forward. It allows us and others to spend more of our effort and resources on delivering the measures urgently needed to restore the river’s health. This group of Herefordshire farmers and businesses deserve credit for taking the bull by the horns and showing that agriculture does not have to be damaging to rivers or to the wider environment."


Can anyone see Carmarthenshire farmers cooperating in the same way...........

[henben]

afonyddcymru.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/The-State-of-the-River-UskFinal.pdf?fbclid=IwAR3tIip4GRvKtsruPgE80DnXjQbxG5a3wj4tvFGi-_NWvFT7-O20-sOT7zE

Opening paragraphs of this Report: "This report shows that the ecology of the River Usk is degraded and deteriorating. If it is to be restored, or even resilient, there will have to be a sea change in strategy, resources, regulation and 
management.

The designated features of the Usk as a Special Area of Conservation (SAC) have not been fully

assessed since 2012. Most now appear to be in worse condition including the otter, salmon, shad,

lamprey and water crowfoot. Prey for the otter has become scarcer. The salmon, once hugely

abundant and supporting valuable fisheries, is now scarce or absent from much of the catchment.

Other protected species are also declining or worse. The abundance of brown trout has declined by

two-thirds in key monitoring sites and is the lowest on record. The stock of sea trout is ‘At risk’. The

status of the Yellow Mayfly and White-clawed crayfish is unclear but both may be threatened. The

freshwater pearl mussel could be extinct. Eel abundance is a small fraction of its historical level."


This is very sad. Usk now, Towy next or perhaps already ?

[henben]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-60040162

"Sewage regularly dumped illegally in England and Wales rivers"

"Peter Hammond, a retired professor of computational biology and also a campaigner with Windrush Against Sewage Pollution, said the statistics showed that the water industry was flouting poor regulation by the Environment Agency.


"In some cases, multiple sewage works are spilling into the same river causing damage for long periods of time, sometimes spilling as long as four months, six months almost without a break," he said.


He calculated that together the seven companies - Southern Water, South West Water, Thames Water, United Utilities, Wessex Water, Yorkshire Water and Welsh Water - discharged untreated sewage from 59 treatment works that treat 4.5 million people's wastewater.