- Allegations of waste water misreporting
- United Utilities downgraded pollution
- Calls for a criminal investigation
Water companies can eliminate effluent pollution from official statistics.
Leaked records suggest that United Utilities erroneously downgraded dozens of pollution incidents, including one at a renowned lake in northwestern England.
All downgrades were authorized by the Environment Agency, which refrained from attending any of the incidents.
United Utilities refutes any allegations of pollution misreporting.
The Liberal Democrats have demanded a criminal investigation. At the same time, Steve Reed, the shadow environment secretary for the Labour Party, has accused the government of “turning a blind eye to corruption at the heart of the water industry.
“Absolutely unacceptable,” according to the Department of Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs (Defra), is the quantity of sewage being discharged into English waters.
The regulator, Ofwat, establishes environmental targets for water companies in England. An essential metric is the quantity of pollution incidents per 10,000 kilometres of the sewer. These typically involve waste discharge into rivers or the ocean due to equipment failure or blockages.
Regulatory Challenges and Performance Discrepancies
The corporations incur financial penalties for surpassing a specified pollution incident threshold while receiving monetary incentives for adhering to lower standards.
United Utilities, as reported by the Environment Agency, exhibited the highest level of performance among all companies in England in 2022. A mere 126 pollution incidents were documented, corresponding to 16 per 10,000 kilometres of sewer.
As a reward for this outstanding performance, the business will be permitted to increase invoices for its seven million consumers the following year, thereby raising £5.1 million.
However, Environment Agency whistleblowers assert that the organization erroneously downgraded pollution incidents and that the agency fails to conduct independent checks.
Manipulation of Incident Severity and Reporting
Panorama was informed by an insider that United Utilities “controlled the evidence” regarding pollution.
When the Environment Agency receives reports of contamination incidents, it evaluates the potential consequences and determines whether to respond.
There were 931 reported water company pollution incidents in north-west England between 2020 and 2022. But the Environment Agency responded to only six.
“We will attend if they [United Utilities] say so, which is an extremely rare occurrence,” the whistleblower stated. (“We do not attend if they say not to attend.” “They are regulating themselves effectively.”
Panorama has obtained two hundred reports detailing pollution incidents at the sewerage works of United Utilities in 2022.
In over sixty instances, the company appears to have erroneously downgraded the incidents to category 4, the lowest level.
All of them obtained approval from the Environment Agency.
In published statistics, Category 4 incidents are excluded due to the presumption that they did not cause any environmental harm. Counting is limited to the more significant categories 1-3.
Misclassification of Pollution Severity
Categorization 4 should only be applied in cases where the pollution does not enter the watercourse or is so negligible as to have no effect that it does not warrant its classification (e.g., a “trickle into a large watercourse”), according to the Environmental Agency guidance.
Each incident identified by the programme had a significant effect and was not merely a “trickle.”
Two seasoned water pollution officers, whose identities are withheld due to their employment with the Environment Agency, examined the documents for Panorama in an impartial capacity. All parties agreed that none ought to have been categorized as category 4.
Had the sixty cases identified by Panorama been erroneously downgraded, United Utilities’ £5 million bonus for mitigating pollution incidents last year should not have been granted.
One of the evident concealments occurred within a Lake District World Heritage Site. A fault in June 2022 resulted in the discharge of untreated effluent into the central area of Windermere. The duration of the incident exceeded three hours.
According to the leaked documents, the incident was initially classified as a severe category two situation. However, United Utilities downgraded it to category four after the Environment Agency failed to respond.
The Environment Agency insider stated that a substantial quantity of polluted material had been pumped into a body of water and that the incident was of a severe nature: “The water company does not want us to investigate, so an incident like this is effectively downgraded to a low level or removed from the books.
At first, United Utilities issued a denial regarding the discharge of effluent into the lake’s centre. They asserted that shoreline tests had not detected any adverse effects of the pollution.
Evidence of Effluent Release and Company Response
Panorama has obtained company documents that provide evidence that the effluent was released into the central area of Windermere.
The programme featured Mark Garth, the organization’s director of wastewater treatment, who stated, “I do acknowledge that sewage entered the lake in this instance due to that failure.”
Last November, Panorama found another probable cover-up at Liverpool’s Wallasey pumping station on the Mersey.
On this occasion, untreated sewage was dumped into an SSSI after the pumps failed for nearly two hours.
Once more, the leaked documents indicate that the incident was initially classified as a severe category two situation; however, United Utilities downgraded it to category 4, and the Environment Agency failed to respond.
Corporate Defense and Regulatory Response
United Utilities asserts that allegations that it misreports pollution incidents are unfounded and that the EA makes the final classifications.
“We are incredibly glad of our performance in combating pollution, for which we work incredibly diligently,” stated Mr Garth.
“We persist in carrying out such actions, and in any way concealing or misleading the Environment Agency regarding them is in no way indicative of our performance.”
The corporation classified the Wallasey incident as a category four. The large volume of water in the Mersey and Irish Sea diluted the pollution, influencing this conclusion.
While declining an interview for the programme, the Environment Agency stated that remote monitoring of water companies was possible.
It stated, “We take our responsibility to protect the environment extremely seriously.” We respond to all incidents and are consistently present in situations involving a substantial risk.
The agency stated that regulations were being tightened and that it would soon have additional authority to administer civil penalties that are more suitable and straightforward to enforce.
It is undertaking its most extensive criminal investigation to date. This investigation pertains to the water companies, including United Utilities, and the possibility of pervasive noncompliance.
Defra said the government was implementing “more investment, stricter regulation, and stricter enforcement in an effort to clean up our water and combat pollution.”
