FEATURE
Chris Heaton, River Meon in Exton - CC Share Alike 2.0
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Chalk stream protection
esidents in the upper reaches of the Itchen, Test and Meon will be keenly aware of the unique and fragile beauty of chalk streams. They will also know that the Environment Agency (EA), tasked with monitoring water quality and protecting vulnerable ecosystems, has been underfunded for years. The same residents will be customers of Southern water, the utility recently fined a record sum for pollution of waterways through persistent release of untreated sewage ever since the law changed in 2010 to allow water companies to report their own pollution and so ‘mark their own homework’. The Environment Agency has just concluded a seven-year investigation into 17 wastewater treatment plants operated by Southern Water across Kent and Hampshire. The biggest investigation conducted by the EA found that corporate wrongdoing and cover-up was on a scale never before seen in the 25 years of the history of the EA. The court found ‘very serious widespread criminality’ and the company was fined £90m with a further £126m by Ofwat, but will this be sufficient to change management policy to responsibility for environmental protection? Neither the EA not Ofwat have the remit to insist on management changes, as a private company it has a primary duty to its shareholders not the environment and, in the unique case of a
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monopoly, certainly not its customers. The company admitted in Canterbury crown court to 51 counts of ‘knowingly permitting entry to coastal waters of poisonous, noxious or polluting matter and/or waste matter and/or sewage effluent, namely untreated sewage otherwise than as authorised by an environmental permit’. There is an ongoing debate about the impact of fines on large corporations. They tend to get treated as an operational cost, and rarely lead to a change in culture or corporate behaviour. There will be promises to spend on infrastructure and plant to upgrade facilities, but as one business owner impacted by the sewage pollution said: ‘it seems to be cheaper for them to go to court and to face fines than to invest in the necessary improvements’. Fortunately, the upper reaches of the Itchen, Test and Meon are not used for sewage outfall, but pity the residents of the Beaulieu river where raw sewage was released over 180 times for almost 4,000 hours will spill duration up to 19 days. The monitoring budget of the EA has been halved in the last five years and its government funding since 2010 has been cut by almost two thirds. The public are responding through a national citizens’ science project designed to take water samples and get them analysed. While the water companies are left to report their own spills this is prudent action. © Garry honey is a resident and river watcher based in Winchester.
