[User deactivated.]

Water quality has improved markedly since privatisation

Do you have evidence for this claim? Has the quality remained good in very recent years? I don't not believe you (I know someone on this forum works in river conservation, but I have forgotten who), I'm just curious as the sewage leak stories have put me off surfing at a lot of the spots on the east coast.

[Tony S]

Water quality has improved markedly since privatisation

Do you have evidence for this claim? Has the quality remained good in very recent years?

Will is -unsurprisingly in this non-grade-related topic- correct but has in/deliberately hinted at a conflation between correlation and causation.

Water privatisation in UK was 1989 after historically low investment by the state for over a decade (austerity wasn't an original idea from Cameron/Osborne). Further, earlier EU directives on water quality started to become problematic for the UK Govs around then.

[Tony S]

This again:

Since we’ve made it to yet aaanother page, especially if you don’t wanna wade through poo to get to Moat

Please consider helping to fund a replacement bridge at Cress-brook Mill by donating to the PDNP Foundation's fundraiser for this at: https://shorturl.at/cesz8

You can also donate by:

Bank transfer to ‘Peak District National Park Foundation’, sort code 20-10-71, account 63364895, Barclays Bank, quoting Cress-brook Bridge
Cheque made payable to Peak District National Park  Foundation with your contact details and marked Cress-brook Bridge to Aldern House, Baslow Road, Bakewell, Derbyshire, DE45 1AE

However, if you want to add gift aid (giving them an additional 25%), you’ll need to email them for a gift aid form to complete.

Nice one to all those people who have already donated.

[Will Hunt]

Oof, there's a lot to unpack here.

You quoted Water UK who are literally known for closed door events with MPs and lobbying Will 

I'm genuinely interested. I'd really like to see some evidence of what Water UK has lobbied for and how this amounts to dismantling regulation.

Truth is water quality has degraded in the UK with only 14% of rivers being “good quality” - not exactly a shining bastion of water quality.

The statistic you're referring to here is the Water Framework Directive (WFD) classification of the waterbody which works on a one-out-all-out basis. A single sample point in a waterbody is tested for many different determinands and a failure of any one of those determinands will lead to a maximum classification of Moderate (i.e. less than Good; a fail). Not all of these determinands are associated with water industry discharges.

In 2020 the EA changed their method for analysis. They introduced new determinands and lowered the limit of detection on some of the things they were testing for. Basically, they looked harder at a wider variety of determinands and inevitably found more failures, so more waterbodies failed overall, even though many of them had actually improved and were actually supporting a healthy ecology (which is what the WFD is all about). There's an interesting blog by the Chair of the Aire Rivers Trust here which explains more about this:
https://geoffroberts.me/river-quality-what-has-gone-wrong/
You can find out more about a river and why it's failing on the EA's Catchment Data Explorer. Here's the first example I looked at, Porter Brook from source to the Sheaf in Sheffield.
https://environment.data.gov.uk/catchment-planning/WaterBody/GB104027057760
The waterbody passes for all chemistry and ecological determinands except mercury and two forever chemicals (PFOS and PBDE). There is no wastewater treatment works discharging to this watercourse so there isn't anything that the water industry can do to improve this, the chemicals have to be controlled at source (and I don't know if we even can get rid of the forever chemicals). So despite the watercourse supporting a good ecology, it is listed as failing.
If you look at the ecology you will see a very real positive trend over the last 35 years in the UK's rivers.

Not sure what you’re trying to defend here really… the tories have done an excellent job at fucking up beaches, rivers, lakes in the UK.

The Tories haven't repealed or watered down any of the major legislation that governs water quality in the UK. We still have the WFD, the rBWD, the UWWTD etc. And we now have the Environment Act (which incorporates the governments response to public pressure about sewage overflows) which will drive a huge amount of investment for decades to come. What the Tories have done is reduce funding for the Environment Agency which is not a good thing and makes it harder to catch polluters (across all sectors). This is not a good thing but it's more likely to affect acute pollution incidents in a general trend of reducing chronic pollution.

Everyone knows since brexit the water quality has dropped in the UK due to not needing to adhere to EU regs too,

To my knowledge, the only relaxation made was specifically about not needing to carry out ferric dosing due to a shortage of truck drivers to move the stuff around. Ferric sulphate is dosed at wastewater treatment works to remove phosphorous from effluent before it is discharged and in the post-Brexit/Covid-19 supply chain shitshow there was concern that the water industry would not be able to get enough of the stuff to provide adequate treatment. The Agency released a Regulatory Position Statement (RPS) that allowed companies to apply for a permit relaxation allowing them to discharge at higher concentrations of phosphorous. Provided this was a short-term thing (and the RPS was time-limited, it is no longer available) it wouldn't cause significant environmental harm. Unlike unionised ammonia and the oxygen sags that can arise from high levels of Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD), phosphorous is not acutely harmful to fish, it is harmful when it is present in high levels over long periods of time, so a short term uplift in phosphorous would not cause harm provided that the situation was quickly rectified. This FOI request states that only Thames applied to use the RPS at three of its works and after the first application was rejected they withdrew the other two, so the RPS was never even used at any site across the UK. Treatment standards for ammonia, BOD, and suspended solids remained unaffected.
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/license_to_release_untreated_sew

Everyone knows since brexit the water quality has dropped in the UK due to...going from doing chemical and ecological testing annually to every three years.

As above I don't think this is a good thing but it refers to how often the EA assesses a waterbody for its WFD status, so although it makes it harder for the EA to spot and respond to issues it's not necessarily reducing water quality. But do not fear, the water industry is riding to the rescue! If it's live data about water quality that you want then the Environment Act is bringing thousands upon thousands of water quality probes to a river near you soon, installed and maintained by the water industry. Watch this space!
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6436dc0dcc9980000cb89426/CWQM_programme_provisional_technical_guidance_for_sewerage_undertakers_April_2023.1.pdf

Add to that the fact that sewage systems in the UK are essentially falling apart and not able to handle the capacity of extra rainwater, we get insane amounts of sewage discharge, and why is that? Because the water companies are privatised and have no reason to spend their shareholders profits on upgrading their systems.

If I was in government in 1989 then I wouldn't have privatised the water industry. However, linking the amount of base maintenance that is carried out solely to dividends is overly simplistic. If you want to increase the capacity of the combined network to accommodate increased rainfall from climate change then you have to put legislation and funding in place to allow that to happen. As I said before, the Environment Act is flawed, but that is what it is going to do.

[Dingdong]

So in your reponse your citations include some random blokes blog, a government link that shows the river is full of hazardous substances, of which you dont state the source??? a link to whatdotheyknow which show a water company withdrawing 2 request for licenses after being questioned about their cotingency plans and a link to the EA program. Not really sure how any of that refutes my points. Money controls all, any other belief is pretty naive in my opinion.

My only response to all that is this raw sewage map, which by the way is still missing numerous discharges because like you said "probes are still not set up"
https://theriverstrust.org/sewage-map

Our waterways are disgusting, but if they're not as bad as you say, im sure you won't mind going for a dip.

[Will Hunt]

Water quality has improved markedly since privatisation

Do you have evidence for this claim? Has the quality remained good in very recent years? I don't not believe you (I know someone on this forum works in river conservation, but I have forgotten who), I'm just curious as the sewage leak stories have put me off surfing at a lot of the spots on the east coast.

This is a fair challenge. To be honest, it would be a huge amount of work for me to go into the data to prove from first principles that this is correct. I'm going to be lazy and point you to Geoff Roberts' blog, which is his argument against nationalisation, but does give a pretty thorough history of the water industry pre and post privatisation.
https://geoffroberts.me/waterrenationalisation/

One thing that's important to mention is that when I talk about water quality I'm normally talking about things like ammonia, BOD, phosphorous and other things that affect ecology. This is separate to bathing water quality which is measured by E coli and Intestinal enterococci, which are just two of the hundreds of pathogenic bacteria that can be found in fresh and coastal waters. Fish and invertebrates don't really care about these bacteria, only humans who want to swim in rivers/the sea do.

The sources of these bacteria on the coast will be water industry discharges, agriculture, urban runoff, dogs shitting on the beach etc. In Yorkshire there was a very big round of capital work to disinfect effluent from WwTWs on the coast (normally by blasting the final effluent with UV - very carbon intensive and not the sort of thing you'd want to do at all of your WwTWs!) and reduce the number of discharges from storm overflows. You've still got to contend with the other inputs and a reduced amount of bacteria from the water industry.

You can find the EA's classification of each bathing beach here:
https://environment.data.gov.uk/bwq/profiles/

And if it's storm overflows you're interested in you can see where they discharge and how often a year they discharge in wet weather here:
https://yorkshirewater.maps.arcgis.com/apps/dashboards/c293a15e5d4d454ebe7c65f2aba35dac


Even if a beach is rated Excellent by the EA you could still become sick from swimming there. There are never 0 bacteria and it only takes a small amount and for you to be unlucky to become ill. If you want to reduce your risk then the best advice I could give would be to avoid swimming during heavy rainfall and in the days after when agricultural runoff will still be making its way down the rivers to the sea.

[Will Hunt]

My only response to all that is this raw sewage map, which by the way is still missing numerous discharges because like you said "probes are still not set up"
https://theriverstrust.org/sewage-map

The probes I talked about in my previous post are different to the monitors you've linked to there. The Rivers Trust sewage map shows Event Duration Monitoring (EDM) data. This is a count of the number of times that a sewer overflow has discharged. To get technical, this is measured by monitoring the water level in the overflow chamber at 15 or 1 minute intervals (depending on the amenity of the receiving watercourse) to see whether it has exceeded the height of the weir that separates the continuation side of the chamber from the outfall side. I believe that map is not completely up to date as there is now 100% coverage of EDM in the UK (forgive me if there's one or two sites out of thousands that don't have coverage - if there are then it'll be because of some overwhelming engineering challenge).

The probes I mentioned in my last post are to go in the river to measure water quality (dissolved oxygen and ammonium) but haven't been installed yet because the requirement has only just been introduced and it can't all just happen as if by magic. I don't think there are currently enough sondes in existence in the entire world to satisfy the UK's future need under the Environment Act (Pete, if you're looking for an investment opportunity I think you're probably late to the party).

Our waterways are disgusting, but if they're not as bad as you say, im sure you won't mind going for a dip.

It is a tragedy that people think this because many of our watercourses are absolutely stunning. There are also many that are in need of investment. Are we doing something about this? Yes!

Indeed, I don't mind going for a dip. I like the Wharfe, though the designated bathing site in Ilkley is a bit like Club 18-30 on a warm summer's evening. You're much better off going up to Addingham above the weir where it's all pensioners. Some kids have nailed wooden rungs to a tree and you can jump in from a great height (quite scary the first time you do it as it's hard to tell where it might be deep enough). I don't swim in the days after rainfall as the river will be full of cow and sheep shit (there's still some in there during dry periods but not as much). It's also good if it's been really bright and sunny as the UV beating down on the river will help kill off any bacteria.

Here is a photo from a few years ago of the Wharfe. It's a lovely spot downstream of Addingham weir. We spent some time finding crayfish and watching the kingfishers buzzing up and down.

[petejh]

You’re a lot younger than I imagined Will. Good effort refuting dingdong’s BS.

[Dingdong]

You’re a lot younger than I imagined Will. Good effort refuting dingdong’s BS.

Sorry pete but im quite confused, what bullshit unless i'm the only one whos read the hundreds of articles regarding the terrible sewage discharge across all the UKs waterways?

[SA Chris]

Intrigued by dd's "our". I will, and do, happily swim in just about any river in Scotland. Maybe not the Clyde...

[webbo]

So Will when I watched Paul Whitehouse in “Our troubled rivers” the bit where the guy was pulling out sanitary towels and condoms at Ilkley wasn’t true or that residents of Ilkley were protesting against Yorkshire water’s dumping of sewage in to the Wharfe for no reason
Who do work for Will.

[SamT]

Wow.. all escalated rather quickly 

Its like potholes innit.   They're widely agreed to be a problem across the UK.  But some roads are terrible for them, others are smooth as billiard cloth.

[petejh]

You’re a lot younger than I imagined Will. Good effort refuting dingdong’s BS.

Sorry pete but im quite confused, what bullshit unless i'm the only one whos read the hundreds of articles regarding the terrible sewage discharge across all the UKs waterways?

Are you prepared to concede that the three issues you raised:
- ‘water quality’
-  ‘Water quality in the UK has declined’ (over what time? A month, a year, 5 years, a decade, 50 years? A hundred? Without this qualifier your claim is meaningless)
- and ‘water quality as it relates to privatisation and nationalisation of the UK water industry’

..are far more complex then suggested by your simplistic claims? As Will has tried to point out with, you know, actual facts rather than just beliefs.

If not, then that’s the BS.

[Dingdong]

‘Unacceptable’: how raw sewage has affected rivers in England and Wales – in maps
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2023/sep/12/unacceptable-how-raw-sewage-has-affected-rivers-in-england-and-wales-in-maps

Why is sewage released into rivers and the sea?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/explainers-62631320

New study finds that sewage release is worse for rivers than agriculture
https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2023-09-22-new-study-finds-sewage-release-worse-rivers-agriculture

South West Water forced to apologise after sending hundreds of tanker loads of sewage to seaside resort
https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/exmouth-sewage-south-west-water-b2476934.html

Water firms discharged raw sewage 300,000 times last year, court hears
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jul/04/thames-water-fined-33m-for-pumping-sewage-into-rivers

Sewage pollution: why the UK water industry is broken
https://theconversation.com/sewage-pollution-why-the-uk-water-industry-is-broken-186762

‘Genuine problem’ with sewage pollution, admits water industry chief
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/genuine-problem-with-sewage-pollution-admits-water-industry-chief-clean-it-up-r7d7vkq8t?gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQiAzoeuBhDqARIsAMdH14Gc7YzGyUcpxCkeOkSfz6ceyv4PZMZBqUOXHouqL1NNj-fMwthaeK4aAuIvEALw_wcB

UK waters are too polluted to swim in – but European countries offer answers
https://www.lboro.ac.uk/news-events/news/2023/april/uk-waters-too-polluted-to-swim/

Cleaning up failures in water and sewage regulation: Industry and Regulators Committee report
https://lordslibrary.parliament.uk/cleaning-up-failures-in-water-and-sewage-regulation-industry-and-regulators-committee-report/

The Environment Agency (EA) is conducting its largest ever criminal investigation into potential widespread breaches of environmental permit conditions at wastewater treatment works by all water and sewerage companies.
https://environmentagency.blog.gov.uk/2023/06/23/environment-agency-investigation-into-sewage-treatment-works-moves-to-next-phase/

Sewage overspills result from lack of infrastructure investment, research shows
https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/242831/sewage-overspills-result-from-lack-infrastructure/

Fifty-seven swimmers fall sick and get diarrhoea at world triathlon championship in Sunderland
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/aug/05/investigation-after-57-world-triathlon-championship-swimmers-fall-sick-and-get-diarrhoea-in-sunderland-race

England to diverge from EU water monitoring standards
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/oct/27/england-to-diverge-from-eu-water-monitoring-standards

Brexit law change could restrict access to UK river pollution data
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2364782-brexit-law-change-could-restrict-access-to-uk-river-pollution-data/

Sewage-covered beaches risk turning England into the ‘dirty man of Europe’
https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/uk-beaches-sewage-england/index.html

Sewage pollution: facts & figures
https://www.sas.org.uk/water-quality/water-quality-facts-and-figures/

‘An utter disgrace’: 90% of England’s most precious river habitats blighted by raw sewage and farming pollution
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/aug/12/an-utter-disgrace-90-of-englands-most-precious-river-habitats-blighted-by-raw-sewage-and-farming-pollution

Water company fined £510,000 after sewage discharge in river
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/water-company-fined-560170-after-sewage-discharge-in-river

‘Chemical cocktail’ of sewage, slurry and plastic polluting English rivers puts public health and nature at risk
https://committees.parliament.uk/committee/62/environmental-audit-committee/news/160246/chemical-cocktail-of-sewage-slurry-and-plastic-polluting-english-rivers-puts-public-health-and-nature-at-risk/

enjoy your swim

[Dingdong]

Also I cant help but have a disdain for water companies, especially Yorkshire Water who through underfunding and not bothering to upkeep their leaky pipes caused the whole gas network in Stannington to flood with water last year during the freeze causing us to be without gas, water or electricity for almost two weeks.

Glad they were able to pay almost $62m in dividends to their parent companies though.
https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/environment/yorkshire-water-pays-out-ps62m-in-dividends-after-sharp-rise-in-profits-4231949

BTW Will, who do you work for exactly?

[petejh]

Nobody’s reading all those, here’s an abstract:

Is water quality in British rivers “better than at any time since the end of the Industrial Revolution”?
Abstract
We explore the oft-repeated claim that river water quality in Great Britain is “better now than at any time since the Industrial Revolution”. We review available data and ancillary evidence for seven different categories of water pollutants: (i) biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) and ammonia; (ii) heavy metals; (iii) sewage-associated organic pollutants (including hormone-like substances, personal care product and pharmaceutical compounds); (iv) macronutrients (nitrogen and phosphorus); (v) pesticides; (vi) acid deposition and (vii) other variables, including natural organic matter and pathogenic micro-organisms. With a few exceptions, observed data are scarce before 1970. However, we can speculate about some of the major water quality pressures which have existed before that. Point-source pollutants are likely to have increased with population growth, increased connection rates to sewerage and industrialisation, although the increased provision of wastewater treatment during the 20th century will have mitigated this to some extent. From 1940 to the 1990s, pressures from nutrients and pesticides associated with agricultural intensification have increased in many areas. In parallel, there was an increase in synthetic organic compounds with a “down-the-drain” disposal pathway. The 1990s saw general reductions in mean concentrations of metals, BOD and ammonia (driven by the EU Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive), a levelling out of nitrate concentrations (driven by the EU Nitrate Directive), a decrease in phosphate loads from both point-and diffuse-sources and some recovery from catchment acidification. The current picture is mixed: water quality in many rivers downstream of urban centres has improved in sanitary terms but not with respect to emerging contaminants, while river quality in catchments with intensive agriculture is likely to remain worse now than before the 1960s. Water quality is still unacceptably poor in some water bodies. This is often a consequence of multiple stressors which need to be better-identified and prioritised to enable continued recovery.

——————

A significant amount of the pollutants seems to be from agricultural run-off, while another significant contributor is waste water. Others are industrial pollution.

Over the timescales used in the study some of these have fallen, some have remained level, some have increased.

Which isn’t exactly the simplistic picture as you’re trying to portray about water companies.

What’s clear is ‘could do much better’. What isn’t clear is the evidence for your specific claims.

[Dingdong]

Nobody’s reading all those, here’s an abstract:

Is water quality in British rivers “better than at any time since the end of the Industrial Revolution”?
Abstract
We explore the oft-repeated claim that river water quality in Great Britain is “better now than at any time since the Industrial Revolution”. We review available data and ancillary evidence for seven different categories of water pollutants: (i) biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) and ammonia; (ii) heavy metals; (iii) sewage-associated organic pollutants (including hormone-like substances, personal care product and pharmaceutical compounds); (iv) macronutrients (nitrogen and phosphorus); (v) pesticides; (vi) acid deposition and (vii) other variables, including natural organic matter and pathogenic micro-organisms. With a few exceptions, observed data are scarce before 1970. However, we can speculate about some of the major water quality pressures which have existed before that. Point-source pollutants are likely to have increased with population growth, increased connection rates to sewerage and industrialisation, although the increased provision of wastewater treatment during the 20th century will have mitigated this to some extent. From 1940 to the 1990s, pressures from nutrients and pesticides associated with agricultural intensification have increased in many areas. In parallel, there was an increase in synthetic organic compounds with a “down-the-drain” disposal pathway. The 1990s saw general reductions in mean concentrations of metals, BOD and ammonia (driven by the EU Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive), a levelling out of nitrate concentrations (driven by the EU Nitrate Directive), a decrease in phosphate loads from both point-and diffuse-sources and some recovery from catchment acidification. The current picture is mixed: water quality in many rivers downstream of urban centres has improved in sanitary terms but not with respect to emerging contaminants, while river quality in catchments with intensive agriculture is likely to remain worse now than before the 1960s. Water quality is still unacceptably poor in some water bodies. This is often a consequence of multiple stressors which need to be better-identified and prioritised to enable continued recovery.

——————

A significant amount of the pollutants seems to be from agricultural run-off, while another significant contributor is waste water. Others are industrial pollution.

Over the timescales used in the study some of these have fallen, some have remained level, some have increased.

Which isn’t exactly the simplistic picture as you’re trying to portray about water companies.

What’s clear is ‘could do much better’. What isn’t clear is the evidence for your specific claims.

Those MULTIPLE STRESSORS, what exactly are they? Likely manufacturing, agriculture and also the terrible upkeep of sewage systems by the water companies which then can't handle overflow. All those industries have vested interests in keeping regulations out of the picture to maximise profits. Thus they are contributing factors to the degradation of water quality across british waterways.

[Will Hunt]

So Will when I watched Paul Whitehouse in “Our troubled rivers” the bit where the guy was pulling out sanitary towels and condoms at Ilkley wasn’t true or that residents of Ilkley were protesting against Yorkshire water’s dumping of sewage in to the Wharfe for no reason
Who do work for Will.

Steve, I've not tried to claim that there aren't problems or things that can be improved. Carlos and Wellsy made a number of assertions which I either disagree with or are demonstrably untrue, so I've tried to explain why.

[Dingdong]

Now say you work for a water company in Yorkshire Will, to me that would seem like you have an incredible bias in what you're saying.

Also Water UKs members are comprised of the water companies, not exactly trustworthy source either.

Oh and funnily enough Ruth Kelly who chairs Water UK got a job working at policy exchange the year before starting her role at Water UK, a right wing think tank aka lobby group…

[Paul B]

...Will, to me that would seem like you have an incredible bias in what you're saying.

Don't be that guy, outing someone's employer on a forum discussing a sensitive issue. 

[Dingdong]

...Will, to me that would seem like you have an incredible bias in what you're saying.

Don't be that guy, outing someone's employer on a forum discussing a sensitive issue. 

How am I outting his employer when all it takes is a two second google  bro is shilling hard /thread

[Snoops]

...Will, to me that would seem like you have an incredible bias in what you're saying.

Don't be that guy, outing someone's employer on a forum discussing a sensitive issue. 

How am I outting his employer when all it takes is a two second google  bro is shilling hard /thread

Dingdong take a chill pill 

[Dingdong]

Bruh is shilling for water companies and I’m the bad guy, this is hilarious 

[Wellsy]

Well I'd say that Will is posting with a background of industry knowledge. I will say that the media coverage seems to largely represent the water companies as mismanaging UK water and people like Monbiot are not uneducated fools on that front. If the UKs water areas are improving in quality then that is good, although the amount of sewage seems alarming and the water companies do appear to have significantly profited from an asset which I fully believe should be nationalised.

As for whether the industry body lobbies MPs, I would imagine they most certainly do. A quick Google shows that they are certainly accused of doing so by various people. I would also say that Southern Water states that lobbying is a key part of their strategy in their online policy on lobbying so... I'm pretty sure they're doing it at least

I think this is an emotive topic. Why are we one of the only countries in the world who privatised water? Has that succeded? In the opinion of this citizen, no it has not, it was a mistake, and our water is not fit for us as a society, it should be better. It is galling when private companies make money off pumping literal shit into the rivers and sea, anyone can appreciate that. But then I am rather pro nationalised services and utilities and not a fan of privatisation in general. Not that this makes me particularly alone in the UK population, mind you.

[spidermonkey09]

Shilling? Get a grip