Last week saw a surge in media interest in river water quality and, in particular, sewage pollution from storm overflows.
The Times launched a new "Clean It Up" campaign last Monday, with a manifesto featuring:
calls for jail and other criminal penalties for water chiefs under a beefed up Environment Agency;
bringing forward the target date for three-quarters of storm overflows near sensitive bathing to cause no ecological harm;
hundreds of clean bathing sites by the end of the decade; and
Incentives for farmers to curb pollution of rivers.
Meanwhile the i newspaper and sister title, New Scientist, launched a separate "Save Britain’s Rivers" campaign, with the aims:
to reveal what’s going on in rivers and why;
to raise awareness and understanding; and
policy change, with a manifesto for rivers – “a robust, cross-party plan on how to fix them” – to follow.
They publications have promised a year of reporting, podcasts and live events.
These campaigns follow The Daily Telegraph’s ongoing "Clean Rivers Campaign" and frequent ad hoc reporting of storm overflow and related issues across a wide range of other outlets.
Among the topics covered across mainstream national media last week were:
• The Mirror analysed 2021 spill data to produce a "Top of the Poops" list of the 20 most polluted rivers in England and Wales (see table);
• The Times reported environment secretary ,Therese Coffey, as understood not to favour beefing up water company fines to £250m, as mooted by her predecessor.
Other stories on penalties and punishments included on criminal sanctions for water leaders with:
• former environment secretary, George Eustice, pointed the finger of responsibility for the state of rivers at the Environment Agency, in a piece in the i;
• a reported Lords rebellion seeking to exempt water regulations (Water Framework Directive and Bathing Water Directive) from the bonfire of post-Brexit European laws via the Retained EU Law Bill;
• "Fat cat" pay stories and in a Parliamentary question last week, Labour’s Lord Sikka raised the idea of introducing legislation to give customers of water companies a statutory right to vote on remuneration paid to their directors, and asked about Ofwat being able to levy personal fines on water company directors as well as criminal prosecutions:
• condemnation of the effects of sewage discharges on the shellfish industry; and
• coverage of sewage pollution as a key challenge for Conservative MPs at the next election.
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