Utility Week

UTILITY WEEK | FEBRUARY 2022 | 29 Water them, or failed to act in a way that makes water companies take action." He says the Treasury has increased the budget of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) beyond what was requested, and he is hopeful the EA will receive increased funding, but he also says a lot can be done using technology. "We can expect very significant improve- ments to take place in monitoring without huge increases in funding," Dunne says. The report advised reclassifying all signif- icant sewage spills from CSOs in dry weather as pollution incidents, regardless of permit compliance, to incentivise overall reduction in discharges. The EAC additionally recommended that water companies' licence conditions be revised to require the delivery of year-on-year reductions in the number of pollution inci- dents towards a target of zero serious inci- dents by 2030. "We're all trying to leave the natural envi- ronment in a better state than we found it and rivers are the arteries of nature," says Dunne. "Government and ministers have heard that and we will see a relentless pres- sure to continue to improve, which will first be felt by the water companies but will spread across other polluters of watercourses and rivers." The committee said water companies should work with the EA to ensure the public can easily access near real-time information on discharges into waterways as a matter of urgency. It said popular bathing areas should be signposted if they are downstream from a sewage treatment plant and farmers close to designated bathing areas should work to minimise the risk of faecal contamination. At present there is just one designated inland bathing area, at Ilkely in West York- shire, but the EAC said the government should "actively encourage the designation of at least one widely used stretch of river for bathing" in each water company's water catchment areas by 2025. It said for the next price review period from 2025-30 companies should set out how they will support more applications for designated river bathing areas. Environment minister Rebecca Pow adds that Defra "won't hesitate to take enforce- ment action against water companies failing to reduce pollution" and points to action to support farmers to reduce agricultural pollu- tion, which the department has doubled the budget for. "We are going further and faster than any other government to protect and enhance the health of our rivers and seas," Pow says. Meanwhile, an EA spokesperson says: "Everyone should understand the scale of the challenges and the investment needed to put things right. We welcome the EAC's recommendations and will respond in due course while continuing to work with indus- try, government and the wider public to pro- tect our rivers, making the best use of the resources we have." Dunne says regulators and water compa- nies alike have supported the inquiry and the initial response to the report has reflected that effort towards a common goal. Sector response Southern Water's director of environment and corporate affairs, Toby Willison, says: "The EAC is absolutely right to call for a col- laborative approach to tackling river water quality. There are many contributing stake- holders including farming, highways and customers which must all be harnessed to help deliver the best outcomes for our rivers." Southern has committed to invest £2 bil- lion over AMP7 to reduce 80% of its pollu- tion incidents by 2025 and monitor storm overflows across its region. It has established a storm overflow taskforce that works with local councils, MPs, land users and housing developers to improve water quality near its treatment plants. "To support this approach we need Ofwat and the Environment Agency to create the right regulatory framework to encourage investment via this kind of collaborative way of working," he adds. The report, together with the Environ- ment Act, will feed into Defra's Strategic Pol- icy Statement to Ofwat ahead of PR24. The report urged Ofwat to make clear that natu- ral capital must be taken into account in all economic decisions. An Ofwat spokesman says: "Water com- panies' performance in releasing sewage into the environment isn't acceptable. We have an active investigation underway, we are work- ing with the government and other regulators to tackle these issues and hold companies to account at the same time as backing green initiatives. It's clear there is more to do so we welcome the publication of the report and will review the recommendations." A Water UK spokesperson adds: "We sup- port the committee's urgent call for action to improve the health of England's rivers. Many of the recommendations mirror proposals set out in our recent 21st Century Rivers report, which calls for government, regulators, water companies, agriculture, and other sec- tors to come together and create a compre- hensive national plan to transform our rivers. "Now is the time to have an honest conver- sation about whether the current approach is adequate for addressing the challenges faced by our environment, which is why we particularly support the committee's call for regulators to take a long-term focus. "The committee is also right to emphasise the need for further investment to eliminate harm from storm overflows and treatment works. Water companies want to invest more and are pushing the government to encour- age the economic regulator, Ofwat, to ena- ble this increased spending over the next decade." Ruth Williams, water correspondent "Water company boards need to consider their bonus awards for senior executives where there are persistent breaches of regulations" Philip Dunne, chair, Environmental Audit Committee

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