Posts Tagged ‘Environment Agency’
The UK’s Beaches Contaminated by Raw Sewage
Wednesday, November 25th, 2009
According to results released by Defra last week 30% of UK beaches failed to meet guideline standards which were set 30 years ago.
Surfers Against Sewage (SAS) an environment campaign organisation in the UK claim that this confirms their fears that our bathing waters and beautiful surfing spots are being contaminated by raw sewage discharging from Combined Sewer Overflows (CSOs).
Despite many warnings that this is happening and video evidence from the SAS the UK’s water companies don’t believe they have done anything wrong. Although they are appealing against the Environment Agencies attempts to regulate the 4000 unlicensed CSOs around the UK’s coastline.
The SAS have set up a new campaign to warn beach users of the impact of CSOs and the danger they are unwittingly exposing themselves to.
Evidence of the overuse of CSOs was exposed by the SAS on BBC 1 programme Panorama, entitled ‘Britain’s Dirty Beaches’ which aired this summer. Comments of disbelief and disgust flooded in from the general public according to SAS. They also reveal on their website that a number of water companies have launched an action to ensure that thousands of their CSOs escape environmental regulations. The companies in question are named and shamed on the SAS website.
Campaign Manager Andy Cummings is quoted on the SAS website as saying, “Once again the UK had failed to meet minimum standards set over 30 years ago for bathing water quality. SAS has been warning of poor results due to the UK’s over use of CSOs. The problem has gone on too long and SAS are calling on supporters to take action and adopt a CSO. If water companies are going to put water quality and public health at risk SAS will ensure the public are warned!”
Did you go to a UK beach this summer? Have you had any health problems from bathing in UK waters? We’d love to hear your stories good or bad.
Tags: Bathing, Beaches, Combined Sewer Overflows, CSOs, Environment, Environment Agency, Rubbish, SAS, Sewage, Surfers Against Sewage, Surfing, water, Water Companies
Posted in Charity, Environment, Television | No Comments »
UK Rivers Fail New EU Standard
Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009
The Environment Agency has reported that three quarters of the rivers in England and Wales fall below a new European environment standard.
On a positive note water standards have improved across the UK for the 19th year in a row and wildlife is returning to a vast majority of the rivers.
6,000 rivers were surveyed and only 5 were classified as ‘pristine’. Environment groups are asking for tougher action to be taken to improve Britain’s water ways.
Improvements have been made over the last 20 years but the Environment Agency knows that things could be better.
The improvements in water quality have led to the return of some species which were at one point thought to be in terminal decline along some stretches of Britain’s rivers.
Otters, eels and Salmon have all returned to the Thames, Mersey and Tyne.
Despite these improvements the new European Water Framework Directive which became law in the UK in 2003 sets a much higher quality standard. It uses a much wider and more sophisticated range of tests to determine the water quality.
Under the new directive only 5 rivers satisfy the highest standards and they are situated in remote areas of Northumberland and Wales. 117 rivers have been newly classified as ‘bad’ these include stretches of the rivers Trent and Stour.
The Environment Agency has accepted that they need to act now to protect our waterways for future generations. They have announced the introduction of new measures which aim to improve more rivers by 2015.
The River Basin Management Plans include tackling discharge from sewage works, limiting the removal of water from rivers and preventing pollution from farmland and built up areas leaking into our watercourses.
It is important that we do something about the state of the UK’s rivers now rather than just hoping it will sort itself out. It is time we thought about future generations and made more of an effort to protect our planet.
Tags: Environment, Environment Agency, EU, EU standards, pollution, rivers, water, waterways
Posted in Environment | 2 Comments »