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Oceans and rivers are being treated as “open sewers” with more than 3,000 sewage pollution incidents discovered in the past year, activists say.
The Surfers Against Sewage campaign group’s annual water quality report monitored wastewater discharges into public bathing waters across the UK in 2019 and 2020.
The charity says most of the water pollution cases came from water companies and some involved accidents that caused serious illness to swimmers.
The UK did not meet the 2020 UK seas target of achieving good environmental status, failing 11 out of 15 indicators of good marine health.
Around 86% of inland rivers and streams in England also failed to meet good ecological status, according to the water quality campaign group.
“The report highlights the disastrous state of water quality in the UK and the causes of the destruction of our blue habitats,” the group added.
Oceans and rivers are treated as “ open sewers ” with more than 3,000 raw sewage pollution incidents discovered in the past year, activists say
Sewer incidents have been reported across the UK in bathing water areas, with Southern Water supposed to have the most emergency runoff incidents, but failed to report the most – sending only 79 notifications compared to over 600 in 2019
As part of the Surfers Against Sewage report it also monitored some of the most severe pollution cases and in one incident, two bathers required antibiotics for stomach problems in Bournemouth and near Penzance.
“We have a right to an environment that is not harmful to our health and is protected for the benefit of present and future generations,” said Lew Pugh, UN Patron of the Oceans, who fell ill after swimming in the Thames in the 2006.
This year, the importance of the natural environment for physical and mental health was brought to the attention of the public, the association said.
“However, recent reports from the European Center for the Environment and Human Health indicate that we are likely to get sick from poor water quality like in the 1990s.
“In addition, surfers and water users are increasingly exposed to antibiotic-resistant bacteria, one of the world’s biggest emerging health threats,” they wrote.
In this year’s report, Surfers Against Sewage presented 153 reports on the health of water users of people who get sick after using our rivers and the ocean for recreation.
Reports included cases of gastroenteritis; ear, nose and throat infections; eye infections and, in some cases, more severe long-term health effects.
In 2019, 98% of UK bathing waters met minimum standards, but despite this the country only ranked 25th out of 30 European countries for the quality of our bathing water, the body wrote. beneficial in its annual water quality report.
“What is not published often is that only 66% of UK bathing waters have been rated as ‘excellent’, far below the average of 87% of coastal bathing waters meeting the same standard in the rest. of Europe. “
A Surfers Against Sewage spokesperson said there have been incidents from many water companies, but specifically named Southern Water, saying they have not issued any sewage spill notifications for most of 2020.
“In fact, 21 percent of the total reports of ill health filed within Southern Water’s borders,” the spokesperson added.
In 2019 Southern Water sent out 650 notifications of sewage pumped into bathing areas, but in 2020 it was only 79 as the company failed to make the announcements
There were 690 notifications of sewage spills from Southern Water in 2019, but only 79 so far in 2020, with the company saying that “ the notifications should have been sent but frustratingly weren’t. ”
Surfers Against Sewage CEO Hugo Tagholm said water companies are putting profits ahead of the need to protect the environment.
“This report demonstrates that rivers and oceans are treated as open sewers as combined sewer overflows are used as a routine method of wastewater disposal, rather than in the exceptional circumstances in which it is allowed,” he said.
‘Even worse, some – like Southern Water – aren’t even warning the public when they do, so people can’t make informed decisions about their health.
“This is particularly horrifying in a year when we are all battling the COVID19 pandemic, a virus that is being tracked through the sewers.”
Tagholm said water companies should invest more in infrastructure to reduce the use of emergency wastewater spills that pump waste into bathing water.
A spokesperson for Southern Water told the BBC that these overflows help prevent “the misery of internal flooding for our customers”.
The company added that it was investing £ 1.7 billion in its sewage network.
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