David Levy – Sand, Sea and Sewage : Honesty by the EA and Water Companies – Aug 20
When the public becomes involved in ‘matters of State’, such as agencies overseeing utilities that provide us with services, it becomes very clear and very quickly that we are being deceived.
Monitoring of actions harmful to health are not being fully recorded. Nor are the transgressions being fully enforced because the fines are restricted.
Not only that, but the laissez-faire attitude by the Agency is such that it is not being told the full truth by the service provider.
So when you can see a pattern of fines for breaches in standards, you can bank your bottom £ that there are many more which are not being reported or recorded.
How has this serious matter been allowed to develop?
The truth is the standards for sewage treatment and discharges into bathing waters are only just a recent addition to public health.
For generations our rivers and seas have been considered the sink hole for human and animal waste, and little has really changed in this country to reassure you that anything major has altered.
Certainly the water companies have been dragged kicking and screaming towards cleaning up their act and, like most utilities, they have employed delaying tactics and gradual change. Meanwhile the diseases carried in bathing waters and beach sands are multiplying at a much quicker rate than they seem to be aware of.
Time for the science to speak out, for the public to lobby, and for the Government to protect the population from these harmful diseases.
The Government can enforce this with more vigilance and genuinely transparent monitoring, regular unannounced visits, along with higher fines – all capable of being part of the new Environment Bill, currently before Parliament, via an amendment that recognises that sewage discharges are the key to public health.
David Levy
