Where are the leaders — what are we doing to our Rivers UK?

I am lucky enough to live in a beautiful part of the country. Each morning I can take the dog on one of many walks around the area. I say I can because actually I take it on the same walk every day as it is an incredibly flat walk and I hate walking up hills. However, recently my dog has started to refuse to go on this walk after being zapped by an electric fence placed far too close to the path by an uncaring farmer. So, it’s back up the hills again. To be fair, once up these hills, the views and the fields are beautiful so all in all it’s worth the effort not just for the dog but for what lies ahead. Stay with me…

At the top of the first hill are acres and acres of Barley. When I last used to walk up there, I’d (sadly) have a little sing to myself of one of Sting’s all time classics — “Fields of Gold”. Up there on my own with just the dog in this heavenly space. Except I hadn’t been up there for a while and now when I reached the top and squeezed through the gap in the hedge to the fields awaiting me, I was met with quite a different site.

I think I’m pretty sure that Sting wouldn’t have been so inspired to write such a beautiful song should he too had been met with the same view and we would never have been graced with such lyrics as –

“You’ll remember me when the west wind moves, Upon the fields of turnips”.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with turnips. I just don’t want to stand in a field with them for any sort of artistic or indeed any other type of inspiration. And this, in a nutshell, is how I feel about those at the very top of positions of power in today’s society with regards to our environment.

There doesn’t seem to be many anymore that inspire us. Turnips everywhere. I really do believe that in the past, there were many politicians that perhaps we may not have agreed with on everything but there were plenty that were passionate, genuine and truly caring about what they argued for and against. This however doesn’t seem to be the case when it comes to our rivers.

An amendment to the environment bill that would have placed a legal duty on water companies not to pump waste into rivers was recently voted down in the commons with the environment secretary himself recommending that MPs vote against the amendment. 265 MP votes against vs 202 for.

Identical excuses have now been thrown about by MPs saying that (as expected) the cost of the required infrastructure change needed to implement this would be too much (somewhere between £150 Billion and £650 Billion) and that without tax payer contributions most of the water companies would go bankrupt whist carrying out this work. So what does that mean?

First of all, if someone quoted you and I somewhere between 150 and 650 quid for some work, we would quite rightly think they had absolute no idea how much it was going to cost and that they had simply made up the figure. We would in fact think they were a turnip. If we multiply that by a billion then that gives you an idea of the magnitude of turnips that we are dealing with.

Secondly, English water companies have handed more than £2 Billion a year on average to shareholders since they were privatised thirty years ago. Perhaps some of this could have been invested in the infrastructure needed?

Thirdly, despite being allocated £37 billion in funding — earlier this year a Parliamentary committee said that there was no evidence the “unimaginable” cost of NHS Test & Trace had made any progress in dealing with the COVID pandemic. In which case perhaps we could start allocating funds to things that actually work — such as fixing the infrastructure I’ve just mentioned above. There always seems to be money available for certain things and not others— think Matt Hancock’s pub landlord for a start.

It’s over 25 years ago since I met the founder of Surfers against Sewage Chris Hines MBE in Scarborough whilst he was campaigning. SAS lent me some equipment in order for me to test for bacterial contamination in bathing waters around the UK. This was for my dissertation looking at the link between this and health effects on recreational users. It was shocking back then what was happening but I genuinely thought that, and a lot of this had to do with the work that SAS did, things had got better. Things are now starting to get / have got much worse again.

This year Southern Water were sentenced to pay a record £90 million in fines for widespread pollution after pleading guilty to 6,971 un-permitted sewage discharges. The case was the largest criminal investigation in the Environment Agency’s 25-year history. It was all very well and good that they were fined but it still happened — 51 guilty pleas to widespread and long term breaches of environmental law by Southern Water between 2010 and 2015. 5 years! This should have been stopped in the first place; not allowed to happen.

The way things are going, it won’t be long until we can actually grow turnips in our rivers with the amount of Sh*t that’s going to be continued to be pumped in to them. If we don’t want that then let’s hold the turnips in charge to account. If your MP was one of the 265 that voted against this amendment then please write to them to express your dismay. If your MP was one of the 202 that voted for this amendment then please write to them to express your gratitude. They’re gold.