According to the latest Environment Agency Report, there has been a welcome improvement in cases of serious pollution over the past two years following a dismal year in 2013 when there were 88 serious pollution incidents. There were 61 category 1 and 2 incidents in 2014 and 59 in 2015.
Each company was asked by the Agency to produce an action plan to understand the increase of serious incidents in 2013 and reverse the rise. It was found that there was no common root cause for the increase; key factors that contributed were shortcomings in risk assessment, operational practice and staff culture, and inadequate monitoring and management.
- The 2015 total pollution incidents were the same as the lowest levels reached back in 2008, with incidents for all three categories numbering 1,742 as opposed to 2,358 in 2014.
- Water quality pollution incidents from sewerage and water service assets rose steadily between 2008 and 2012, although some of this could be attributed to better reporting of incident by water companies themselves.
- The biggest-ever level of self-reporting of pollution incidents by the sector was the highest in 2015, at 69%. Individual levels of reporting varied between companies, with some only reporting 48% while other reported up to 82%. The EA wants self-reporting to average 75% by 2020.
The Agency said, “Within the overall large reduction, performance varied between companies. We are interested to understand how some companies achieved large reductions, whilst others increased. We want to see further reductions in incidents and encourage the industry to share best practice.â€
According to the Report, water and sewerage companies invested £102 million on reducing the risk of sewer flooding to properties and a further £53 million for the maintenance of the public sewer system to prevent blockages and flooding. In addition to this, companies also invested £12 million in property-level protection and mitigation measures to reduce the probability of sewer flooding in customers’ homes.
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