Would you swim in our waters now? 💩 After decades of neglect, our rivers, lakes and seas are on life support. So we'll be in London on Sunday 3rd Nov to March For Clean Water! 📢 Register your interest TODAY and join us to push for change!

. watershed_investigations has been shortlisted for our Watershed Pollution Map ... watershedinvestigations.com/home/find-out-…

More criminal cover ups in the water industry — self-reporting has enabled corruption and been catastrophic for the environment. Water firms in England ‘passed’ pollution tests that were never carried out theguardian.com/environment/20…

The negotiations at Cop16 on global biodiversity are underway in Columbia. The key objective of this conference is the practical implementation of the Kunming-Montreal Framework agreed at Cop15. As part of Lawyers for Nature, I’m joining a delegation of earth lawyers from

📢Calling all Londoners! Join Chris Packham Carol Vorderman Johnny Flynn @RobGMacfarlane & thousands of us THIS SUNDAY as we march to parliament to tell the Govt that IT'S THEIR JOB to stop the poisoning of Britain's waters. 📍Albert Embankment; 11AM 👉marchforcleanwater.org

Well done Brian Laney, one of our fabulous #BSBImembers, who is going the extra mile for Field Cow-wheat! Find out more about this declining hemi-parasitic plant, 1st recorded in UK in 1716, on its #PlantAtlas2020 page: plantatlas2020.org/atlas/2cd4p9h.… speciesrecoverytrust Kevin Walker

An interesting read. linkedin.com/posts/british-…

Have you seen this 👇🏻Feargal Sharkey, Rachel Salvidge, leanahosea ? Would these PFAS destruction units be an easy retrofit to UK potable water treatment processing & potential mitigation for pfas hotspots #RescueBritainsWaters

‘Missed Connections’: the under-reported aspect of the sewage crisis🧵 The scandal of sewage spills caused by combined sewer overflows has received significant attention. However, across the country, and particularly in urban areas, significant sewage pollution is being caused

A missed connection occurs when foul water discharges from buildings are plumbed into the surface water system, causing raw sewage & grey water to be discharged untreated into rivers & streams. This happens for a variety of reasons. It’s often accidental, with any building

One reason is that is is difficult, slow & expensive to track missed connection spills back to the specific building causing them. If a particular outfall is showing signs of sewage pollution, how do you tell which of the hundreds or thousands of buildings draining into it have a

The most difficult issue the regulatory mess of who is supposed to deal with this issue. And on this one it is not as simple as just blaming the water companies. There are a number of authorities who have responsibility & sadly far too much of a culture of passing the buck &

Local authorities appear to have the strongest powers to deal with this issue, with section 59 of the Building Act 1984 putting a duty (“they shall”) on them to require the owners of misconnected buildings to rectify the issue. However, few local authorities use this power at all

Water companies have a power under the Water Industry Act 1991 to close off any missed connection and to prosecute those responsible. However, as we know water companies are private profit making entities & they do not seem to have much incentive to spend the time or money using

The Environment Agency also has significant powers under the Water Resources Act 1991 to investigate & issues remedial notices for missed connections, as well as using its usual prosecutorial powers. However, they rarely if ever use these powers to stop & prosecute pollution from

So, what’s the solution to this problem? It’s clearly not legal powers, as three agencies already have sufficient legal powers to deal with missed connections. Instead, it’s a question of *duty*. Central government needs to step in & decide which of the three current power