Source · Select Committees · Environmental Audit Committee
Recommendation 11
11
Not Addressed
Paragraph: 70
Most river users cannot currently make informed decisions about when it is safe or not...
Recommendation
Most river users cannot currently make informed decisions about when it is safe or not to use rivers downstream of storm overflows and wastewater treatment works. We recommend as a matter of urgency that the Environment Agency work with water companies to ensure that easily accessible information on sewage discharges in waterways in as near to real time as possible is made available to the public, as now required under the Environment Act 2021. Signage should also be provided at commonly frequented bathing sites downstream from wastewater treatment works with information about how to access the data on recent discharges.
Government response summary AI-generated
The response discusses modelling and monitoring of the water environment to detect nutrient flows across catchments, as well as concerns about the stalling effect of nutrient neutrality on new housebuilding, which is irrelevant to the recommendation about real-time sewage discharge information.
Summary of the government's response below — read the verbatim text to verify.
Paragraph Reference:
70
Government Response
Not Addressed
HM Government · verbatim extract
Not Addressed
We agree that the quality and transparency of public data on sewage overflows must be improved. The Government is already working closely with the Environment Agency, the Storm Overflows Taskforce and the water industry on relevant proposals to enable this and ensure accountability. Water companies have committed to bring forward full event duration monitoring by 2023. The Environment Act also introduced a duty for water companies to monitor the water quality up and downstream from their assets and we will be bringing forward more detail on this in due course.
Read the full response on Parliament ↗