This scandal— @unitedutilities illegally dumping at least 140 million litres of sewage into Windermere, a jewel in the crown of the Lake District—*really* stinks, even among many stinking sewage stories. bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cdrj… It’s worth pausing over why: * the scale & duration of illegal discharge is huge: 143m litres of sewage is the minimum—it might have been as much as 286m litres. * because UU, like other water companies, “self-reports” to the Environment Agency, these years of illegal discharge were only disclosed following pressure from the indefatigable campaigner @MattStaniek & excellent deep data-diving by BBC News.  * UU insiders say that the “spills” (dumps) would have been visible to the company, but they chose not to report them b/c management “judged the risk of the EA finding out and understanding the permit breach would be minimal as they are under-resourced.” Jaw-dropping if true. * Strategic Tory—and, now, Labour—under-funding of the EA has immense material consequences for England’s waterbodies: in this case the illegal poisoning of a vast, spectacular lake upon which many lives of many species, humans included, depend. * Staggeringly, UU was awarded the maximum 4* for environmental performance by the EA earlier this year, and @Ofwat allowed it to raise bills to claim an extra £22.3m in profit for its “performance” in 2023. * Both regulators seem to be eating out of the palms of a water company which appears to be knowingly failing to comply with its legal requirements because it judges that its breaches are unlikely to be detected and, if detected, that any fine will be assimilable within the company’s wider financial context. Remedies? * Root and branch reform of Ofwat & EA. * Enforcement of existing environmental law and regulation. * Fundamental re-imagining of our relationship with water. The last is surely the hardest… #MarchForCleanWater

This scandal— @unitedutilities illegally dumping at least 140 million litres of sewage into Windermere, a jewel in the crown of the Lake District—*really* stinks, even among many stinking sewage stories. bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cdrj… It’s worth pausing over why: * the scale & duration of illegal discharge is huge: 143m litres of sewage is the minimum—it might have been as much as 286m litres. * because UU, like other water companies, “self-reports” to the Environment Agency, these years of illegal discharge were only disclosed following pressure from the indefatigable campaigner @MattStaniek & excellent deep data-diving by BBC News.  * UU insiders say that the “spills” (dumps) would have been visible to the company, but they chose not to report them b/c management “judged the risk of the EA finding out and understanding the permit breach would be minimal as they are under-resourced.” Jaw-dropping if true. * Strategic Tory—and, now, Labour—under-funding of the EA has immense material consequences for England’s waterbodies: in this case the illegal poisoning of a vast, spectacular lake upon which many lives of many species, humans included, depend. * Staggeringly, UU was awarded the maximum 4* for environmental performance by the EA earlier this year, and @Ofwat allowed it to raise bills to claim an extra £22.3m in profit for its “performance” in 2023. * Both regulators seem to be eating out of the palms of a water company which appears to be knowingly failing to comply with its legal requirements because it judges that its breaches are unlikely to be detected and, if detected, that any fine will be assimilable within the company’s wider financial context. Remedies? * Root and branch reform of Ofwat & EA. * Enforcement of existing environmental law and regulation. * Fundamental re-imagining of our relationship with water. The last is surely the hardest… #MarchForCleanWater

This scandal— @unitedutilities illegally dumping at least 140 million litres of sewage into Windermere, a jewel in the crown of the Lake District—*really* stinks, even among many stinking sewage stories. bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cdrj… It’s worth pausing over why: * the scale & duration of illegal discharge is huge: 143m litres of sewage is the minimum—it might have been as much as 286m litres. * because UU, like other water companies, “self-reports” to the Environment Agency, these years of illegal discharge were only disclosed following pressure from the indefatigable campaigner @MattStaniek & excellent deep data-diving by BBC News.  * UU insiders say that the “spills” (dumps) would have been visible to the company, but they chose not to report them b/c management “judged the risk of the EA finding out and understanding the permit breach would be minimal as they are under-resourced.” Jaw-dropping if true. * Strategic Tory—and, now, Labour—under-funding of the EA has immense material consequences for England’s waterbodies: in this case the illegal poisoning of a vast, spectacular lake upon which many lives of many species, humans included, depend. * Staggeringly, UU was awarded the maximum 4* for environmental performance by the EA earlier this year, and @Ofwat allowed it to raise bills to claim an extra £22.3m in profit for its “performance” in 2023. * Both regulators seem to be eating out of the palms of a water company which appears to be knowingly failing to comply with its legal requirements because it judges that its breaches are unlikely to be detected and, if detected, that any fine will be assimilable within the company’s wider financial context. Remedies? * Root and branch reform of Ofwat & EA. * Enforcement of existing environmental law and regulation. * Fundamental re-imagining of our relationship with water. The last is surely the hardest… #MarchForCleanWater

This scandal— @unitedutilities illegally dumping at least 140 million litres of sewage into Windermere, a jewel in the crown of the Lake District—*really* stinks, even among many stinking sewage stories. bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cdrj… It’s worth pausing over why: * the scale & duration of illegal discharge is huge: 143m litres of sewage is the minimum—it might have been as much as 286m litres. * because UU, like other water companies, “self-reports” to the Environment Agency, these years of illegal discharge were only disclosed following pressure from the indefatigable campaigner @MattStaniek & excellent deep data-diving by BBC News.  * UU insiders say that the “spills” (dumps) would have been visible to the company, but they chose not to report them b/c management “judged the risk of the EA finding out and understanding the permit breach would be minimal as they are under-resourced.” Jaw-dropping if true. * Strategic Tory—and, now, Labour—under-funding of the EA has immense material consequences for England’s waterbodies: in this case the illegal poisoning of a vast, spectacular lake upon which many lives of many species, humans included, depend. * Staggeringly, UU was awarded the maximum 4* for environmental performance by the EA earlier this year, and @Ofwat allowed it to raise bills to claim an extra £22.3m in profit for its “performance” in 2023. * Both regulators seem to be eating out of the palms of a water company which appears to be knowingly failing to comply with its legal requirements because it judges that its breaches are unlikely to be detected and, if detected, that any fine will be assimilable within the company’s wider financial context. Remedies? * Root and branch reform of Ofwat & EA. * Enforcement of existing environmental law and regulation. * Fundamental re-imagining of our relationship with water. The last is surely the hardest… #MarchForCleanWater

This scandal— @unitedutilities illegally dumping at least 140 million litres of sewage into Windermere, a jewel in the crown of the Lake District—*really* stinks, even among many stinking sewage stories. bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cdrj… It’s worth pausing over why: * the scale & duration of illegal discharge is huge: 143m litres of sewage is the minimum—it might have been as much as 286m litres. * because UU, like other water companies, “self-reports” to the Environment Agency, these years of illegal discharge were only disclosed following pressure from the indefatigable campaigner @MattStaniek & excellent deep data-diving by BBC News.  * UU insiders say that the “spills” (dumps) would have been visible to the company, but they chose not to report them b/c management “judged the risk of the EA finding out and understanding the permit breach would be minimal as they are under-resourced.” Jaw-dropping if true. * Strategic Tory—and, now, Labour—under-funding of the EA has immense material consequences for England’s waterbodies: in this case the illegal poisoning of a vast, spectacular lake upon which many lives of many species, humans included, depend. * Staggeringly, UU was awarded the maximum 4* for environmental performance by the EA earlier this year, and @Ofwat allowed it to raise bills to claim an extra £22.3m in profit for its “performance” in 2023. * Both regulators seem to be eating out of the palms of a water company which appears to be knowingly failing to comply with its legal requirements because it judges that its breaches are unlikely to be detected and, if detected, that any fine will be assimilable within the company’s wider financial context. Remedies? * Root and branch reform of Ofwat & EA. * Enforcement of existing environmental law and regulation. * Fundamental re-imagining of our relationship with water. The last is surely the hardest… #MarchForCleanWater

This scandal— @unitedutilities illegally dumping at least 140 million litres of sewage into Windermere, a jewel in the crown of the Lake District—*really* stinks, even among many stinking sewage stories. bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cdrj… It’s worth pausing over why: * the scale & duration of illegal discharge is huge: 143m litres of sewage is the minimum—it might have been as much as 286m litres. * because UU, like other water companies, “self-reports” to the Environment Agency, these years of illegal discharge were only disclosed following pressure from the indefatigable campaigner @MattStaniek & excellent deep data-diving by BBC News.  * UU insiders say that the “spills” (dumps) would have been visible to the company, but they chose not to report them b/c management “judged the risk of the EA finding out and understanding the permit breach would be minimal as they are under-resourced.” Jaw-dropping if true. * Strategic Tory—and, now, Labour—under-funding of the EA has immense material consequences for England’s waterbodies: in this case the illegal poisoning of a vast, spectacular lake upon which many lives of many species, humans included, depend. * Staggeringly, UU was awarded the maximum 4* for environmental performance by the EA earlier this year, and @Ofwat allowed it to raise bills to claim an extra £22.3m in profit for its “performance” in 2023. * Both regulators seem to be eating out of the palms of a water company which appears to be knowingly failing to comply with its legal requirements because it judges that its breaches are unlikely to be detected and, if detected, that any fine will be assimilable within the company’s wider financial context. Remedies? * Root and branch reform of Ofwat & EA. * Enforcement of existing environmental law and regulation. * Fundamental re-imagining of our relationship with water. The last is surely the hardest… #MarchForCleanWater

This scandal— @unitedutilities illegally dumping at least 140 million litres of sewage into Windermere, a jewel in the crown of the Lake District—*really* stinks, even among many stinking sewage stories. bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cdrj… It’s worth pausing over why: * the scale & duration of illegal discharge is huge: 143m litres of sewage is the minimum—it might have been as much as 286m litres. * because UU, like other water companies, “self-reports” to the Environment Agency, these years of illegal discharge were only disclosed following pressure from the indefatigable campaigner @MattStaniek & excellent deep data-diving by BBC News.  * UU insiders say that the “spills” (dumps) would have been visible to the company, but they chose not to report them b/c management “judged the risk of the EA finding out and understanding the permit breach would be minimal as they are under-resourced.” Jaw-dropping if true. * Strategic Tory—and, now, Labour—under-funding of the EA has immense material consequences for England’s waterbodies: in this case the illegal poisoning of a vast, spectacular lake upon which many lives of many species, humans included, depend. * Staggeringly, UU was awarded the maximum 4* for environmental performance by the EA earlier this year, and @Ofwat allowed it to raise bills to claim an extra £22.3m in profit for its “performance” in 2023. * Both regulators seem to be eating out of the palms of a water company which appears to be knowingly failing to comply with its legal requirements because it judges that its breaches are unlikely to be detected and, if detected, that any fine will be assimilable within the company’s wider financial context. Remedies? * Root and branch reform of Ofwat & EA. * Enforcement of existing environmental law and regulation. * Fundamental re-imagining of our relationship with water. The last is surely the hardest… #MarchForCleanWater

This scandal— @unitedutilities illegally dumping at least 140 million litres of sewage into Windermere, a jewel in the crown of the Lake District—*really* stinks, even among many stinking sewage stories. bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cdrj… It’s worth pausing over why: * the scale & duration of illegal discharge is huge: 143m litres of sewage is the minimum—it might have been as much as 286m litres. * because UU, like other water companies, “self-reports” to the Environment Agency, these years of illegal discharge were only disclosed following pressure from the indefatigable campaigner @MattStaniek & excellent deep data-diving by BBC News.  * UU insiders say that the “spills” (dumps) would have been visible to the company, but they chose not to report them b/c management “judged the risk of the EA finding out and understanding the permit breach would be minimal as they are under-resourced.” Jaw-dropping if true. * Strategic Tory—and, now, Labour—under-funding of the EA has immense material consequences for England’s waterbodies: in this case the illegal poisoning of a vast, spectacular lake upon which many lives of many species, humans included, depend. * Staggeringly, UU was awarded the maximum 4* for environmental performance by the EA earlier this year, and @Ofwat allowed it to raise bills to claim an extra £22.3m in profit for its “performance” in 2023. * Both regulators seem to be eating out of the palms of a water company which appears to be knowingly failing to comply with its legal requirements because it judges that its breaches are unlikely to be detected and, if detected, that any fine will be assimilable within the company’s wider financial context. Remedies? * Root and branch reform of Ofwat & EA. * Enforcement of existing environmental law and regulation. * Fundamental re-imagining of our relationship with water. The last is surely the hardest… #MarchForCleanWater

This scandal— @unitedutilities illegally dumping at least 140 million litres of sewage into Windermere, a jewel in the crown of the Lake District—*really* stinks, even among many stinking sewage stories. bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cdrj… It’s worth pausing over why: * the scale & duration of illegal discharge is huge: 143m litres of sewage is the minimum—it might have been as much as 286m litres. * because UU, like other water companies, “self-reports” to the Environment Agency, these years of illegal discharge were only disclosed following pressure from the indefatigable campaigner @MattStaniek & excellent deep data-diving by BBC News.  * UU insiders say that the “spills” (dumps) would have been visible to the company, but they chose not to report them b/c management “judged the risk of the EA finding out and understanding the permit breach would be minimal as they are under-resourced.” Jaw-dropping if true. * Strategic Tory—and, now, Labour—under-funding of the EA has immense material consequences for England’s waterbodies: in this case the illegal poisoning of a vast, spectacular lake upon which many lives of many species, humans included, depend. * Staggeringly, UU was awarded the maximum 4* for environmental performance by the EA earlier this year, and @Ofwat allowed it to raise bills to claim an extra £22.3m in profit for its “performance” in 2023. * Both regulators seem to be eating out of the palms of a water company which appears to be knowingly failing to comply with its legal requirements because it judges that its breaches are unlikely to be detected and, if detected, that any fine will be assimilable within the company’s wider financial context. Remedies? * Root and branch reform of Ofwat & EA. * Enforcement of existing environmental law and regulation. * Fundamental re-imagining of our relationship with water. The last is surely the hardest… #MarchForCleanWater

This scandal— @unitedutilities illegally dumping at least 140 million litres of sewage into Windermere, a jewel in the crown of the Lake District—*really* stinks, even among many stinking sewage stories. bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cdrj… It’s worth pausing over why: * the scale & duration of illegal discharge is huge: 143m litres of sewage is the minimum—it might have been as much as 286m litres. * because UU, like other water companies, “self-reports” to the Environment Agency, these years of illegal discharge were only disclosed following pressure from the indefatigable campaigner @MattStaniek & excellent deep data-diving by BBC News.  * UU insiders say that the “spills” (dumps) would have been visible to the company, but they chose not to report them b/c management “judged the risk of the EA finding out and understanding the permit breach would be minimal as they are under-resourced.” Jaw-dropping if true. * Strategic Tory—and, now, Labour—under-funding of the EA has immense material consequences for England’s waterbodies: in this case the illegal poisoning of a vast, spectacular lake upon which many lives of many species, humans included, depend. * Staggeringly, UU was awarded the maximum 4* for environmental performance by the EA earlier this year, and @Ofwat allowed it to raise bills to claim an extra £22.3m in profit for its “performance” in 2023. * Both regulators seem to be eating out of the palms of a water company which appears to be knowingly failing to comply with its legal requirements because it judges that its breaches are unlikely to be detected and, if detected, that any fine will be assimilable within the company’s wider financial context. Remedies? * Root and branch reform of Ofwat & EA. * Enforcement of existing environmental law and regulation. * Fundamental re-imagining of our relationship with water. The last is surely the hardest… #MarchForCleanWater