Water company employees encouraged to blow whistle on sewage pollution

The Environment Agency is encouraging water company employees to flag serious environmental wrongdoing and sewage pollution at their organisations.

The regulator has launched a new portal which it said will make it “easier for internal water company whistleblowers to safely report serious environmental wrongdoing by their water companies”.

The whistleblowing portal is also open for submissions from people working in the waste, nuclear, fishing, agricultural, and chemical sectors, however it has been billed as the latest measure in the government’s “water company crackdown”.

Chair of the Environment Agency Alan Lovell said: “We share the public’s disgust with sewage pollution and know there’s always more that can be done to protect our waterways.

“This new whistleblowing portal allows workers to raise their concerns and we encourage people to come forward, knowing any information will be treated in confidence and with sensitivity.

“The more evidence we have to identify potential criminality, then the more actions we can take to make lasting improvements to our environment.”

Any submissions to the portal will then be assessed by the regulator’s intelligence teams, with the identities of reporters protected and treated as confidential sources.

Any findings can be used to support enforcement action against companies, if appropriate, including unlimited financial penalties and criminal prosecution.

Environment secretary Steve Barclay added: “We have been clear we will not tolerate pollution and water companies need to act quickly to improve their environmental performance.

“This whistleblowing portal is another measure which will help the regulator gather vital intelligence and hold rule-breakers to account.

“It builds on our recent work to ban inappropriate executive bonuses and plans to quadruple the number of water company inspections by the Environment Agency – ensuring we continue to protect our waterways with more investment, stronger regulation and tougher enforcement action.”

In a bid to tackle pollution incidents, the Environment Agency previously vowed to increase the number of water company asset inspections it carries out annually from 930 to 10,000 by 2026.

It will add 500 new workers dedicated to inspecting water and wastewater company assets to protect the health of rivers and seas.

There are more than 15,000 storm overflows in England and Wales and around 9,000 wastewater treatment plants in the UK.

More than 80% of the fines dished out by the Environment Agency through prosecutions and other enforcement actions were levied at the water sector in 2022. That is despite water and wastewater firms being responsible for just 9% of serous pollution incidents, according to Utility Week’s analysis of government figures. 

Last year, the Environment Agency announced that it is stepping up its investigation into sewage treatment works after its initial 18-month assessment indicated “widespread and serious” environmental breaches.

The probe, launched in November 2021, is the Environment Agency’s largest ever criminal investigation.

It focuses on potential breaches of environmental permit conditions at wastewater treatment works by all water and sewerage companies. In total, the probe is concentrating on more than 2,200 sites that discharge into English waters.