Data and Facts - Gaps
It isn’t just holes in sewage infrastructure!
Knowing what we don’t know, (i.e. gaps in data, or legally inaccessible data) is as important as the data available to us.
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Defra's designated bathing water status is an opaque process. The idea is flawed - The Great Washout: The Futility of Bathing Water Status's - and public applications generally result in a rejection.
- Environmental Protection Act Part II is almost unenforceable. The Environment Agency (England) can downgrade pollution events from Category 2 or 3 to Cat. 4’s, which involve no enforcement actions, a practice disturbingly commonplace.
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Selective water testing by local and national authorities may solely take samples from mid-depth, excluding silt deposits, where most toxic industrial cocktails lie.
- Water companies can stop sewage outflow to avoid Environment Agency monitoring spot checks.
- Water companies can dispense with water testing results which will probably suit their purposes. In overflow incidents, they may fail to provide representative data to regulators on licence breaches, or improvement plans. Surfers Against Sewage 2022-23 Water Quality Report
- Sites formerly used for military testing are subject to secrecy (e.g. ‘national security’).
See: Radioactivity, site history and land use
Denise's 2011 link
- Commissioning independent scientific analysis or reports means knowing what questions to ask your contractor, to avoid their conflicts of interest compromising your data.
- Data available may not be real-time, e.g. Rivers Trust (valuable as that is!). We recommend writing a Freedom of Information (FoI) request to water companies to get exact data. Template help here
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You cannot trust a Blue Flag bathing beach. Even with an ‘excellent’ rating raw sewage contamination is a risk. Signs warning bathers of hazards can be risible at best, and virtually invisible at worst! Check this out!
Nature-based solutions across the UK still leave much to be desired.