Skip to main content

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 that is available to us.

  • Defra's designated 'bathing water' status is an opaque application process. While it does require closer monitoring by the authorities when achieved, the idea is deeply flawed. See: The Great Washout: The Futility of Bathing Water Status - 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.
  • Selective water testing by local and national authorities may solely take samples from mid-depth, excluding silt deposits, where most toxic industrial legacy cocktails lie.

  • Water companies can stop sewage outflow at treatment plants 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.
  • Sites formerly used for military testing are subject to secrecy (e.g. ‘national security’).
    See: Radioactivity | Site History | 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

  • 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.
Back to top