A toxic water spill discharging human waste into a London river has still not been fixed more than two years after it was first reported, i can reveal.
It comes as i reveals a huge decline in the number of in-person visits being paid to unauthorised sewage discharge sites by Environment Agency investigators.
The local campaigner who reported the incident said Thames Water has “got away” with discharging sewage through an unlicensed pipe for years, due to inaction by the watchdog.
Environmental lawyer and campaigner Paul Powlesland discovered in 2021 that sewage, including waste and used toilet paper, was being dumped into Alders Brook, a tributary of the River Roding.
He reported it at the time to both the Environment Agency and Thames Water, but says nothing was done.
“A malfunction in the sewage system was sending raw sewage directly into the river and no-one even knew about it,” he told i.
“It had probably been going on for some time, possibly years due to the amount of toilet paper that was embedded in the silt of the brook.”
He added: “We had one call [with the Environment Agency] about a prosecution and then we heard nothing more. So we presume that nothing’s going to happen there and Thames Water got away with it,” he said.
Thames Water told i that work will begin “soon” to fix the “pollution issue” with the pipe – more than two years after the problem was first reported by Mr Powlesland.
Water companies receive permits that allow them to discharge untreated sewage into water bodies through pipes, known as, combined sewage overflows (CSO), during periods of extreme rainfall.
It is illegal to discharge sewage through a pipe that is not a CSO.
Freedom of investigation data showed the regulator failed to visit 90 per cent of reported incidents in 2022, including more than 60 per cent of the most serious incidents.
The figures reveal the extent to which the Environment Agency has scaled back in-person inspections of pollution incidents since the Covid-19 pandemic, with inspectors visiting almost 50 per cent fewer cases in 2022 than 2019 despite a rise in the number of reported incidents.
The reduction in visits has led to fears water companies have been left to mark their own homework on pollution after an investigation released by BBC Panorama on Monday accused one firm, United Utilities, of incorrectly downgrading the severity of its pollution incidents. United Utilities denies the allegations.
A spokesperson for Thames Water admitted the “pollution issue” had been caused by blockages in its network, which they blamed on “a build-up of fats oils and grease and items such as sanitary litter and wet wipes”.
They said Thames Water had met with Mr Powlesland and the Environment Agency on site and virtually, and said engineers would soon start work on a sewer diversion that “would dramatically reduce the probability of pollution occurring from this pipe”.
But Mr Powlesland said Thames Water had originally promised him that work to fix the issue would be finished by April 2023 and accused the firm of “stonewalling” him on the issue.
He said: “Basically they’re just ignoring us. I think because they can. They basically got away with it.
“Because what they’ve basically done now is they’ve taken a business decision that there’s no need for them to spend the money because they’re going to get away with it even if they do commit criminal offences. Why spend money fixing things if you don’t have to?”
When asked about the River Roding, the Environment Agency pointed to its response to i’s report on in-person inspections to pollution incidents. They said the Environment Agency takes “our responsibility to protect the environment very seriously and will always pursue and prosecute companies that are deliberately obstructive or misleading.”