They asked the European Commission to seek “political and legal” measures to stop the pollution, accusing the UK of abandoning international environmental regulations. The official complaint comes after dozens of beaches in England and Wales were flagged as posing a pollution risk to bathers. The three MEPs wrote to the Commission in Brussels saying the UK’s decision to lower water quality standards is “unacceptable” and action must be taken to stop pollution of the English Channel and North Sea. “We are afraid of the negative consequences on the quality of the sea water we share with this country and therefore on marine biodiversity as well as fisheries and shellfish farms,” they wrote to the environment commissioner, Virginijus Sinkevičius. The MEPs are Pierre Karleskind, the chairman of the European Parliament’s fisheries committee, Nathalie Loiseau, France’s former Europe minister, and Stéphanie Yon-Courtin, who is also a regional councilor in Normandy, whose coastline is most at risk of being affected. from sewage from the United Kingdom. . They are members of the Renew centrist group in the European Parliament. “Since Brexit, the UK has absolved itself [EU] environmental rules’, they wrote in a letter entitled: British water pollution in the English Channel and North Sea. He pointed out that, although no longer bound by EU rules since January last year, the UK had signed a trade and cooperation agreement as part of the Withdrawal Treaty and was still a signatory to the UN law of the sea, a charter for protection of water bodies. “However, the UK has chosen to lower its water quality standards. This is unacceptable and calls into question the efforts of EU Member States over the past 20 years. The UK is committed to preserving the seas that surround it and that we share,” they wrote. “The English Channel and the North Sea are not dumping grounds,” Yon-Courtin tweeted. Britain has a combined sewer system that carries rainwater and sewage from toilets, bathrooms and kitchens down the same pipes to the treatment works. During heavy rainfall, especially when the ground is too dry to absorb excess water, the works flood. to prevent raw sewage from flooding houses, roads and other open spaces, it is temporarily discharged into the sea and rivers. While this is supposed to be great, the charity Surfers Against Sewage noted that pollution warnings were in place for dozens of beaches in England and Wales following heavy rain last week. Last year, Southern Water was fined a record £90m for dumping billions of liters of raw sewage into the sea in West Sussex, Kent and Hampshire. In January, Le Monde reported on concerns from bathers and oyster fishermen about Southern Water discharging raw sewage into the sea at Whitstable. An opinion piece by Professor Chris Whitty, chief medical officer for England, Jonson Cox, chair of water regulator Ofwat and Emma Howard Boyd, chair of the Environment Agency, published on the UK government website in June, he noted that data shows that storm surge use is “no longer great.” “In some cases, as many as 200 rejections occur per year,” they wrote. “This is clearly unacceptable on public health grounds.” The authors added: “This is a serious public health issue for government and regulators, and it is clear that water companies are not doing enough. Public health risks are in addition to the ecological and environmental impacts that form the basis for many regulations.’ Water UK, which represents the UK’s water industry, said companies agree there is an “urgent need” for action and are investing more than £3 billion to improve overflows as part of a wider national environmental program between 2020 and 2025 . The government said it would announce a plan next month to reduce storm flooding. This was made a legal requirement by the Environment Act 2021. A spokesman for the UK’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs told the BBC it was not true that the UK was not meeting its water quality targets: “The Environment Act has made our laws on water quality even stronger. than when we were in the EU, from targets to tackle nutrient pollution to new powers to tackle harmful substances in our waters.’
