Officers are told to ignore calls from the public and not look into potential incidents if the caller believes they have a lower impact, meaning they fall into a so-called category 3 or 4. This has left staff “daunted”, says Helen Nightingale, catchment plant in north west Lancashire which left the Environment Agency in April. Once a river is damaged, it becomes more difficult to have a major incident on it. “You can only kill so many fish. Once you’ve already killed them, the chances of a major incident happening are greatly reduced,” said Nightingale, who appears on Channel 4’s Dispatches program Britain’s Water Scandal on Monday night. “The health of the poorer rivers will decline quite quickly … it’s just wrong.” Between 2010 and 2021, the agency’s annual budget for enforcement fell from £11.6m to £7m. With no staff to go out and examine these incidents, the Environment Agency relies on the public to accurately report impacts. “You wouldn’t have a member of the public assess you if you were in a car accident. The general public are not experts,” he said. Officers will continue to go and look at rarer Category 1 and 2 incidents – such as the blue-green algae currently covering Lake Windermere – which are considered to have a major or significant impact on the environment. Figures from the National Incident Recording System show that in 2021, 116,000 potential incidents were reported and only 8,000 attended. “If you call and report a category 3 and someone at the call center says we’re not going to attend to it, you’re not going to keep calling because you feel like you’re wasting your time. So we’re getting less and less evidence of what’s happening in the rivers,” Nightingale said. An example of category 3 could be a “2km oil or sewage spill into a river”. As well as getting the public to report, the Environment Agency relies on water companies for policing. “They’re underreporting, underclassifying, trying to sort it out before somebody gets there, and as a private company you do that,” he said. Bonuses paid to water company executives rose by 20% last year, with the average executive receiving a one-off payment of £100,000 on top of their wages. When Nightingale started the job 31 years ago, she was out of the office almost all the time. Now environmental officers only get out of the office for a maximum of one day a week, with some ‘sneaking away’ more often. “It’s depressing, it’s completely demoralizing… I can do more environmental good in my garden than when I was at work at the end,” said Nightingale, who believes the rivers have “simply been written off” because staff are only asked to look at incidents from the moment they become serious or very serious. There are so many people leaving, the agency can’t hire enough people to fill the gaps, he says, with many feeling really discouraged. “It’s sad that people aren’t allowed to do the work … you take the criticism and you’re not able to stand up for yourself and say ‘that’s why’, you just have to take it on the chin.” Pollution in the River Teifi, Wales. Photo: Alex Ramsay/Alamy Nightingale’s comments come ahead of a Channel 4 Dispatches investigation which revealed the extent of raw sewage being dumped into waterways. Research shows there are more than 870 unlicensed culverts across the UK, meaning water companies may be using them to illegally dump untreated sewage. Archie Bland and Nimo Omer take you to the top stories and what they mean, free every weekday morning Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online advertising and content sponsored by external parties. For more information, see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and Google’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. The research also found that faecal pollution at Ryde Beach on the Isle of Wight, which has been rated as ‘excellent’ water quality, was 40 times higher than usual. Following recent analysis which found that sewage monitoring devices at popular seaside destinations are not working or have not been installed. Christine Colvin, from the Rivers Trust, said: “Environmental workers are on the frontline of pollution, nature and climate crises worldwide – they are the guardians of our future. It’s heartbreaking to hear how their work is undermined and how they struggle to stay motivated. We definitely need more boots on the ground and boots that can get the job done and enforce the law.” An Environment Agency spokesman said: “The Environment Agency receives between 70,000 and 100,000 incident reports a year, ranging from pollution to coastal erosion and flooding. We will always respond to serious incidents. “Like any public agency, given finite resources, we will always focus our efforts on the greatest threats to the environment. We assess and record every incident and it will always be followed up if there is a significant risk to people or the environment. All the information we receive is used to shape regulatory interventions where they are most needed.”
