The Government may have broken the law by allowing water companies to release untreated sewage into England’s waterways, its environmental watchdog has said.
Water companies have been allowed to release untreated sewage into rivers and seas for decades, under rules overseen by the Environment Agency, Defra and regulator Ofwat.
These releases appear to have been allowed to happen sometimes illegally because of a misinterpretation of “key points of law”, said the Office for Environmental Protection.
The laws are designed to only allow sewage to be released during exceptional circumstances, which usually means heavy rain when the system can become overwhelmed.
But the Government and regulators have misinterpreted the law, said the OEP, to allow releases at other times.
Separate investigations by the Telegraph and the BBC have found hundreds of releases occur during dry weather.
Helen Venn, the OEP’s Chief Regulatory Officer, said: “As a result of our investigations so far, we think there may have been misinterpretations of some key points of law.
“The core of the issue is that where we interpret the law to mean that untreated sewage discharges should generally be allowed only in exceptional circumstances, such as during unusually heavy rainfall, it appears that the public authorities may have interpreted the law differently, permitting such discharges to occur more often.”
WildFish, the environmental charity which brought the original complaint to the OEP, said the findings were “a massive step forward”.
Guy Linley-Adams, in-house solicitor at WildFish said: “Let’s be quite clear here. Those three public bodies are complicit in allowing the pollution. That must now end”.
The findings released on Tuesday are the first step in the investigation by the OEP, which replaced the oversight roles of the EU after Brexit.
The public bodies now have two months to respond and say whether or not they agree with the findings, and what steps they are taking to remedy the issue.
Defra said that it did not agree with the findings but was taking action to tackle sewage releases.
A spokesman said: “The volume of sewage discharged is completely unacceptable. That is why we are the first government in history to take such comprehensive action to tackle it, driving forward more investment, stronger regulation and tougher enforcement - and it’s why we are introducing a legally binding target to reduce storm overflows.
“While we do not agree with the OEP’s initial interpretations, which cover points of law spanning over two decades, we will continue to work constructively with the OEP on this issue.”
An Environment Agency spokesperson said: “We welcome this investigation from the Office for Environmental Protection and we share their ambition to drive improvements in water quality.
“We will always take action against companies that do not follow the rules or those that are deliberately obstructive.
“We have secured fines of over £150 million and are conducting our largest ever criminal investigation into potential permit non-compliance at sewage treatment works.”
An Ofwat spokesperson said: “We welcome the OEP’s considerations, particularly on the clarity of responsibilities for the protection of the environment and we will work with them as their investigation moves forward.
“Our position at Ofwat remains clear, water companies’ performance on the environment is simply not good enough. We have pushed companies to take urgent action to cut sewage discharges, have imposed fines of £250m in the last few years alone and we are currently running our biggest ever investigation into six companies on how they manage sewage treatment works and sewage discharges.
“We will keep pushing for the change and the improvements that the public rightly expects and where we can learn lessons or do things better, we will do so.”