Harry Bangate

In exquisite timing, local river guardians discovered two significant sewage discharges on the Roding today. The quantity & volume was so big that they were visibly polluting the river (& likely poisoning aquatic life) for hundreds of metres downstream. Even worse, this stretch of the River at Wanstead Park is one of the most popular natural swimming & paddling spots in East London that will be very busy during the heatwave this week. This deluge of sewage is putting people’s lives (particularly paddling children) at risk. Perhaps @thameswater could use some of the million pound bonus they gave out to stop the sewage & warn local people instead?

It’s the usual smoke & mirrors from the Environment Agency on this. The EA manipulates the data to make the current disastrous state of our rivers look better than it is by carefully choosing sampling points. I was surprised (given my knowledge of the river) to find out from the EA that the River Roding was ok & improving on most metrics. Then I found out that they have only *one* sampling point on the whole lower river & it’s conveniently located just above where the largest amount of sewage enters the river (see picture below) & where the river is most physically modified. How can we actually restore our rivers, rather than just pretending they are fine, without having a genuine picture of the health of the river? Even worse, tributaries like the Aldersbrook aren’t even monitored at all, despite them being important enough to warrant a permit regime with threat of jail if you touch the river without consent. I wonder if there should be a new ‘Water Framework Directive’ classification of ‘Ecologically Dead; no plans to resurrect it’ for rivers like the Aldersbrook?

There wasn’t a single grassroots river guardianship group at those ‘round tables’ was there? It was the same organisations, big river charities & government agencies who have failed to protect our waterways over the past three decades telling the Mayor it’ll be different this time, if you just give them more cash. London’s waterways cannot be restored without the involvement of river guardians who actually know their rivers. To show why, please can you (as the government’s water regulator) tell us where all the illegal sewage outfalls on the River Roding (London’s third biggest river) are?

I guess I could go for a nice dip in the Aldersbrook, wallowing through the mud, sewage & rubbish like a possessed hippo, & then wipe myself clean with the knotweed afterwards. BTW EA, I still haven’t heard from you about when you’re planning to clean up this up, given I’m apparently forbidden from doing so?