The Environment Agency has published its assessment of ‘English’ water and sewerage companies’ performance for 2017. Overall they cite progress with work still to do to achieve targets set for the period 2015-20. This infographic provides a handy overview by company and the EA’s key messages at the industry level are:
a further reduction in the number of serious pollution incidents to 52, compared to 57 in 2016, with a welcome drop in serious sewerage service incidents but a rise in serious clean water service incidents
a rise in the most serious (category 1) pollution incidents to 11 (compared to 9 in 2016, after 2 record low years when there were only 4 per year) 10 of which were associated with waste water
a slight reduction in the total number of pollution incidents (category 1 to 3) at 1,827, compared to 1,902 in 2016 and 1,742 in 2015
the highest ever level of self-reporting of pollution incidents at 76% (72% in 2016, and 69% in 2015) with 8 of the 9 companies improving, which should help them to better manage their assets and provide quicker action to reduce pollution
compliance with numeric permit conditions at Sewage Treatment Works (STW) and Water Treatment Works (WTW) remains good with 98. 6% of permits compliant, the same as in 2016, compared to 98.7% in 2015 - further improvement is needed to meet the 100% expectation
sludge use and disposal in 2017 was 100% for the sector, with all companies reporting 100% satisfactory sludge use and disposal for the EPA metric
all companies reported good performance, with 100% delivery of planned environmental improvement for the financial year to March 2018
for 2017/2018, 8 of the 9 companies reported a score of 100 for the Security of Supply Index for water availability and green status in the EPA, with one company reporting 97 and amber status
For more information the full report can be found here.