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Six water firms in England ‘overcharged customers by up to £1.5bn’

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Monday, September 23, 2024

Six water companies overcharged customers between £800m and £1.5bn by “significantly or systematically” underreporting the true scale of their sewage pollution of rivers and waterways, a tribunal heard on Monday.In the first environmental competition class action against water companies in England, lawyers argued that the privatised firms had abused their monopoly position to mislead regulators over the amount of sewage they were discharging from their assets over the past 10 years.As a result the companies, Thames Water, Yorkshire Water, Anglian Water, Severn Trent, Northumbrian Water and United Utilities, were able to charge customers higher bills than they would have been allowed to if they had provided the regulators with a true picture of their sewage pollution.Prof Carolyn Roberts, a water resource specialist, is taking the action in the competition appeals tribunal and seeking to represent millions of consumers who she believes have been overcharged by hundreds of millions of pounds.Julian Gregory, for Roberts, told the tribunal on Monday that all the water firms were monopolies that were not subject to any competitive pressures to provide sewerage services to the public. The companies were all legally required to report pollution to the regulators – the Environment Agency and Ofwat, he said.“Sewage spills pose a threat to wildlife, the environment and public health,” said Gregory.The pricing regime, controlled by Ofwat, allows the regulator to limit the amount charged to customers for the monopoly services of providing drinking water and sewerage.The structure provides a financial incentive for water companies to reduce sewage pollution.But Gregory said the six companies had misled both Ofwat and the Environment Agency by significantly or systematically underreporting the number of sewage discharges from their treatment works and combined sewer overflows from 2014 onwards.By misleading the regulators on the true scale of sewage discharges, they had been allowed by Ofwat to charge customers higher prices than if they had reported the sewage pollution accurately, said Gregory.“Carolyn Roberts estimates across the six water companies customers may have been overcharged £800m to £1.5bn,” he said.“Many people care deeply about the state of our rivers … sewage spills to them can be incredibly damaging. As the true number of sewage spills have become apparent there has been a public outcry,” he said.“If the defendants [water companies] have been underreporting spills they will not have been properly incentivised to reduce sewage spills.”Gregory said analysis of Thames Water data alone suggested the company may have failed to report more than 6,000 raw sewage discharges.skip past newsletter promotionThe planet's most important stories. Get all the week's environment news - the good, the bad and the essentialPrivacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.after newsletter promotionRoberts is applying to the tribunal for collective proceedings orders (CPOs) against the six water companies.If the orders are granted, the proposed claims can proceed to a full trial to establish whether water companies have been overcharging household customers. Customers would automatically be refunded millions of pounds.“As a professor of the environment, I have a deep appreciation of our waterways and their influence on our wider environment and firmly believe in preserving them for future generations,” said Roberts.“I hope to be authorised as the class representative to bring these claims on behalf of millions of household consumers who have been overcharged due to the anti-competitive practices employed by these six water companies.”The six water companies are defending the allegations in the tribunal.A spokesperson for Water UK, the industry body, said: “This highly speculative claim is entirely without merit. The regulator has confirmed that over 99% of sewage works comply with their legal requirements. If companies fail to deliver on their commitments, then bills will automatically be reduced.”

Firms underreported true scale of sewage pollution for 10 years, which allowed them to set higher bills, tribunal toldSix water companies overcharged customers between £800m and £1.5bn by “significantly or systematically” underreporting the true scale of their sewage pollution of rivers and waterways, a tribunal heard on Monday.In the first environmental competition class action against water companies in England, lawyers argued that the privatised firms had abused their monopoly position to mislead regulators over the amount of sewage they were discharging from their assets over the past 10 years. Continue reading...

In the first environmental competition class action against water companies in England, lawyers argued that the privatised firms had abused their monopoly position to mislead regulators over the amount of sewage they were discharging from their assets over the past 10 years.

As a result the companies, Thames Water, Yorkshire Water, Anglian Water, Severn Trent, Northumbrian Water and United Utilities, were able to charge customers higher bills than they would have been allowed to if they had provided the regulators with a true picture of their sewage pollution.

Prof Carolyn Roberts, a water resource specialist, is taking the action in the competition appeals tribunal and seeking to represent millions of consumers who she believes have been overcharged by hundreds of millions of pounds.

Julian Gregory, for Roberts, told the tribunal on Monday that all the water firms were monopolies that were not subject to any competitive pressures to provide sewerage services to the public. The companies were all legally required to report pollution to the regulators – the Environment Agency and Ofwat, he said.

“Sewage spills pose a threat to wildlife, the environment and public health,” said Gregory.

The pricing regime, controlled by Ofwat, allows the regulator to limit the amount charged to customers for the monopoly services of providing drinking water and sewerage.

The structure provides a financial incentive for water companies to reduce sewage pollution.

But Gregory said the six companies had misled both Ofwat and the Environment Agency by significantly or systematically underreporting the number of sewage discharges from their treatment works and combined sewer overflows from 2014 onwards.

By misleading the regulators on the true scale of sewage discharges, they had been allowed by Ofwat to charge customers higher prices than if they had reported the sewage pollution accurately, said Gregory.

“Carolyn Roberts estimates across the six water companies customers may have been overcharged £800m to £1.5bn,” he said.

“Many people care deeply about the state of our rivers … sewage spills to them can be incredibly damaging. As the true number of sewage spills have become apparent there has been a public outcry,” he said.

“If the defendants [water companies] have been underreporting spills they will not have been properly incentivised to reduce sewage spills.”

Gregory said analysis of Thames Water data alone suggested the company may have failed to report more than 6,000 raw sewage discharges.

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Roberts is applying to the tribunal for collective proceedings orders (CPOs) against the six water companies.

If the orders are granted, the proposed claims can proceed to a full trial to establish whether water companies have been overcharging household customers. Customers would automatically be refunded millions of pounds.

“As a professor of the environment, I have a deep appreciation of our waterways and their influence on our wider environment and firmly believe in preserving them for future generations,” said Roberts.

“I hope to be authorised as the class representative to bring these claims on behalf of millions of household consumers who have been overcharged due to the anti-competitive practices employed by these six water companies.”

The six water companies are defending the allegations in the tribunal.

A spokesperson for Water UK, the industry body, said: “This highly speculative claim is entirely without merit. The regulator has confirmed that over 99% of sewage works comply with their legal requirements. If companies fail to deliver on their commitments, then bills will automatically be reduced.”

Read the full story here.

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Asheville restores drinking water 53 days after Hurricane Helene - but not all are ready to sip

Residents concerned as North Carolina city lifts boil advisory and scientists detect lead in water at area schoolsWhen the western North Carolina town Swannanoa was battered by Hurricane Helene in September, two large trees crushed Stephen Knight’s home. His family of six was launched into a complicated web of survival: finding a temporary home, applying for disaster relief, filing insurance claims.The new logistics of living included the daily search for food and water. Until earlier this week, most residents of this town east of Asheville had no drinkable tap water for 52 days. After the storm damaged infrastructure around the region, water had been partly restored in mid-October. It was good for flushing toilets but not safe for consumption. In some places, sediment left the water inky like black tea. Continue reading...

When the western North Carolina town Swannanoa was battered by Hurricane Helene in September, two large trees crushed Stephen Knight’s home. His family of six was launched into a complicated web of survival: finding a temporary home, applying for disaster relief, filing insurance claims.The new logistics of living included the daily search for food and water. Until earlier this week, most residents of this town east of Asheville had no drinkable tap water for 52 days. After the storm damaged infrastructure around the region, water had been partly restored in mid-October. It was good for flushing toilets but not safe for consumption. In some places, sediment left the water inky like black tea.Local government advised residents not to consume the water without boiling. People with illnesses or open wounds were also advised to skip showers. Parents were cautioned that children should keep their mouths closed while bathing to avoid accidental ingestion.Drinking the water, even after boiling, was the last-resort option, and bottled water became a precious commodity. In the first days after the hurricane, many hauled creek water in buckets to flush their toilets. People bathed and did laundry at public “comfort stations”. Tankers with clean water occupied vacant lots around western North Carolina. Churches, schools and fire stations became water distribution centers. Households changed their routines: Meals that required boiling in water – pasta or rice – fell off home menus. Families stockpiled clean water to mix baby formula, and washing dishes was often a matter of dipping dishes in a solution of bleach and water.As of 18 November, the city of Asheville lifted its boil advisory. That provided some relief to Knight, who works as a nonprofit communications director. Like many residents impacted by the hurricane, he “had to learn what terms like potable and turbidity meant” as they waited for repairs to the badly damaged water North Fork plant that serves much of the region. (Turbidity measures cloudiness caused by tiny particles in water and is a key indicator of water quality.) Residents constantly listened for reports about how long it would take to be able to drink, bathe and use water in their homes or workplaces again. Initial estimates suggested water restoration could have taken as long as December, and many feared their lack of water access could stretch into next year.The remnants of a waterline pile up downstream from North Fork reservoir, a main source of water for the city on 2 October 2024, after the line was destroyed during Hurricane Helene. Photograph: Jeff Roberson/APStill, some residents and institutions are not yet tapping into the newly restored city water supply, concerned that the water may still not be entirely safe. Lead was detected in water at seven area schools, a relatively common problem in American schools due to older pipes. For 19 days, the city of Asheville treated water with high amounts of chlorine in case harmful materials had seeped into the badly damaged system. But while chlorine is a decontaminant, it can also corrode pipes. Right now, no lead has been discovered in the water system’s source, but many North Carolinans are wondering: am I in harm’s way from toxic lead, which can cause serious and fatal illness, or other materials?Knight is skeptical of using city water for preparing food or washing dishes. He remarked that while the cloudiness in the North Fork reservoir’s water has dropped, it still isn’t back to pre-storm numbers. “I’m thinking, I need to order [wipes used for camping or outdoor use] because I still can’t use the water here.”According to the ABC affiliate WLOS, Mission Hospital, one of the region’s largest health systems, is currently using water from recently drilled wells and storage tanks at almost all its facilities, with the exception of a freestanding emergency room.Clear and effective communication and widespread testing will ensure there is not a second crisis in AshevilleSally A Wasileski SchmeltzerIn the immediate aftermath of the storm, Stephanie Allen, a mother of three, hung curtains outside and constructed a makeshift toilet with a five-gallon bucket. Recently, when her son had a high fever, she filled the bathtub with water to cool him down. But she recoiled at the water’s appearance and opted to give him a sponge bath instead.When asked if she would resume drinking Asheville city water in the near future, Allen was hesitant. “I’m not quite ready to drink from the faucet,” she shared. “I need more scientific studies and anecdotal evidence of its safety. More time”.In a open letter to public officials, the University of North Carolina Asheville professor Sally A Wasileski Schmeltzer urged further investigation and communication educating the general public about the risk of lead poisoning. Schmeltzer chairs the school’s chemistry department and specializes in environmental research.Among her recommendations: widespread testing for lead and copper for buildings built before 1988, when lead was commonly used. She also advocated for blood tests for people who consumed the water – even after boiling – and especially for infants, other children, and pregnant or nursing people. Free testing is available, but she noted that homeowners need to understand when and how to test their water and themselves.“ [P]otential damage to private plumbing could be much more widespread than just to those schools that were tested,” Schmeltzer wrote. “I understand that it is very important not to cause a panic. Yet clear and effective communication and widespread testing will ensure there is not a second crisis in Asheville and Buncombe county.”skip past newsletter promotionThe planet's most important stories. Get all the week's environment news - the good, the bad and the essentialPrivacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.after newsletter promotionSome residents were surprised when the Asheville water resources department spokesperson Clay Chandler said in a press briefing that water customers with pre-1988 plumbing should flush their cold water taps for 30 seconds to two minutes before consuming it “like before Helene”. Asheville is dotted with old homes and buildings; the city is known around the nation for its well-preserved, early 20th century Art Deco buildings. But many area homeowners weren’t aware of the need to flush their pipes before the storm struck. That public education will be a long-term project.Businesses will need more time, too, to recoup losses from property damage, closure and the costs of bringing in water to stay open, if they chose to do so.Meg Moore has worked for about two years at Cecilia’s, an Asheville staple selling an eclectic mix of empanadas, crepes and tamales.“To get a plumber in here and turn off piping to city water and redirect it to the water tote and make sure it gets continually filled with potable water, there is a price tag on that,” Moore said. Before water restoration, many businesses asked: “Is it worth the thousands of dollars to do all that, not knowing how long it would take for water to be restored?” Cecilia’s used bottled gallons of water as well as compostable plates and silverware, careful to conserve what little water they procured. The owners were able to keep serving customers through Cecilia’s food truck business, which requires less staff and significantly less water to operate. Now that the restaurant’s reopened, staff are eager to see people walk through the doors.“This is the first day we’ve been open since potable water,” Moore said. “I think maybe some people are hesitant to dine out.”Pennycup Coffee Co, offers its own locally roasted beans, brews and baked goods. Its locations reopened in late October, using potable water totes to fuel operations. Water “totes” are large, industrial-grade bulk containers that can hold up to 330 gallons of liquid.Alex Massey, a barista at Pennycup’s north Asheville cafe, detailed the steps taken to open the cafes’ doors: using 275-gallon water totes for coffee-making, boiling water in the coffeemaker for dishwashing and an early closing time to accommodate the extra work.Massey feels area officials could’ve done a better job communicating about the water crisis. But he feels confident in the city’s newly potable water based on information from other sources. After the boil water notice was lifted, Pennycup joined other area restaurants in making the switch back to city water. Most customers haven’t minded, but a few walked out once Massey shared the news.

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Despite back-to-back deals on water from Mexico, relief for South Texas farmers is far from certain

Texas agreed to take 120,000 acre-feet of water from Mexico this month, only after the U.S. and Mexico agreed to an updated treaty.

Sign up for The Brief, The Texas Tribune’s daily newsletter that keeps readers up to speed on the most essential Texas news. McALLEN –– South Texas farmers remain concerned about their access to water despite back-to-back announcements this month that signaled better days ahead. First, the U.S. and Mexico signed an amendment to an international water treaty that dictates how water is shared between the two countries. Then earlier this week, Texas agreed to accept a relatively small offer of water that would go toward paying off Mexico's current water debt while also bringing relief to farmers and ranchers whose land has gone dry in the face of the current water shortage. However, relief is still a ways off as the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, the state agency that decides how to allocate the water, has yet to give the green light for that water to be used. The water in question is 120,000 acre-feet from Mexico's San Juan River. Mexico had offered the water in October, but the irrigation districts that provide water to farmers and ranchers were hesitant to accept it. They worried that accepting water now would cut into their critical supply needed for farming next season. The change in the water treaty essentially forced the state's hand. Earlier this month, the U.S. and Mexico signed an amendment to the 1944 international water treaty that had been in the works for more than a year. The amendment gives Mexico more ways to deliver water it owes the U.S., including allowing them to meet their obligations by delivering water it doesn’t need from the San Juan and Alamo rivers, which are not managed by the treaty. Under the treaty, Mexico must deliver 1,750,000 acre-feet of water to the U.S. from six tributaries every five years. Four years into the current five-year cycle, Mexico has delivered just 427,914 acre-feet with a balance of more than 1.3 million acre-feet of water that is due by October 2025. Through the new amendment, the U.S. will credit Mexico for water it provides from the San Juan River even though it is not one of the six tributaries, a position that Gov. Greg Abbott sharply criticized when he ordered the state to accept the water earlier this week. "Texas stands firm in its position — consistent with the text of the Treaty — that those commitments may be satisfied only with water from the six named tributaries," Abbott said. The most important Texas news,sent weekday mornings. Because that water will go toward satisfying Mexico's water obligations, TCEQ Commissioner Bobby Janecka confirmed Thursday that farmers and irrigation districts will be charged for it. “I’m not aware of a path yet, that there’s any opportunity to do it fully no-charge,” Janecka said during a symposium on the state of the Rio Grande hosted by the Texas Water Foundation. Janecka said not charging those who receive from the 120,000 acre-feet of water would risk leaving users in other areas of the state without water in the future. But there's a possible solution in the new amendment. It will also allow Mexico to transfer water it has stored at the Falcon and Amistad international reservoirs to meet its obligations. The hope is that Mexico will transfer enough water to make up for any water that farmers will be charged for accepting the San Juan River water. "I am very optimistic but I expect the worst," said Michael Kent, general manager for Donna Irrigation District. Janecka said his staff is reviewing options for allocating the accepted water. Sonny Hinojosa, a water advocate for Hidalgo County Irrigation District No. 2, criticized the ongoing delays in accepting the water. “We're just wondering why are they throwing up so many roadblocks in accepting this water,” Hinojosa said. “With the governor's directive, they have to accept it, but there's still some issues that nobody really understands what they are.” Kent said he was grateful that Abbott’s order essentially set a clock for TCEQ to take action on the water but emphasized that time was of the essence. He lamented the toll the water shortage had already taken on the Rio Grande Valley’s agriculture industry which lost its sugar mill, the last one in the state, in February due to lack of water. Farmers fear citrus will be next. 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A new documentary about the Flint water crisis draws out the complexities of the problem.

“There’s a definite sense of people being expendable in this country,” says University of Florida professor Riché Barnes in director William Hart’s new film, Lead and Copper. “And it usually runs across racial lines. When it gets outside of racial lines, it runs on economic lines.” Barnes’s observation underscores the moral clarity that Hart brings to his investigation of the Flint water crisis, which exposed an entire community to high levels of lead through contaminated drinking water. That clarity helps cut through the morass of finger-pointing and misinformation that various politicians and bureaucrats use to abdicate responsibility. Lead and Copper reminds viewers that these decisions threaten people’s lives. Although just forty miles from Lake Huron, Flint, a post-industrial city whose population has dwindled to a nearly 100-year low, has been getting its water via a pipeline through Detroit since 1967. To lower its water costs, the city contracted the construction of its own pipeline in 2013. The pipeline would not finish construction until 2018, so in 2014, the city started taking from the nearby, heavily polluted Flint River instead of continuing to draw from Detroit. Very soon, mothers such as Janae Young started noticing the strange color of their water and the sores and rashes that appeared on the bodies of their children. The film follows Young through the process of caring for her children, even after their burns subside. She spreads lotion on their bodies, takes them to numerous check-ups, and boils water before using it—at least until yet another functionary informs her that boiling is ineffective against contamination. Young and other residents report the problems to their local government, which is overseen by various state and federal agencies. The course of action should be simple, right? Instead of using clean, if expensive, water from Detroit, the city started getting cheaper, poisoned water from the Flint River. Surely, then, one of the multiple oversight agencies in place would just order Flint to keep getting its water from Detroit until its own pipeline project is completed. But as Lead and Copper reveals, no one in power pursued a simple solution. Instead, governors, city managers, and regulators alike evaded responsibility and let the citizens suffer. Hart identifies a number of key culprits, including an unelected city manager appointed by Michigan’s plutocrat governor, an intentionally unrepresentative water sampling process by the state’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and a lack of diligence from the federal EPA. The city only begins providing bottled water and testing kits to citizens after mother LeeAnne Walters marshals help from Federal EPA manager Miguel Del Toral and Virginia Tech professor Marc Edwards to draw attention to the problem. Together, Walters and Del Toral demanded that city officials stop using the polluted water and provide emergency provisions for Flint Residents. Hart employs several on-screen graphics to help clarify the crisis, including a sleek line-art map of the United States and animation illustrating the passage of time. As the camera pans across the map, the narrative turns its attention away from Flint to similarly affected neighborhoods in Newark, New Jersey, and Washington, D.C., in which the full scope of the problem is revealed. These visual elements don’t just provide clarification; they also underscore the complicated nature of the problem. One of the film’s most effective moments shows then governor of Michigan Rick Snyder at a Congressional hearing about the crisis in Flint, in which the late Representative Elijah Cummings, Democrat of Maryland, questions Snyder about the extent of his knowledge about the crisis in Flint. As the film features Snyder’s testimony, a simultaneous graphic element reveals that someone close to the governor raised concerns much earlier. With every spin of the dial, and with every expansion on the map, viewers see in clear, unmistakable terms what various government officials and politicians have tried to obscure: that the water poisoning started after the city manager, the mayor, or someone in government made a cost-saving decision, and the adverse effects flowed down to the most vulnerable. While Lead and Copper’s complex representation of the crisis often works to underscore the movie’s point that the least powerful suffer the most, the narrative sometimes gets unnecessarily muddy. The film’s talking heads include Newark Mayor Ras Baraka and former Flint Mayor Dayne Walling, two figures with far more influence than the mothers of afflicted children. The film allows both of these leaders to speak for themselves, rarely provides overt fact checks to their explanations, and therefore seems to endorse their claims that they, too, were duped by bureaucrats above them and helpless to change things. Lead and Copper also gets muddled when Edwards begins diagnosing the problems. Like a good professor, he shows the viewers physical evidence of the water poisoning, such as the thick lead pipes used in the houses of most Flint residents. He explains in simple terms that lead from the pipes seeps into the water unless certain chemicals are used, and that Flint neglected to use these chemicals. Edwards’s explanation makes sense, but he’s introducing a problem independent of the decision to get water from the Flint River. The use of lead pipes helps connect the problems of Flint to those of Newark, Washington, D.C., and several other locations listed in the movie’s final title cards. But without distinguishing between water poisoned because of pollution in the Flint River and water poisoned because of lead pipes that have been in place for decades, these revelations introduce issues beyond the city’s water source, unnecessarily complicating Lead and Copper’s central line of argument. In fact, all of the connections between Flint, Newark, and Washington, D.C. feel more like appendices than they do expansions of the film’s central theme. With so many people actively trying to obfuscate the facts, these instances can sometimes create more confusion than clarity. Despite these occasional problems, Lead and Copper is ultimately about the affected community members. The film reminds viewers that we are not helpless against structures that allow the powerful to carelessly poison Black and low-income families. The film might end in a terrifying set of statistics about counties across the country with high levels of lead in their water systems, but we first see footage of Janae Young educating an elementary class about recycling and LeeAnne Walters vowing to continue the fight. There’s much work to be done, but Lead and Copper can bring others along. Given the many held unaccountable and the work yet to be done in Flint, it’s not accurate to say that Lead and Copper has a happy ending. But when we see people working to save lives and deliver justice, viewers cannot help but believe that they can turn the flow of even a poisoned river. Lead and Copper is available to rent on streaming services everywhere starting Tuesday, November 19. Joe George is a pop culture writer whose work has appeared in Polygon, Slate, Den of Geek, and elsewhere. You can follow him on Twitter at @jageorgeii and read more at joewriteswords.com. Read more by Joe George November 21, 2024 2:13 PM

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Six water firms in England ‘overcharged customers by up to £1.5bn’

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Six water firms in England ‘overcharged customers by up to £1.5bn’

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Join us to forge
a sustainable future