Fury as new Thames sewage dumping law ignored, with commercial boats continuing to pump waste into river

16 October 2024, 08:30

Commercial vessels are ignoring new rules designed to prevent them from dumping sewage into the River Thames - despite having three years to prepare for the changes.

In 2021, the Port of London Authority (PLA) announced that they would be introducing General Direction 10, a new rule which banned tourist boats, passenger vessels and cargo ships from dumping their waste into the River Thames.

However, LBC can reveal that many of these boats have continued to discharge sewage into the River Thames since General Direction 10 came into force in July, prompting fury from environmental campaigners.

The condition of the River Thames has faced significant scrutiny in recent years. Earlier this year, analysis by City Hall revealed that there had been a fivefold increase in raw sewage being dumped in London’s waters, whilst ‘alarmingly high’ levels of E.coli were recently uncovered in sections of the Thames.

Speaking to LBC, Environment Secretary Steve Reed, who last month announced a new Water Bill which could see executives face two years in prison for failing to adhere to environmental standards, called for “absolute transparency” from the companies who are continuing to discharge sewage into the capital’s rivers.

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Mr Reed said: “Part of what we’ve announced with this new legislation is to increase transparency so the public [and] campaigners can see exactly what’s going into our water. There’s much wider reform that’s needed. I’ve announced a review to stop all kinds of pollutants that are getting into our water.

“What I want to get back to is for future generations to enjoy what I enjoyed as a kid - which is the freedom to paddle safely on a beach or in a local river.”

Critics of the new Water Bill have suggested that the power to imprison water company executives for obstructing an Environment Agency investigation has existed for decades.

Meanwhile, the failure of companies to adhere to General Direction 10 has also raised fresh questions as to whether new legislation designed to tackle water pollution will actually lead to behaviour change from polluting firms.

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Environmental campaigner Fergal McEntee believes that any new regulations, such as General Direction 10, must be backed up with effective punishments to generate meaningful change.

He told LBC: “They [The Port of London Authority] bring in these environmental laws but there’s no teeth behind them. These regulations were brought in years ago, and to date there are still companies and vessels which are making money using the Thames and flush[ing] untreated sewage into it and get[ting] away with it.

“They’ve had three years to implement this. They knew exactly what was going to happen… they knew they had to put facilities in place to deal with the sewage, they didn’t. Discharge on the Thames from a boat is the equivalent to about 250,000 flushes of an ordinary toilet [when it comes to] the amount of E Coli and bacteria that’s actually put into the rivers.”

On the PLA, Mr McEntee added that they “had a lot of time” to put in place facilities which could be used to dispose of sewage, but had “totally failed”.

Responding to LBC’s revelations, the PLA stated that the onus was on the commercial vessels themselves to establish facilities where sewage could be safely discharged.

A spokesperson told LBC that whilst “many operators put in place solutions to capture and safely dispose of sewage from their vessels by the 1 July deadline, it became clear that the limited number of existing sewage pump out facilities on the Thames ma[de] full compliance from 1 July challenging for some operators.

“This is why the Port of London Authority has stepped in to facilitate a shared pump out facility which will be available shortly.

“It is the responsibility of vessel operators to ensure their compliance as soon as practicable and to demonstrate to us that they are taking active steps to achieve this. We will be undertaking routine checks of vessels to ensure they are compliant with the General Direction.”