A clean river campaigner has warned of a serious risk someone will die from swimming in English rivers and seas because of the level of E coli from water pollution.
Charles Watson of River Action, speaking on Wednesday as the bathing water season officially opened, said that with warm weather approaching and half-term in a week, thousands of children and families would be taking to rivers, lakes and seas. Most of these sites are not monitored for E coli, as they are not designated bathing sites.
Watson’s organisation tested for E coli in the River Thames before the Oxford and Cambridge boat race last month, and found E coli levels that were off the scale in terms of public health.
Dr Rob Collins, of the Rivers Trust, said there was no monitoring of the pathogens in rivers, including Cryptosporidium which spreads waterborne disease.
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In an early day motion laid before parliament, Lewis said the industry had proved it was not capable of building the infrastructure required to deal with the impact of climate breakdown, including increased flooding and droughts.
Lewis and other MPs challenged water industry representatives and the regulator Ofwat on Wednesday as the EAC sought answers on what progress had been made to tackle sewage pollution in rivers and seas.
MPs are putting pressure on the industry as the regulator Ofwat prepares to announce whether it will allow Thames Water, which has total debts of £18bn, to hike customer fees by more than 40% and avoid high fines for pollution, in order to get the equity funding it needs to continue operating.
The government has assembled a team, under the banner of Project Timber, to draw up contingency plans to rescue Thames Water if needed, which could include the bulk of its debt being added to the public purse.
Guardian analysis showed that more than 2,000 overflows owned by a number of companies discharged raw sewage into rivers and seas at a scale that should spark an immediate investigation into illegal breaches of permit conditions.
Figures obtained by the BBC on Wednesday revealed United Utilities dumped millions of litres of raw sewage into Windermere in the Lake District in February after a fault took 10 hours to fix.
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