The discovery that the Thames is currently badly polluted with bacteria was provided by the campaign group River Action which said last week that it had found “alarmingly high levels of dangerous E coli bacteria” along the stretch of the Thames between Putney and Mortlake where the race takes place.
Thanks to the vast amounts of sewage now being dumped in the Thames, prevalence of the bug was 10 times higher than what is considered to be safe. As a result, crews from both boats were warned not to take a dive into the Thames at the end of the race lest they suffer diarrhoea, kidney failure or sepsis.
And the culprit? Thames Water, which has been found to have been releasing effluent directly into the river and its tributaries on a grand scale. One recent study indicated that the utility firm had pumped at least 72 billion litres of filth into the river since 2020, enough to fill 29,000 Olympic swimming pools.
For its part, Thames Water, which is facing an uncertain future after shareholders refused to inject fresh equity into the ailing business, has blamed high rainfall for flushing effluent out of its drains and into waterways. The fact that Thames Water has also said it needs to increase bills by 56% to deal with its debts and improve its creaking infrastructure has not helped its image.
Last week, the company’s leadership was denounced as a disgrace by the communities secretary, Michael Gove, and accused of taking excess profits while failing to invest in badly needed infrastructure. Now the renationalisation of Thames Water has become a real prospect. The water industry was privatised by Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s, and if Thames Water is renationalised this would confirm in many people’s minds that the whole exercise had been a very costly fiasco.
The fury that has erupted over the river and its pollution has had one other unexpected result. The Boat Race, an event normally considered by the rest of the world to be a mildly amusing, slightly eccentric piece of British entertainment, found itself being held up as a perfect example of the wounds that Britain now regularly inflicts on itself.
For the first time, Fox News, CNN and other international outlets ran stories about the race’s buildup. As Thursday’s New York Times put it: “The warning is stern: Do not enter the water. Not because of the tide. Not because of sharks. Because of the sewage.” For its part, CBS talked about London’s “sewage-infused” Thames.
I don’t know if any of you row, or even use the rowing machine . It’s brutally demanding on cardio and physical strength.
Yet there were people working even harder than the athletes on Saturday, and they were BBC commentators swerving the word POLLUTION.
They talked about water quality like somehow it was the water’s responsibility.
a very costly fiasco
That’s just about the TL;Dr: for anything that the British government does, no?
The company took in excess profits while mismanaging it and not maintaining infrastructure. To blame this on government inefficiency seems dishonest. Should society trust critical infrastructure to for-profit institutions?
Didnt water systems used to be nationalised?
If water companies can misbehave to this extent, shouldnt there be more oversight and regulation?
I think its fair to put additional blame on the government, alongside the blame on the water companies.I agree that critical infrastructure should not be privatised
It seems like the company was managed somewhat sustainable until 2006 by the German energy firm rwe, but after that the vulture capitalists came in and they only left after the corpse had been picked clean.
Imo nationalization at this stage is not a good solution, since it would also nationalize the debt. Debt from paying out dividends to the old owners, not debt from investing into the company, so it would be a really bad deal. So in my unprofessional opinion, it would be better to enforce regulation on the company with which they either can comply or get fined into bankruptcy. Once they go bankrupt, nationalize the actual under invested assets and let the old lenders try to claw back what they can from the former owners.
Thames Water, which is facing an uncertain future after shareholders refused to inject fresh equity into the ailing business
Privatisation going strong here. Bored from profits is now somehow an ailing business that shareholders don’t want to invest in.
Utilities should never be for profit businesses.
The Seine in Paris a few months before athletes swim in it for the Olympics: 🫣
This is the best summary I could come up with:
On a bright, unexpectedly warm afternoon, it would have been easy to assume the crowds that gathered by the Thames yesterday for the 169th Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race were a signal that all remains rosy in the world of rowing and rivercraft.
Couples of all ages stood in the sunshine sipping pints and proseccos, groups waved dark-blue Oxford and light-blue Cambridge flags, and families posed for selfies.
This was particularly unwelcome news for one spectator – former Oxford rower Richard Hull, who had come to watch his son take part in the men’s reserve competition.
For its part, Thames Water, which is facing an uncertain future after shareholders refused to inject fresh equity into the ailing business, has blamed high rainfall for flushing effluent out of its drains and into waterways.
Last week, the company’s leadership was denounced as a disgrace by the communities secretary, Michael Gove, and accused of taking excess profits while failing to invest in badly needed infrastructure.
The Boat Race, an event normally considered by the rest of the world to be a mildly amusing, slightly eccentric piece of British entertainment, found itself being held up as a perfect example of the wounds that Britain now regularly inflicts on itself.
The original article contains 806 words, the summary contains 203 words. Saved 75%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
