Extinction Rebellion activists and Local residents have joined a nationwide “Dirty Water Campaign” to demand the government and water companies clean up their act and stop the dumping of raw sewage in our rivers, waterways, and seas.
On the morning of Saturday 28th of January 2023, a large group gathered at Splash Point in Seaford near a Storm Drain outlet to highlight the government’s continued failure to tighten environmental regulations and stop profit-grabbing by water companies.
Maria Caulfield Conservative MP for Lewes was among 265 MPs who voted for a watered-down bill in October 2021 that failed to ensure that water companies had a ‘duty’ not to discharge untreated sewage into our waterways from storm pipes.
Local activists and protestors put up the blue plaques at Splash point in Seaford East Sussex in a spoof ceremony as part of a national day of action called Dirty Water to highlight the shocking state of our waterways.
About 100 Dirty Water blue plaques will be unveiled across England on Saturday.
The Blue plaque unveiled says “Maria Caulfield MP Voted to block a law requiring water companies to dump less raw sewage in our waterways and seas 20 Oct ’21”
The Liberal Democrats have said ” New regulations passed by Conservative MPs will allow water companies to continue dumping sewage into our rivers and seas for another 15 years. In the last two years water companies in England dumped raw sewage 775,568 times lasting 5,768,679 hours.
The new legislation set a target of an 80% reduction in phosphates in rivers by 2038. Phosphates are naturally occurring minerals found in human waste and can lead to a dramatic growth in algae and deplete oxygen levels when they are dumped in rivers.
This is a pathetic target which allows water companies to get away with a staggering 15 more years of shameful sewage dumping. This is a betrayal of the British public who rightly want tougher action against water companies. “
Video Sussex News
MP Maria Caulfield said on her Facebook Page “This week I voted FOR targets to move to improve water quality.
This was all in the landmark Environment Act to be enacted which we have moved forward this week.
The legislation very specifically mentioned key reductions in nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment pollution.
So we now have enacted new legislation on track setting clear targets for eliminating storm overflow use but has to be done in achievable way which is fair and reasonable to bill payers and be actually deliverable.
We are the ONLY government to ever tackle this. Since 2016, monitoring of overflow use has increased from 6% to almost 90%, with in place 100% by the end of this year. It was was pretty much zero under Labour.
That’s why there are more instances and we actually know about it but it’s only by knowing what the water companies are actually doing that we will be able to bring it down and hold them to account.
The other parties and so called media commentators are spreading more incorrect and outrageous propaganda.
We’ve actually announced and voted FOR properly ambitious, legally binding targets to restore and protect our environment and tackle this scourge.
We committed in the New Year to setting out the new Environmental Improvement Plan, which will set out more detail on how we plan to deliver change we all want and need.
Criticism by the Lib Dems needs to be taken with a pinch of salt as they have a miserable record of failure and totally empty rhetoric on this important topic – when they were in Government and held the minister for water portfolio they did absolutely nothing on this for 5 whole years.”
