England’s drinking water watchdog seeks powers to directly impose fines
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England’s drinking water watchdog is seeking fresh powers to directly impose fines on water companies as public concern grows over the maintenance and inspection of crucial infrastructure.
To impose fines for water quality failures, the Drinking Water Inspectorate currently has to apply to the courts. There have been just six criminal convictions since 2017.
However, the regulator is in discussions with the UK government to extend its powers so it can hand down fines directly “as another tool in our approach to regulation”, it told the Financial Times.
The request comes as the inspectorate recorded an 8.5 per cent increase in the number of cases involving water quality, up from 433 in 2021 to 470 in 2022.
Water quality concerns can be caused by old infrastructure such as fractured or poorly maintained pipes or storage tanks and the build-up of metals. However, most of the convictions since 2017 involved the inadequate treatment, disinfection or provision of water “unfit for human consumption”.
The size of the fines has been increasing, with the average for the six cases at about £210,000, a nearly 10-fold increase compared with 2000-2017, the inspectorate said.
The small number of court cases came despite 458 incidents where consumers received discoloured water over the five years between 2017 and 2021.
Instead of issuing fines, the DWI handed down 36 “legal instruments” to eight companies, requiring remedial action such as the replacement of old pipes or the rebuilding of entire water treatment works. These can take several years.
Tim Farron, environment spokesman for the Liberal Democrats, said that water companies were “escaping punishment for dirty drinking water”.
“We have reached the point where a new regulator is needed, with real teeth and a range of legal powers at its disposal.”
The DWI said it was “inaccurate to imply that dirty drinking water is generally being supplied to consumers in England and Wales”.
“England and Wales provides some of the best water quality in the world and transient discolouration when it occurs must have a proportionate response,” it added.
Discolouration generally comes from the erosion of metals in older mains pipes or from water containing metals passing through treatment works, and most incidents do not risk human health, experts said. But the DWI nevertheless advises people receiving discoloured water to “seek advice from their water company before drinking and not to assume it is safe”.
Ludovica Gazze, an economist and expert in drinking water contamination at the University of Warwick, said that “discolouration per se is not a problem, but should be a warning sign that triggers further investigation. If that investigation doesn’t happen and/or contamination is found, then that’s when enforcement is warranted.”
Discolouration was a symptom in the Flint, Michigan, water crisis, Gazze said. “Residents complained about it, and later on it was found that the water had been contaminated with lead particles as a result of switches in water supply source and treatment that made the water more corrosive.”
Of the 470 water quality events in 2022, 63 were attributable directly to the condition of the assets and plant breakdowns. There were also 11 failures of the disinfection system, six failures of power supply, and eight structural failures of tanks and reservoirs, according to the DWI. Five cases involved water outages.
The DWI said it found “problems” with the condition of most of the assets it audited last year including water treatment works, storage reservoirs and tanks.
Tanks holding drinking water, usually buried underground or on top of hills, should be inspected at least every 10 years but 11 out of 17 water providers had failed to do so in this timeframe.
This represents a “significant potential risk to the wholesomeness of the water contained therein”, the DWI said. That “risk increases substantially if the assets are not routinely inspected and maintained”.
In a report published on Tuesday, Ofwat, the industry’s economic regulator, said that the companies’ 0.1 per cent renewal rate on water mains was “unsustainably low”. Companies are “not undertaking enough replacements to keep up with deterioration”, it added.
South West Water received a £300,000 fine — one of the largest — in September last year after it provided water unfit for human consumption for almost two months to households in 2018. Customers said the discoloured water had an “earthy” or “mouldy” taste. At the time South West Water advised people to “add a slice of lemon”.
South West Water, which supplies Cornwall and Devon, apologised for the incident which came from algal blooms in a reservoir. “We accept that unpalatable water, even when safe to drink, is absolutely unacceptable,” it said.
The DWI is an independent inspector that sits within Defra, the environment department. Its budget increased by 51 per cent between 2017 and 2022, from £2.9mn to £4.5mn.
A Defra spokesperson said England had some of the safest drinking water in the world and regular sampling was carried out to make sure it stayed that way.
“Rather than wasting time setting up new regulators we are already delivering more investment, stronger regulation and tougher enforcement. This includes increasing Ofwat’s powers and funding, creating unlimited penalties.”
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