BBC environmental correspondent
Jonah Fisher / BBCThousands of water tests to identify potential harmful pollution in rivers, lakes and estuaries in England have been canceled in the last three months due to the staff shortage, the BBC learned.
The Environment Agency has confirmed the cancellations after the activists showed us e-mails and internal documents with plans for in-depth discounts of the surveillance programs.
The canceled tests concern so -called inorganic pollutants – substances such as nitrates and phosphates which may indicate wastewater or agricultural pollution.
The EA indicates that its “remains robust” test program, but this week a historic report said that it had “struggled to supervise and effectively manage the water system”.
During the three months from May to July, the water regulator said that 10,000 tests planned in its main Starcross laboratory in Devon did not take place due to staff shortages.
Others have been combined with other tests or reported in what EA says it is an “optimization” process.
The Environment Agency said seven national inorganic test programs had been completely “interrupted”. They include programs that follow chemical pollution in rivers, lakes and estuaries as well as that which monitors the regulator’s plans to treat drought.
Jo Bradley, who worked in the water quality team of the Environment Agency for more than 20 years, told the BBC: “Certain inorganic substances, such as copper and zinc, are directly toxic to aquatic organizations, including fish and insects”, ”
“Others, such as phosphorus and nitrogen, are nutrients and can affect the health of the river when they are present in high quantities.
“These substances must be tested regularly, several hundred locations, so that we can see the trends in rivers chemistry and quickly identify problems.”
The EA said that it had “stopped” 17.5% of its inorganic tests in the Starcross laboratory from May to July.
During the whole year, he said he expected to operate at 15% below the capacity.
A spokesperson blamed test reduction on “personnel capacity fluctuations” and said the laboratory would work on full capacity by October.
Endowment problems are nothing new to EA. In 2023, its President Alan Lovell declared in the Parliament that he had “fought with the recruitment and the retention of the staff”.
The internal emails obtained by the Greenpeace and Desmog campaign groups through requests for freedom of information were shared with the BBC. They show that EA officials discuss the impact of personnel departures on tests and said that others were planning to leave.
A senior official, writing an email to his colleagues, said that it was not good news, I am afraid of “adding” it is not where we want to be (still) “.
Helen Nightingale, who worked at the Environment Agency as a watershed planner, analyzing data from his water quality program until 2022, says that, even if she was there, she saw a concentration of a serious investigation to a “success” attempt.
She also said that morale was low: “The salary is not great – we have not had salary increases for years due to austerity,
“But a lot of people are there [the EA] Because they want to make a difference – and when you don’t even get that – well, what is it for? “”
The documents observed by the BBC show that the work affected by test cuts this year included surveys on the water industry in various parts of the country, and the surveillance of protected areas, including the Wye river, which currently faces a pollution crisis linked to intensive agriculture.
Stuart Singleton White of The Angling Trust who directed his own program of testing citizens’ scientists., Said: “This spring, while the EA cut 10,000 water samples, our water quality surveillance network has collected its 10,000th.
“Our last annual report has shown that 34% of the sites violated” a good ecological status “for phosphate, and 45% have shown signs of pollution by nitrates. Pollution is out of control, and in -depth tests are essential to solve the problem.”
The singer who became Campainer Feargal Sharkey said that the canceled tests were an additional confirmation of the limits of the EA.
“When is a regulator a regulator? When it is the environment agency,” Sharkey told BBC.
“With an impeccable timing, the environment agency all reminds us exactly why they should be added to the joy fire of Sir Jon Cunliffe of Quangos [the Water Commission]. Institutionally incompetent, complacent and discredited. “”
This week, SIR Jon recommended that a single water regulator be created, the EA rewarding the responsibility to monitor water pollution.
An EA spokesperson said: “We are committed to protecting the environment and water quality tests remains an absolute priority after receiving additional funding of 8 million pounds sterling.”
“Our water quality test program remains robust and priority on the basis of needs – only a small proportion of tests was affected by this problem, without impact on pollution incidents and bath water tests.”
