ReportingIn Whitstable, Kent, the British capital of oysters, the private company supposed to treat wastewater regularly dumps it into the sea. Bathers and oyster farmers are mobilizing.
Sally Burtt-Jones brewed coffee, opened her pretty pink and green beach hut overlooking Tankerton Beach in Whitstable, Britain’s oyster capital, in North Kent. She also donned a sweatshirt for the occasion that she reveals under her down jacket – the weather is freezing, this Wednesday, January 12. It is crossed out with a message for the occasion: “Merde” (in French). Sally co-founded the SOS Whitstable association during the summer of 2021 to fight against the practices of Southern Water, the private water treatment company in the south-east of England.
The latter had just been sentenced to a historic fine of 90 million pounds sterling (108 million euros), by the British National Environment Agency, for illegally dumping billions of liters of dirty water into the rivers and in the sea off Kent, Hampshire and Sussex. But it continued to send sewage water directly into the sea several times a week, a nautical mile east of Tankerton, where one of its treatment plants, Swalecliffe, is located.
“These discharges are only authorized in the event of exceptional weather events, but Southern Water has not invested in its infrastructures for thirty years: as soon as it rains, they saturate [elles recueillent les eaux sales grossies par les intempéries] », says Sally Burtt-Jones, a sustainability consultant who left London for the seaside a few years ago. “If it rained the day before, we know that we can’t swim the next day”, adds Rebecca Martin.
Like Sally and the dozen other members of SOS Whitstable, this marketing consultant is part of a local club of sea swimmers, Bubbletit Bluetits, disgusted by the almost daily pollution of their beaches. The practice of all-weather swimming has grown significantly in the UK with the Covid-19 pandemic. This Wednesday, it hasn’t rained for several days and some swimmers are testing the icy water at Tankerton. ” In August [2021], the beach had to close eighteen days out of thirty-one when full people hadn’t gone on vacation because of the pandemic and needed to take advantage of it. Quite a few neighbors told us that they had been sick after bathing,” explains Rebecca.
The English rivers among the most polluted in Europe
SOS Whitstable then decides to act. In the autumn, the association launched a petition on Change.org, demanding that the environmental law then under discussion in the British Parliament be amended, so that water treatment companies would be legally obliged to limit discharges. The petition passed the 100,000 signature mark, the House of Lords supported the amendment and voted in favor. Downing Street is blocking these changes but, a few days before the opening of COP26 in Glasgow (Scotland), the media are getting involved, and the Johnson government is doing an about face. Now adopted, the legislation requires companies to“ensure a progressive reduction of damage” caused by dirty water.
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