Privatised water corporations pollute British rivers

This video from the USA says about itself:

Flint Water Poisoning Connected To Water Privatization

28 December 2016

Flint Is Still a Crisis Playlist: here.

TYT Politics Reporter Jordan Chariton spoke with Shayne Hodges, a Flint resident and activist, about the lead poisoning crisis and its connection to efforts to privatize the water system.

By Peter Lazenby in Britain:

Polluted rivers putting human health at risk

Monday 16th October 2017

PROFIT-HUNGRY water companies are dumping sewage into rivers in England and Wales, harming wildlife and potentially threatening human health, conservationists have warned.

Environmental charity WWF said that eight in 10 rivers failed to meet good ecological standards, with half polluted with sewage.

England’s nine water and sewerage companies reported 1,902 pollution incidents last year, the first rise since 2012, the WWF report found.

Most water and waste companies use the rivers network as a free transport system to carry sewage effluent to the sea.

Industrial and domestic waste is filtered to remove bacteria, pathogens and parasites before being dumped in rivers. But at times of heavy rainfall untreated waste is fed direct into streams and rivers because the companies’ filtration systems cannot handle the extra volume.

Companies have also failed to invest in improved filtration systems, and WWF says effluent discharged continuously from sewage treatment works is not being treated to a high enough standard to protect rivers.

WWF campaigns head Ben Stafford said: “We want to see water companies produce long-term wastewater plans that ensure the sewage system is sufficient to prevent pollution and cope with today’s downpours, future climate change, increasing urbanisation and population growth.

“We want to see the UK government and the Welsh government make these plans a legal requirement.”

Sewage pollution can cause rapid algae growth, starving rivers of the oxygen that insects, fish and other wildlife depend on, hitting other species such as otters and kingfishers at the top of the food chain.

BRITAIN’S top six water companies are piping their profits to shareholders based in overseas tax havens, Labour revealed today: here.

USA: THE RAILROAD PUT THIS MONTANA TOWN ON THE MAP “But contaminants have tainted the groundwater under Livingston, now a hub for arts and tourism, for decades.” [HuffPost]

Pollution killed 9 million people in 2015. First global look finds that dirty air, water and soil are to blame for one in six premature deaths. By Laura Beil, 5:50pm, October 20, 2017.