Government and regulators may be responsible for failing to stem discharges into rivers, says Office for Environmental Protection
The government and regulators may have broken the law by failing to stem the scale of raw sewage dumping into rivers by water companies, the new independent environmental watchdog has said.
The Office for Environmental Protection (OEP), which was set up after Brexit to replace the enforcement powers of the European Commission, said an investigation suggested the government, the Environment Agency and Ofwat could be misinterpreting environmental law and allowing raw sewage to be discharged by water companies more frequently than the law allows.
