It’s everyone’s problem
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In early August 2023, news broke of a class action lawsuit leveled against six water companies operating in the UK. The case accuses these companies of underreporting the extent to which they are spilling raw sewage into waterways across England and Wales, pretending to meet environmental targets, and thus overcharging their customers.
The bill presents a very simple relationship to water users: you’re a customer paying for a service. It is a mystifying document that employs polished infographics and friendly slogans to obscure a network of interrelated events and entities far more complex than a contractual relationship between two parties: riverflies, algal blooms, international shareholders, sewage discharge, defective technology, neoliberal politics, leaky pipes. Thames Water would like us to believe that they’re as transparent as our water. Both, however, are full of shit.
Our alternative bill accounts for the multiple contingencies behind a seemingly uncomplicated contract. What are the costs associated with dumping raw sewage into our rivers? Who profits and who pays?
Thames Water spills billion of litres of raw sewage into rivers and streams each year, while failing to improve decaying critical infrastructure.
A study of the riverfly reveals how Thames Water's sewage spills severely impact the different species whose existence depends on the water, with devastating consequences to broader ecosystems.
Thames Water has failed to holistically upgrade its ageing pipe system, an undefined portion of which is made from toxic lead. The toxicity of water varies highly by postcode, revealing a class disparity that is potentially deadly. Sewage spills can also introduce Coliform bacteria such as E. coli into the water supply, which can cause high fever, diarrhoea and even death.
Customers’ bills have increased by 40% over the past three decades, as Thames Water has given out millions in dividends and accrued £15.7 billion in debt.
Thames Water has failed its customers and the region on every measurable level: by overcharging for water it pollutes and passing on the cost of its decaying infrastructure to consumers, it has made it more likely that England’s water crisis will persist for generations, barring a substantial fiscal and managerial intervention.
By exploiting legal loopholes, misusing CSOs, failing to implement necessary upgrades and underreporting spills, it has poisoned the ecosystem of countless marine organisms and in turn endangered public health.
The company’s only demonstrated commitment is to its shareholders, most of whom will never rely on its services. As this privatised system funnels capital to multinational corporations, it leaks its own customers’ funds and slowly drains away the resource most vital to the sustenance of human life.