I recently came across a news story that seems to have appeared one day and vanished nearly as quickly. It didn’t hit the headlines, well not as I recall, it just appeared on my phone and then was gone. The story, well a by now well-rehearsed narrative about the transgressions of our water companies, but with a rather toxic twist. Not just about the untreated effluence released into our rivers and seas, but toxic industrial waste such as ‘cyanide, chromium, cadmium and mercury’ being accepted by the water treatment plants adding to the already overloaded treatment systems. Systems that it seems, in the main, are not designed or capable of dealing with it and consequently the highly toxic chemicals end up in waterways, the sea and on our lands as fertiliser.
Not only are the water companies knowingly accepting and disposing of this waste, but they are making millions of pounds doing so whilst turning a blind eye to the consequences. There is little by way of oversight or regulation and what oversight and regulation there is, is pretty much ineffective and outdated.
To put it simply, industries pay water companies to, I say this tongue in cheek, legitimately, poison our waters and our lands and ultimately, through the food chain poison us. And to rub salt into the wound, all concerned make huge profits which they then dole out to their shareholders and senior management.
On the face of it, much like the raw sewage scandals we’ve seen recently, it is simply a breach of regulation, a mistake, a result of underinvestment, a need for more funding, or quite simply a fuss about not a lot. Nothing to see here. Weather the storm of adverse media reporting for a while and the indignation of interested parties, even celebrities, and then just carry on.
Except, from a criminological point of view, this is not about mere breaches of regulation or mistake or other excuses, this is about harm being done and ultimately, it is about crime. Call it environmental crime, green crime, Zemiology, call it what you like but it still amounts to something pretty devastating for all of us.
Perhaps currently it is about damage to the waterways and landscapes but how long before a link is made between the release of these toxic substances and birth defects, or early mortality rates, firstly in our livestock and then ultimately in humans? How long before there is a call for a public inquiry and calls for reparation? At what point will the government be apologising for not getting to grips with the problem. Of course, it won’t be this government but a government of the future that whilst they can apologise, cannot really be held responsible, after all they weren’t there at the time. The victims will be doubly victimised as they pay the cost of being poisoned and then as taxpayers pay the cost of the cleanup. In the meantime, directors and other responsible parties will have disappeared with golden handshakes and lucrative pensions and shareholders will rapidly be offloading shares, having made significant profits. Former Ministers will be sitting in the House of Lords lamenting at the problem but denying any culpability through inaction. It will, as so many such cases do, just become another story about a historic failure at so many levels with few, if any, held to account.
As an aside, given the enormity of the potential for harm, I wonder why the story just fell by the wayside. If nothing else, surely government needs to take a look. Or maybe money and political manoeuvring are so much more important.
Having read this blog you may be interested in two television broadcasts: Buried with Michael Sheen and Toxic Toiwn
