Thousands of pollution tests cancelled due to lack of staff

The BBC has learned that thousands of water tests have been canceled in the last three months to identify employees, lakes and potential harmful pollution in England, the BBC has learned.

The environment agency confirmed the cancellations after showing our internal emails and documents to campaigners, which were accompanied by plans for widespread cuts for monitoring programs.

Canceled tests are for so -called inorganic pollutants – substances such as nitrate and phosphate that may indicate sewage or agricultural pollution.

The EA says its testing program remains “strong” but a historic report this week states that “he fought to effectively maintain and manage the water system”.

In three months from May to July, the water regulator says that 10,000 scheduled test employees were not due to lack of scheduled testing employees in Star Cross in Dewon.

Other people were associated with other tests or what EA says was postponed.

The environment agency said that seven national inorganic testing programs were completely “stopped”. These include programs that track chemical pollution in rivers, lakes, and astructive and also monitors the regulator’s plans to deal with drought.

Bradley, who works in the water quality team of the environment agency for more than 20 years, told the BBC, “Some inorganic materials, such as copper and zinc, are directly toxic for aquatic organisms including fish and insects,”

“Other, such as phosphorus and nitrogen, are nutrients and they can affect the health of the river when present in high amounts.

“These substances should be tested regularly in many hundreds of places, so that we can see trends in river chemistry and identify problems quickly.”

The EA stated that it “stop” from May to July 17.5% of its inorganic test at Starcross Laboratory.

It was said throughout the year that it was expecting to operate 15% below the capacity.

A spokesperson blamed the decrease in trials on “ups and downs in staffing capacity” and could not say that the laboratory would be working again with full capacity.

Staffing problems in EA are not new. In 2023, its chairman Alan Lavel told Parliament that he was “struggling with recruitment and retention of employees”.

Through the freedom of information requests, the internal email received by the campaign groups Greenpeace and Desmog was shared with the BBC. They discuss EA officials on the impact of the departure of employees on tests and say that others have planned to leave.

A senior officer, writing an email to his colleagues, said that it is “good news. I am afraid” it is adding “it is not a place where we want to be (again)”.

Helen Nightingale, who worked in the environment agency as a catchment planner, analyzed the data from his water quality program by 2022, saying that when she was there, she focused a serious investigation to try to find “successes”.

He also said that the morale was low: “Salary is not very good – we have not paid for years due to penance,

“But there are many people in it [the EA] Because they want to make a difference – and when you are not getting too – okay, what’s the matter? ,

Documents viewed by the BBC suggest that the work affected by the cut for this year involves investigation of water industry in various parts of the country, and monitoring the protected areas including the Wye River, which is currently facing a pollution crisis related to intensive chicken farming.

Stuart Singleton White from the Angling Trust who is running its own civic scientific test program. Said: “This spring, while EA cut 10,000 water samples, our water quality monitoring network collected its 10,000th.

“Our latest annual reports have shown that 34% of sites for phosphate violate” good ecological status “, and 45% showed signs of nitrate pollution. It is out of pollution control, and is important to address a comprehensive test problem.”

Singer-turning-vampaner Feargal Sharki said that the canceled tests are further confirmation of EA boundaries.

“When a regulator is not a regulator? When it is an environmental agency,” Mr. Sharki told the BBC.

“The environmental agency with imperfect time reminds us all why he should be added to Sir John Quangos’s Kwangos [the Water Commission]Institutionally disabled, gentle and infamous. ,

This week, Sir John recommended that a single water regulator be made, in which EA is entrusted with the responsibility of monitoring water pollution.

An EA spokesperson said: “We are committed to protecting the environment and water quality testing, which is an top priority to get an additional £ 8M in funding.”

“Our water quality testing has been strong and priority based on the requirement of the program – only a small ratio of tests was affected by this issue, which had no effect on pollution incidents and bath water testing.”