Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how river water quality is tested for sewage releases.

Monitoring data provides the Environment Agency (EA) with information for different needs and uses, including environmental health surveillance, effective regulation and incident management. Various monitoring programmes fulfil these information needs.

The EA‘s monitoring collects and makes available essential measurements on water quality (chemistry and physico-chemistry), ecology (including fish, invertebrates, plants and algae), all of which can be impacted by sewage. Where there is a serious incident involving the release of untreated sewage, which could have a significant impact on the environment, the EA may collect samples to determine the level of impact, and in some cases for the provision of evidence in formal investigations.

To aid further monitoring, the government has brought forward new measures under the Environment Act 2021 to require sewerage undertakers to monitor sewerage assets and the impact they have on the local environment. This data will allow water companies to better target their investments in infrastructure and allow regulators to monitor how successful these improvements are.