{"id":30131,"date":"2026-08-06T18:55:30","date_gmt":"2026-08-06T13:55:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=30131"},"modified":"2026-08-06T18:55:30","modified_gmt":"2026-08-06T13:55:30","slug":"englands-lakes-rivers-coastal-waters-contain-chemicals-other-pollutants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=30131","title":{"rendered":"England&#8217;s lakes, rivers, coastal waters contain chemicals, other pollutants"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"\">\n<p><span class=\"story_dl\">Aug. 6 (UPI) &#8212;<\/span> The majority of English rivers, lakes and waters off the country&#8217;s coast remain in a challenging state with none free of chemical pollution and only 14% receiving a good ecological bill of health, the Environment Agency said Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>Data from the first comprehensive testing of their health since before the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.upi.com\/topic\/COVID-19\/\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"COVID-19\" class=\"tpstyle\">COVID-19<\/a> pandemic indicated <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/cq6d0y5e3mjo\" target=\"_blank\">lakes were in the worst condition<\/a> with ony 7% receiving a &#8220;good,&#8221; compared with 15% of rivers.\n<\/p>\n<p>In a separate chemical pollution test, no body of water met the required standard, with toxic PFAS&#8211; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/environment\/2026\/aug\/06\/all-bodies-of-water-england-polluted-toxic-chemicals\" target=\"_blank\">&#8220;forever chemicals&#8221;<\/a> &#8212; and phosphate from sewage and animal waste from farms the main concerns.<\/p>\n<p>The safe limit for phosphate was exceeded in about 50% of rivers suggesting that a massive 10-year, $30 billion drive by England&#8217;s 16 water utilities to clean up the country&#8217;s water by 2030 was not delivering.<\/p>\n<p>The EA warned it would take almost four decades to achieve good chemical status, when long-lasting chemicals should have degraded to levels required for waters to be designated as no longer polluted.<\/p>\n<p>It said it was working to better understand chemicals in the environment and figure out where those affecting rivers, groundwater and water catchments were coming from.\n<\/p>\n<p>The government and the Environment Agency are being investigated by the Office for Environment Protection, after the environment watchdog said the government would fall short, by a &#8220;considerable margin,&#8221; of its own target of returning 77% of waters to good ecological condition by 2027.<\/p>\n<p>Environment Secretary Angela Eagle said the latest results showed fundamental reform across the industry was necessary but defended the government, which has only been in office for two years.<\/p>\n<p>She said the government had brought in new laws making water companies legally accountable and presided over record levels of investment, and vowed to &#8220;drive forward a system that puts the public interest first.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The environmental group, River Action, said England&#8217;s rivers were some of the &#8220;filthiest in Europe, poisoned by sewage from polluting, profit-driven water companies and by industrial-scale agriculture, including chicken manure runoff from intensive poultry units that rear tens of millions of birds for fast-food chains and supermarkets.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Greenpeace U.K. said the crisis was a wake up call and urged the government to take immediate steps to stop chemicals getting into the water.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Water companies must be made to take responsibility for their part, but pollution from agriculture is now one of the biggest drivers of environmental damage in U.K. rivers. It&#8217;s time for the government to work with farmers, providing proper support to rein in runaway use of fertilizers and pesticides and boost nature-friendly practices,&#8221; said Greenpeace head of politics Ami McCarthy.\n<\/p>\n<div class=\"slide-image-container\" onclick=\"st_ss_sh978();\">\n\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/cdnph.upi.com\/collection\/ph\/upi\/16775\/061b525d8199863ee961b54d5ad8e9cc\/Historic-August-moments-through-the-years_1_1.jpg\" style=\"width: 100%;\" width=\"648\" height=\"431\"\/><\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"stph_caption\">Martin Luther King Jr. delivers his famed &#8220;I Have a Dream&#8221; speech from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington on August 28, 1963. The speech galvanized the nation&#8217;s civil rights movements and led to the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the 1965 Voting Rights Act and the 1968 Fair Housing Act. File photo by UPI | <a href=\"https:\/\/www.upi.com\/News_Photos\/lp\/061b525d8199863ee961b54d5ad8e9cc\/\" target=\"_blank\">License Photo<\/a><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Aug. 6 (UPI) &#8212; The majority of English rivers, lakes and waters off the country&#8217;s coast remain in a challenging state with none free of chemical pollution and only 14% receiving a good ecological bill of health, the Environment Agency said Thursday. Data from the first comprehensive testing of their health since before the COVID-19&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30132,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cdnph.upi.com\/sv\/ph\/og\/upi_com\/3321786012634\/2026\/1\/460000be5082ddbff448320429dae35d\/v1.5\/Englands-lakes-rivers-coastal-waters-contain-chemicals-other-pollutants.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-hub"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30131"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30131\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/30132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}