The Guardian can reveal that Water Pollution Goals are to be weakened by the government next week, as Environment Act targets will give farmers three extra years to reduce waste dumping into waterways.
River campaigners have said the news is proof that the government has not dropped its attack on nature. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Defra has been given until October 2022 to set ambitious goals on air and water pollution and biodiversity, as well as the release of the legally binding targets mandated by the 2021 Environment Act.
The government gave itself a legally binding deadline of 31 October 2022 to give ambitious targets on protecting air, water and biodiversity. The environment secretary is preparing to announce the targets at the end of next week, but the ambition for river pollution is set to be weakened.
There will be no overall target for river health despite demands from water campaigners.
It was originally proposed that the agriculture sector would have to reduce pollution by 40% by the year 2037. According to plans seen by the Guardian, the goal has been pushed back to 2040.
Tim Farron, the Liberal Democrats' environment spokesperson, said: This is a scandal. The government keeps kicking the can down the road because children are getting ill in their local rivers while otters and fish live in filth. When there was a vote in Parliament last year, Conservative MPs refused to ban sewage discharges, but now they have to grow some backbone by rebelling against this.
Any watering down of these targets would be a betrayal to the public and environment. I think it is a resignation offence to not set targets for river health during a sewage crisis. I hope the environment secretary thinks twice about this James Wallace, chief executive of River Action, said that agriculture is the biggest polluter of our rivers. We had hoped that the new secretary of state, Th r se Coffey, would end the attack on nature unleashed by her predecessor. Her first move is to extend the deadline for unabated agricultural pollution to 18 years, further demonstrating that this government doesn't care about the water and nature emergency. The politically salient strategy would be to boost investment in the environmental regulators and to toughen industry targets for cleaning up our rivers. These targets have caused a headache for the secretary of state. Dame Glenys Stacey, chair of the Office for Environmental Protection OEP, previously told Coffey that the possibility of taking formal enforcement action against the government over missed targets was being kept under active review. If the OEP deems it necessary, it can take legal action and launch an investigation.
Environmental charities including the RSPB, the Wildlife Trusts, and the National Trust have filed a complaint with the OEP and Defra over the failure to come up with new legally binding targets for air quality, water health, nature and waste management by the deadline.
The government has caused widespread anger over its failure to tackle sewage and agricultural pollution after cutbacks to farm inspection and an approach to polluting water companies described by critics as soft. Ministers were forced to make a U-turn on sewage pollution after initially whipping MPs to vote against a law to stop water companies from dumping sewage. They brought forward their own amendment that promised action on the sewage scandal.
A Defra spokeswoman said nothing would be confirmed until the targets were published.