UK Government: Don’t Expect ‘Good’ Surface Waters Any Time Soon
The government is investigating and mapping out the sources of dangerous “forever chemicals” present in our waterways. But England will not meet its targets for waterways having good chemical status by 2027, the government admits, in part because of the PFAS “forever chemicals” in our rivers.
Well that’s bad news. 4 years is too hard for ‘good’ chemical status. So we should manage expectations, By the way, what’s the actual target going to be then?
High levels of PFAS in England’s waters mean that far from meeting good chemical status by 2027, in many areas standards for PFAS will not be met until 2063.
40 years. Forty, FORTY/b>. Many areas.
In 2021 the Environment Agency admitted in a report: “Monitoring data for rivers, lakes, groundwater, estuaries and coastal waters suggests it is likely that PFAS is widely present in English surface waters and groundwater.” Another document from the agency found: “PFOS is a widespread environmental contaminant. Our monitoring programme in surface waters has reported the presence of PFOS in all fish sampled from fresh, estuarine and coastal waters. “Measured concentrations in fish ranged from below the environmental quality standard (EQS) to up to four times greater than the biota EQS.”
So, just to recap:
At the moment, all of England’s rivers fail to meet pollution tests because of chemical and sewage pollution.