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00:12Privatized water is a better deal than nationalized water, that the water privatization, I believe,
00:20will go very successfully indeed, that will go very successfully indeed, and perhaps therefore
00:26we have yet a way to see, so that we can pontificate in the light of the fact.
00:52Lewis! Lewis! What did I tell you about that seaweed? Do not throw it!
01:01Are you hungry?
01:05Ice cream!
01:05No!
01:06No, we just got here, you wanna?
01:08Yeah, we'll get it on the way back to the shallow, all right?
01:11Yeah, we'll get it, we'll get it back.
01:12It's dead, isn't it?
01:13I did promise you, I will, I promise.
01:24It goes way through, Heather, stop!
01:27What?
01:27Oh, bloody hell.
01:29Heather, I told you to stop, didn't I?
01:33I think that's poo.
01:33Of course, it's not poo.
01:39Sticks.
01:39It wasn't poo.
01:41It's not poo.
01:41It's not poo.
01:42Come in.
01:43Come on.
01:43Don't come in like that.
01:45How far shall I go?
01:46Go on if you can.
01:48All right, all right, all right, all right.
01:49I'm doing that.
01:50Wash it off, scrub it.
01:52You what?
01:53Scrub it.
01:53All right.
01:54Hey, Heather, don't you think?
01:56No, you are.
01:57Don't you, don't you?
01:58Don't you, don't you?
01:58You are.
01:59Is it off her?
02:00Yeah, I think so.
02:01You're the donut.
02:01Get a towel.
02:02Here, get a dry.
02:03Me.
02:04There you go.
02:04We've got a smelly little mermaid.
02:06Still smells that.
02:09That's a clue.
02:10Yeah.
02:11Tell the other one, about that one.
02:13That one.
02:14No?
02:14Oh, look at that.
02:29It was quite remarkable, really, that with most of the fresh water fish,
02:35and he was just on the stretch, most of it, that was including the chub.
02:39The chub came later, of course.
02:42They're gone.
02:43What, the chub?
02:44Well, the chub, the barbell, the eels, everything.
02:48Well, yes, I mean, the water's brown.
02:54You don't really think about the color when you see it every day.
03:00I mean, the brown here just seems normal.
03:04Would Eileen still do that water bowl register?
03:08No, I haven't.
03:08That's, uh, no, that day long as well.
03:13I mean, I remember when I first came here that it was crystalline, wasn't it?
03:40You never talk about your work.
03:42Well, I'd often, you know, it's part of the training.
03:46It's not sort of, you know, dinner conversation.
03:48Well, you're not a good time, no.
03:48It's not like I'm a Russian spy, am I?
03:51It's not like I'm, you know, working for Putin, am I?
03:55That makes me wonder now.
03:56Why would you say that?
03:57That's a bit...
03:57You investigated Ben Coppers, wasn't it?
04:00Yeah, 25 years.
04:01Well, come on, but 25 years you must have, you must have some stories, wasn't you?
04:06Not really.
04:08Why don't you have the game pie?
04:09I don't like game pie.
04:10Shall we get some mixed greens?
04:12No, I'm just having the soup and the crusty bread that sounds nice.
04:16Maybe it's extra, is it?
04:18No, no, no.
04:18That's right, yes.
04:20There will have been some minor discoloration in one or two sections of the river.
04:27There's been a discharge from the Burford Works.
04:31A discharge?
04:32Discharge of what?
04:34Untreated sewage.
04:35Yeah, legally they're allowed to spill after heavy rainfall.
04:40So they can just do that, can't they?
04:43That's what he said.
04:44They're allowed to dump untreated sewage into the river right after heavy rain.
04:50But that can't be right, because it rains all the time.
04:53Well, heavy rain, he said.
04:55I don't remember any heavy rain, do you?
04:57I'm going to write to Thames Water and ask how many times they've put sewage into the river.
05:01Well, they're not going to tell you that.
05:03Oh yeah, yeah, they've got to.
05:04What's the law?
05:06Dear Mr. Smith, no untreated sewage has been discharged
05:10into the river wind rush for the past three years.
05:13Untreated sewage mixed with treated sewage has been discharged 240 times.
05:18Kind regards.
05:19When did that come in?
05:20When did it come in that you could put untreated sewage into the river per se?
05:25I don't see how putting any kind of pathogens into the river could possibly be allowed.
05:31I mean, people are swimming in there.
05:32Dear Mr. Smith, in response to your request for information, please find attached the documents below.
05:39Kind regards.
05:40Wankers.
05:41This must be like one of your cases, mustn't it?
05:45All this.
05:46When you used to be a detective.
05:48No.
05:49No.
05:50But, you know, poisonous stuff in the river and we're not being warned about it?
05:54That, that'd be a, that'd be a scandal.
06:08It's a tummy bug, 48 hour thing, plenty of liquids.
06:13I'll give you some anti-sickness tablets just to stop the vomiting.
06:15Okay.
06:16I'm not.
06:19Heather?
06:19Oh, shit.
06:20How many was it?
06:21The doctor said she got to take your medicine now.
06:24See?
06:26Close your eyes if you want, ma'am.
06:28Yeah, keep them closed.
06:29Here you go.
06:31Well, exactly.
06:33No, they said treated sewage mixed with untreated sewage 240 times.
06:37Yeah.
06:50This is free jazz, is it?
06:53Oh, um, no, it's, it's not free jazz.
06:55It's, uh, contemporary jazz, and so they like free jazz.
06:58Right.
06:59And people pay money to listen to them.
07:01She's just come around to piss me off.
07:04No.
07:04I'm going to show you something.
07:06Look at this.
07:07So, uh, what is this?
07:09Uh, this is, uh, is this a reply from Thameswater?
07:12They're drowning me in numbers.
07:13Oh, I can see that.
07:14I mean, how are you supposed to make anything of that crap?
07:17Well, maybe, maybe that's what they're banking on.
07:19There's a needle in there somewhere.
07:21Just, you know, go through the A-stack to find it.
07:23You're the Oxford professor of mathematics.
07:26No, computational biology.
07:28It's not, um...
07:29Still math.
07:30It's nice to make machine learning, actually.
07:32So what's that like, AI?
07:33I know you're going to take the piss, but it's, it's a bit like free jazz.
07:36Oh!
07:38Depressing and pointless.
07:39Uh, no, no, there's rules.
07:41So there's a kind of order beneath the, the chaos.
07:46Um, and you've got to listen really hard, uh, for the patents.
07:49Why don't you just email me these and I'll, I'll take a look.
07:53I'm sorry.
08:17Oh, man.
08:18I can't wait.
08:20I couldn't wait.
08:23These, what you've given me, they're flow numbers.
08:26They track the sewage coming into the works and the rate at which is treated so it's safe to go
08:32back into the river.
08:33But there's something weird about this.
08:37Yeah?
08:38What?
08:38Well, here, look.
08:40Now, on the 27th of December, the flow of treated effluent coming out of the works just stops.
08:47It just stops completely.
08:49Right, what do you mean it stops?
08:51The flow, it just stops.
08:52There's no treated effluent going back into the river.
08:56So, two days after Christmas, the people of Burford stop going to the toilet?
09:01No, no, see, this is it.
09:03Because the raw sewage is still going into the works, but there's nothing coming out.
09:11Now, that's just not right.
09:15So, what do we do?
09:17I don't know.
09:17We go back to them and say, give us a bit more detail.
09:19Is that Ashley and Peter?
09:21Yes, yes, yes.
09:22Well, thanks so much for taking my call.
09:24It's Commander Aylard here.
09:26External Affairs and Sustainability at Thames.
09:30Richard, lovely to speak with you.
09:31Listen, I thought, well, why not get on the old dog and play?
09:33Well, we appreciate your calling.
09:35Not at all.
09:35Having our feet held to the fire like this is the thing that keeps us focused.
09:39Yeah, what we've been asking about this anomaly in the flow data.
09:43On the 27th of December, there's no treated effluent going back into the river.
09:49Yeah.
09:49Nobody seems to be able to explain why that is.
09:51It's taken too long to get to the bottom of this.
09:54I've had to put some rockets up a few jacksies, frankly.
09:58Turns out the flow meters at Burford were on the blink, heavy rain.
10:04The sewage flow was normal, but the sensors weren't generating any data.
10:10Safe to assume the people at Burford did not stop discharging.
10:17The measurements were temporarily interrupted.
10:20It's weird.
10:22And we'd like to invite you on a tour of the Burford works.
10:27It's just strange, isn't it, that all of the sensors stopped working at that one point.
10:32We can't think of any other explanation, frankly, but, you know.
10:36I won't be there, regrettably, but the only will be there, and you'll be in pretty good hands.
10:40No, of course we'd like to do more, but the challenge is that Burford sewers are basically Victorian.
10:46Does anyone actually work here?
10:48It's an unmanned facility.
10:50It should be unpeopled, really, shouldn't it?
10:53Do they have unpeopled works in Victorian times?
10:56Good one, no.
10:57But we do have a state-of-the-art network sensors which track all the treated fluid and effluent through
11:04the works.
11:05So nobody works here?
11:09The sensors automatically transmit data to our Waste Operation Control Center in Reading 24 hours a day.
11:16Right.
11:17Oh, that's what we call the telemetry.
11:20And what happens if something breaks down?
11:23Oh, so our works are serviced by a team of mobile engineers.
11:27If a piece of kit malfunctions, a trigger will censor an alarm, and an engineer is dispatched within two hours.
11:34Right.
11:35Oh.
11:37In here is where the engineer's logbooks live.
11:42They keep a record of anything that happens in one of these.
11:45But stuff up here, this is the really exciting part.
11:47So this is all the live, real-time data being uploaded from the plants.
11:52Yes, I can see it's quite extensive.
11:54You can see the information coming through, can't you?
11:59Mm, yeah.
12:00It's funny, because, like, you know, all the data's being pumped out, you can see it, but actually no-one's
12:04looking at it.
12:05You could save a bit of electricity there, couldn't you?
12:08What's that over there?
12:09You've got, um, a cafe?
12:11No, that is our dedicated breakout zones.
12:14You know, for teas, coffees, relaxation, um, yeah, any time.
12:18It's inviting, inviting, isn't it?
12:20Yeah, no, it's nice.
12:20I like it.
12:21It's just nobody's here to enjoy the tea, aren't you?
12:23Oh, no, no.
12:24Well, thank God.
12:25That would mean something's going wrong.
12:28All right, thank you.
12:29Great.
12:30Yeah, great.
12:32Oh, sorry.
12:33There's a hole there.
12:34There you go.
12:34Did anyone mention that we've been invited to the town hall in Burford?
12:38The commander wants us all there.
12:39It's really exciting, actually.
12:41You know, we think it's important that we hold our hands up when mistakes are made.
12:48God, did you see?
12:50See her face?
12:52Why can't you do it like?
12:54I can't believe it.
12:56And we can ask for all the telemetry.
12:58You know, they've got to give it to us.
13:00That's hundreds of thousands of data points.
13:03And everything that goes on in the works.
13:05Right, right.
13:05Just try not to get too excited.
13:07Well, I'm just saying.
13:10I'm just saying calm down.
13:16Okay, have you been giving her plenty of liquids?
13:19Yes.
13:20Been keeping her warm?
13:21Yes.
13:22Did everything you said.
13:23Okay.
13:24And are there any more symptoms?
13:26Yes.
13:28She's been bleeding from her backside, Doctor.
13:31I'm calling an ambulance.
13:36So, look, I've got the telemetry for Burford.
13:41And I've deciphered the engineer's handwriting.
13:4427th of December.
13:46Engineer's name is Michael Lazarus.
13:50It turns out here that at 8 minutes past 5 on the morning of the 27th, the alarm got triggered
13:58at the works and the communications had failed.
14:02But it must have been intermittent because at 8 minutes past 6, the centre got a message
14:08to say that both the main inlet pumps had failed.
14:14Then, at 16 minutes past 8, another alarm was triggered.
14:20The storm tank was overflowing.
14:23And that's when the dumping started.
14:27So, the pumps had packed up.
14:29The storm tank's overflowing.
14:31You've got three alarms sounding.
14:33Obviously, they've dispatched an engineer.
14:36Not for five and a half hours.
14:43Wet pumps 1 and 2.
14:44Pumps failed.
14:45Returned liquor pump.
14:46Failed.
14:47Balancing tank.
14:48Full.
14:48Untreated sewage tank.
14:50Full.
14:50Effluent chamber.
14:51Flooded.
14:54I don't need this shit.
15:01Storm tank's still to the top.
15:03All the sewage is flushing into the river.
15:08Set.
15:14Return liquor pump.
15:15Reset.
15:16Might fail again.
15:19The hull's just going to hold.
15:22Trying my best there.
15:25Everything's failing.
15:26He did what he could to patch things up.
15:28By then, it's been dumping sewage into the wind rush for over five hours.
15:33Yeah, and we know.
15:35We know that there wasn't any heavy rainfall, like Aylard said, because it didn't even rain on that day.
15:40Yeah.
15:41And then the oxidation tank failed on the 28th.
15:45The rotation arms packed up on the 29th.
15:49Burford was falling apart.
15:51They couldn't handle all the sewage he was taking in, so he was just flushing everything into the river.
15:56And I feel that Mickey's the kind of person who's in the habit of telling the truth, don't you?
16:01Yeah.
16:02What about Commander Aylard?
16:13The results are back from the lab.
16:16It's quite serious.
16:18Heather has been infected with E. coli.
16:22The most aggressive strain.
16:24Her 157.
16:29We're going to keep her comfortable, keep an eye on her, and hope that it passes through.
16:35It's possible that the virus could attack Heather's kidney functions, which might have serious consequences for other organs.
16:51This was really about a temporary malfunction to the alarm.
16:56We think at least partly caused by the heavy rainfall that day, rather than any actual interruption to the treatment
17:02process.
17:02So, what I'd like to do...
17:04Sorry, can I say a few words, Commander?
17:08Yes, of course.
17:09There was no heavy rain.
17:12In fact, it didn't rain at all.
17:16If you'll bear with me, what I have here is the engineer's logbooks.
17:22The engineer is called Michael Lazarus.
17:24And what you can see from Mr. Lazarus's logs is that the alarms were, in fact, functioning as normal.
17:33They were triggered as soon as the flooding began.
17:36The thing is, Mr. Lazarus was not dispatched to the works for more than five hours.
17:42The plant was falling apart.
17:44It couldn't treat the sewage it was taking in, and so it was just pumping it all out directly into
17:51the river.
17:55Well, thanks so much, Ash.
17:57And to you, Peter.
17:59It does look as though I've been misinformed, and I intend to get to the bottom of this, and I'll
18:06be putting my thumb on whoever...
18:08So, what are you going to do about what these two gentlemen have said?
18:10What's going to happen now?
18:12I think that we are both shocked, absolutely shocked, to hear that information, because we were...
18:18You said one thing.
18:19They've actually backed up with evidence something completely the opposite.
18:23Our river.
18:25You're just dumping it, and just covering everything up.
18:28And making money.
18:29And what's the long-term problems with the wildlife, the fish and the birds?
18:34What's happening with those?
18:35The ecological welfare of our rivers and our waterways is something that we find incredible.
18:41And what are you doing?
18:43Nothing.
18:44You're polluting our water.
18:46I wouldn't even let my dog scream in the river now.
18:48It's disgusting.
18:49It is our highest, highest priority that we will be fixing this as soon as possible.
18:54I can assure you, from all of us at Thameswater, we are working night and day.
19:00I think you need to have a team.
19:01I do.
19:01I do as well.
19:02Thank you, sir.
19:03Thank you for your...
19:05Thank you very much.
19:08Shall we go outside?
19:10Yes.
19:10I think he just lied to us.
19:13Just straight up and down to our faces.
19:15Oh, no.
19:16He said he was misinformed.
19:18Princess Diane's equerry.
19:19I mean...
19:19What is that, by the way?
19:21I don't know.
19:22It helps when people lie.
19:24It's how you know they've got something to hide.
19:42I mean, it's ammonia we need to keep an eye out.
19:45That's going to read high right after they've dumped the sewage.
19:49Fuck me.
19:50It is actually like one of your cases, isn't it?
19:53Not really, no.
19:54It's more real-time monitoring of the river.
19:58And the outflow pipes as well.
20:02So the question is, is Burford acting alone?
20:07Because there's, what, seven?
20:09Seven, yeah.
20:10Seven works along the Windrush.
20:13So we need to know if Burford is an outlier, a single failing plant.
20:17Like a lone assassin, just killing everything that lives in the water.
20:22Or are they more like Burford?
20:24Well, I mean, I suppose I could order the telemetry and get it for all of them.
20:36Dear EIR team, I would be grateful if you could supply all the telemetry exchanges between
20:45the control centre and the works at Northleach Church,
20:51Hambrook, Whitney, and Arnold, and Cicely, S.I.P. Sarah, Hammond.
21:04I can't find a pulse.
21:10Is there nothing?
21:13That's weird.
21:20No, I can't feel anything.
21:22No.
21:23Somebody call for help?
21:24Get help.
21:24No, can we get a doctor in here, please?
21:33What have you done to your finger?
21:34Oh, I don't know.
21:37I woke up this morning, it was like that.
21:39It feels a bit weird.
21:40Well, don't you think that Jala should take a look at that?
21:42I mean, she is a chemist, isn't she?
21:43I know she's a chemist, Oliver.
21:45Okay, so you know that they sent me all these data flows from the works at Whitney and at
21:50Church Amberer.
21:51Yeah.
21:52But what I've done, I've converted the program that I built for the fetal alcohol kits.
22:02What happened there was that the mothers, they were being paid in wine, so most of their
22:07children had fetal alcohol syndrome.
22:10What I did was that I took thousands of photographs of these FAS kits.
22:17And so by showing the machine, hundreds of these faces of these unborn children, we taught
22:23it to spot the features of fetal alcohol syndrome in the womb.
22:34So when the program sees it in a scan, then it can tell the doctor straight away and then
22:40they can start helping the mother and the kid.
22:46Now, Burford does most of his heavy lifting during early morning, just before everyone
22:50goes to work.
22:51And then again in the evening, when they come back home, so you can see the flows of treated
22:58effluent hitting the daily peaks and troughs.
23:01Now, that's when the penny dropped.
23:03The thing is, that is just like the contours on a baby's face.
23:11By showing the machine nine years of this flow data, I've taught it to recognize when the usual
23:18flows, they don't show up.
23:22When the everyday flows are missing, well, they're not treating the sewage.
23:27And if they're not treating the sewage, there's nowhere for it to go?
23:31Except?
23:32Into the river?
23:33Except into the river.
23:55We've decided to transfer Heather to the Bristol Hospital for Children.
24:00It's one of the best in the country.
24:02They'll be able to look after her there.
24:05It's getting bigger, I think.
24:07Have you been in the river again?
24:09Yeah, yeah.
24:10Did you have any cuts?
24:12Yeah, yeah.
24:14I pricked my finger on a thorn when I was sitting at the camera.
24:17Before?
24:17After you went to the river?
24:19Before.
24:20Right.
24:22So if there's a pathogen in the water, you've given it direct entry into your bloodstream.
24:30Is that bad?
24:31It's bad, you muppet.
24:33You need antibiotics.
24:36You know, a lot of sewage has drugs in it.
24:38And if they mix with bacteria, then the bacteria becomes antibiotic resistant, which means that the antibiotics might not work
24:49on you.
24:49So they might have to try different types of medication.
24:53Oh, God.
24:55Hold on.
24:59So what are you doing?
25:01I'm just drawing on you.
25:04Why?
25:04Because if it gets bigger, then we will know.
25:07Well, that looks worse now.
25:37Overpriced for what it was.
25:38Well, I mean, you thought so.
25:39But anyway, look, they must have sent this by mistake because I'm pretty sure they haven't read it.
25:45Why?
25:45Why do you say that?
25:46Because it says here that the works at Northleach, they haven't treated any sewage for three and a half months.
25:53So either the good people of Northleach have been holding it in for three and a half months or...
25:58Now, I know they did not do that because I have the love books and Northleach is on Michael Lezeris's
26:07people.
26:10Fucking hate my life.
26:20Sight flooded for the fifth day running.
26:27Storm tank high alarm sounding for nearly 48 hours now.
26:31Storm pump failure alarm sounding for nearly four days.
26:35All four fire filters not rotating.
26:38No flow coming into the works.
26:41Power surges have badly affected all equipment on site.
26:44Serious plant failure.
26:49Generator not running.
26:51Ran in to get the site going.
26:54Fuck's sake.
26:55Of course we did.
26:56Come on.
27:05The bus pack's completely full.
27:08Sight's still heavily flooded.
27:10I think sludge water out of the storm land.
27:13Roadside flooding believed to have been caused by this.
27:18Oh, fuck off!
27:21Oh, for fuck's sake.
27:30Yeah, Liam.
27:32Yeah, listen, mate.
27:32I'm at Northleach.
27:35Power's gone, mate.
27:36Power's packed up.
27:37Generator's gone.
27:38Mate, it's gone.
27:39We can't treat sewage without any power.
27:42We're either backing up or we're dumping it straight into the river.
27:46Oh.
27:47And Liam, mate, there's sewage coming up from the ground.
28:06Thames' own data shows Northleach hasn't treated any sewage for three and a half months.
28:11Yeah.
28:12So, look.
28:15There's two works.
28:16And they're a few miles of each other.
28:18Both rotting into the sludge.
28:20Both dumping illegally.
28:21We've got to get this to the Environment Agency.
28:24They've got prosecuting powers.
28:25What do you mean?
28:26Well, they don't have to show their evidence to the police.
28:28These are crimes.
28:30They can prosecute privately.
28:32What?
28:33So they can just take temps to court?
28:36Yes.
28:37They're the sewage police.
28:39Wow.
28:40Can anyone else do that?
28:42Post office.
28:43The post office.
28:43That's unusual.
28:46I can see that your swelling's gone down.
28:49Yeah, yeah.
28:49The antibiotics are kicking in.
28:52Thank God.
28:53And it's about keeping us a little bit more local.
28:58Sorry, I'm just going to fold this up, actually.
29:01We want to strip out as much unnecessary regulation as possible.
29:07So, under operator self-monitoring, we're going to be asking the water companies to monitor their own environmental performance,
29:17flagging any breaches to us as a priority.
29:20I, um, sorry, I don't understand.
29:23So, um, you want water companies to monitor their own pollution?
29:28Yeah.
29:29It's about shifting the burden of regulation onto the companies and asking the water companies if there's been a pollution
29:37to give us the details.
29:40Hang on.
29:42Just to be clear, you want us to ask the water companies to tell us when they've dumped sewage?
29:52It's about pivoting away from, away from on-site inspections to a more desk-based approach.
30:01Yep.
30:01It's sort of streamlining our process.
30:04So, you want us to stop visiting sewage works?
30:07No, no, no.
30:08No, we'll still be doing on-site inspections.
30:10Yeah.
30:11Of course.
30:12Um, provided that we give the company two weeks' notice of our visit.
30:15Yeah, but that's a, that is a problem because, sorry, again.
30:18Yeah.
30:19Um, but if we give the water companies two weeks' notice, they'll just clean up before we get there.
30:25I mean, it's, it, it is an honour system.
30:27So, I, if the companies say that there hasn't been an incident, I, I don't think we should go looking
30:33for reasons to challenge that.
30:34So, what you're saying is, regulate yourselves and then just let us know if you've committed any crimes?
30:45Yeah.
30:48Thanks so much.
30:49Okay, see you.
30:55To Julia Simpson, Area Director, Environment Agency.
30:59Dear Julia, I live in Oxfordshire, near the River Windrush.
31:03My neighbour, Professor Peter Hammond, and I have been gathering evidence of sewage discharges into our river by Thames Water.
31:10Dear Julia, we'd like to bring what we've learned to the attention of the Environment Agency.
31:14Dear Julia, we'd like to invite you to meet some members of our group to discuss issues of sewage pollution.
31:21Dear Julia, we are going to take a trip down the river on foot and by boat looking at possible
31:26sources of sewage pollution.
31:28Would the Environment Agency be interested?
31:30Dear Julia, we are still waiting for a suitable point of contact.
31:39Dear Ashley, the Department for the Environment will provide you with a full response by the 8th of June, 2018.
31:47She's got an MBE.
31:49And a bloody big salmon.
31:52Why is she taking so long to get back to us?
31:55Doesn't she realise we're doing her job for her?
31:57I don't know.
31:58I might put in a complaint.
32:32Why is she taking so long to get back to us?
32:42Yeah, love.
32:43Mr Smith, it's Julia Simpson from the Environment Agency.
32:46I'm so sorry it's taken me so long to get back to you.
32:49Honestly, waiting for Defra, it is maddening.
32:52Well, we've found each other now.
32:54We wanted to ask about how the agency monitors sewage dumps into the river.
33:01Well, spills.
33:02Yes.
33:03Well, as you probably know, we manage operator self-monitoring.
33:07What? Operator self-monitoring? What's that?
33:10Yes. It's for Thames Water to report any potential breaches.
33:13You mean it's Thames' job to tell you when they've dumped sewage?
33:19To report potential pollution incidents, yes.
33:23What if they don't report them?
33:24We would expect Thames to report 100% of pollution incidents.
33:28So, it's not even your responsibility to inspect the works?
33:35For?
33:37Well, to see if they're working.
33:39No, absolutely.
33:41Inspect the treatment works, yes, of course we do.
33:44How often?
33:45Well, we would inspect perhaps once every few days, up to perhaps once every six months, depending on the inspection
33:53team's judgment.
33:55Ash, we're aware that there's been some discussion locally around water quality on the Windrush.
34:00And in fact, we've just completed a new survey, so I was thinking it would be a good idea for
34:05me to take up your invitation, come down to the village hall and to go over some of the results.
34:11So, the good news is that our testing shows that there's no evidence that the Windrush is seriously polluted, or
34:20that the quality of the water has declined.
34:23We do know that the river is more brown these days, but our evidence has shown that this brown colour
34:29has got nothing to do with sewage.
34:33Sorry, we've spoken earlier on the telephone.
34:36I wonder if you could confirm something you told me then, that the agency inspects all the works along the
34:43Windrush between every two to three days and every six months.
34:46Yes, that's right.
34:47Professor Peter Hammond, and I'm also part of this Windrush group, a colleague of yours told me that actually you
34:56only inspect once every eight years.
34:59And also, I've just been running your figures, and so you've only done about half of the inspections that you
35:09needed to have been doing.
35:10In fact, you've only been visiting the works once every 16 years.
35:16We also took a look at your water quality tests.
35:20And the thing is, they were all carried out upstream from all the major sewage works.
35:26It's almost as if you've chosen the cleanest part of the river to conduct your tests.
35:32The river is actually devoid of anything in there.
35:36The fish, and all the wildfire, and everything that reads on from that, from your kingfishers to everything.
35:42You've absolutely ruined this place, and you should be bloody well ashamed of yourself.
35:51And the water crisp beds, you destroyed the water crisp beds as well.
35:56That used to be a source of industry years ago, totally gone.
35:59We will be taking all your feedback into consideration.
36:03I will have to go away, and we will listen to your feedback, I promise you.
36:34Is it Mr. Lazarus?
36:36My name's Ash Smith, this is my colleague, Professor Peter Hammond.
36:40We're doing some research on Thames water.
36:42And, uh, listen, it's all off the record.
36:46We're not disclosing the names of anyone we talked to.
36:49We wondered if you could spare ten minutes.
37:00People call me Mickey, first of all.
37:01Thank you very much for coming here.
37:02I know it's not easy, sir.
37:03We appreciate it so much, I can't tell you.
37:05I'm not a grass, okay?
37:08So, I did grass on my mate, like, in year eight, back in the day, but this is different from
37:12grassing, right?
37:12This is like blowing the whistle.
37:13I told you I'm an ex-copper.
37:15Yeah.
37:15You've told me that as well.
37:16This is not grassing is like when you grass on your mates and blowing the whistle.
37:21Whistle blowing is when you, like, grass on your boss.
37:23Right.
37:25We're going to start.
37:26All right.
37:27Check this out.
37:29Most water companies get sold every ten years or so.
37:33JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley, Kuwait Sovereign Fund, Chinese banks, we've had them all, mate.
37:46So, um, Macquarie bought us in 2006.
37:49That's the, that's the Australian hedge fund.
37:52It's known as the millionaire's factory.
37:54Such are the reputed riches of many of Macquarie's key executives.
37:57The vampire kangaroo.
37:59That's it.
37:59And they've earned that name because they are bloodsuckers.
38:01Leading companies rely on Macquarie for advice, access to capital.
38:05First thing they did was sell our offices and then rent them back to us.
38:10What?
38:11Wrong-uns.
38:11They make Del Boy do like a fucking amateur.
38:13Then they said that we had to get management clearance to buy pens.
38:19Right to the top to buy a biro.
38:21Not even a Parker, not a fancy pen, just a normal pen.
38:24Piss take.
38:25All right?
38:25Now, let's say this.
38:26Right.
38:26A pipe's broken.
38:28What do you do?
38:28Normally, you take it out, you put a new one in.
38:30They would tell us to stick a collar around it.
38:33It's not going to hold.
38:34What's a collar?
38:35It's just like sticking plaster.
38:36It's not going to hold.
38:37It's a temporary fix.
38:38The pipe's still rotten.
38:40Okay?
38:40It's going to go again.
38:41It's a box drop.
38:42It's like Frankenstein.
38:43Why don't they want to do it properly?
38:45Why don't they want to spend money and seal it properly?
38:48They don't give up monkeys about the works.
38:49You know why?
38:50Because they're going to flip you.
38:51If they don't want to spend any money on it, how are they going to maintain your works?
38:57They don't give a shit.
38:58You know why?
38:59They're like dodgy house flippers.
39:00They're going to go in there.
39:01It's still rotten inside.
39:02And they flip it.
39:03They're out.
39:04That's why I banked with Macquarie.
39:07Macquarie, when they flogged us, they walked away with around 2.8 billion quid.
39:12It's scandalous.
39:15So, how do you know all this then, Mickey?
39:17I started working for Thames when I was 16.
39:19On my second day, I joined the union.
39:23I get people ringing me up every day.
39:24Mickey, it's all falling apart.
39:27We can't keep it going.
39:29Pete, if you were there working there, you were an engineer, you know, and the pumps ain't working, you're at
39:33capacity.
39:34What's your best option?
39:36Well, the best option, obviously, is just to get rid of the sewage, I suppose.
39:40The only option is to press the button that flushes it all out.
39:46I'm not proud to admit that.
39:48And I feel guilty, you know.
39:50I see people swimming in these rivers and letting their kids swim in the rivers.
39:55What am I supposed to do?
39:56I know what goes in there.
39:57I'll put it in there.
39:59We're at tipping point here, fellas.
40:04So, we have run the brain tests.
40:08Heather's brain has lost the ability to control her vital organs, and unfortunately, they are failing.
40:15I'm really very sorry.
40:18But I think it's time we consider turning off her ventilators.
40:37I think it's time we consider turning off her ventilators.
41:06Dear Professor Hammond,
41:08I'm a member of Citizens Against Southwest Water.
41:12We formed a year ago to fight the company's sewage dumping in our bit of Devon.
41:16One of our group was recently given these, which we thought you should see.
41:26A girl of eight may have been the first person in Britain to have contracted fatal E. coli poisoning from
41:33raw sewage.
41:34Ten of the people, including four children, who all visited the beach on July the 28th, were also struck down
41:43by the same bacterial strain.
41:59If you'd like, we could bring her over to you.
42:02Here we go.
42:06Here we go.
42:08All right?
42:09Here we go.
42:10All right.
42:12I'll just leave you together for a while now, OK?
42:19Alright?
42:49It's alright.
42:50Okay.
42:51There we go.
42:53Alright.
42:54There we go.
42:56Be careful.
42:57It's okay.
42:58It's okay.
42:59We're fine.
42:59Come on.
43:32Sorry.
43:44Alright, yeah.
43:58So, you know how I taught the machine to look for the anomalies in Whitney and Churchhamborough?
44:05Yeah, right.
44:06Well, have you been free-jazzing your numbers again?
44:09Well, it's actually a lot of hard work, you know.
44:10Oh, no. Sorry.
44:11You're just looking for the patterns and spotting the deviations.
44:14Yeah, right.
44:15And you know that, you do know that when the machine sees an abnormality, it can only mean
44:21one thing, that it's dumping sewage.
44:23Yes.
44:24Okay, so, in the nine years that I have data for, these two works alone, Whitney and Churchhamborough,
44:32they've dumped sewage a thousand times.
44:38These aren't accidents, Ash.
44:41It's a policy.
44:45This is starting to look like organized crime.
44:58Oh, fuck.
45:00No, this isn't right.
45:02That's shit.
45:05No, this ain't right.
45:06That's pure sewage.
45:09You say you've got insufficient evidence, but we keep giving you the evidence.
45:12All we ever do is give you the evidence.
45:14If you don't know what caused the infection, then you need to shut down the beach.
45:18That's not going to happen.
45:19I wonder if we should be calling it an outbreak.
45:22I feel like the kind of term that could alarm people.
45:23We have conducted an investigation under section 108 of the environmental law.
45:27We'll close the beach before this happens to somebody else.
45:30With their kids, with fishing nets, sitting amongst turds.
45:34Reuben!
45:36Come on.
45:38Reuben!
45:40Need another whistleblower.
45:42Hoje's in front of the individual of the world.
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