- 2 days ago
Dirty Business - Season 1 - Episode 01: The Accidental Detectives
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00:12Privateised water is a better deal than nationalised water, that the water privatisation, I believe,
00:20will go very successfully indeed, that will go very successfully indeed, and perhaps there
00:26will be a better way to see, so that we can pontificate in the light of the fact.
00:53What did I tell you about that seaweed, do not throw it!
01:03Are you hungry?
01:07Ice cream!
01:08No!
01:08No, we just got here, you will!
01:10Yeah, we'll get it on the way back to the chalet, all right?
01:13Yeah, we'll get it, we'll get it back.
01:15You did, isn't it?
01:15I do promise you, I will, I promise.
01:27Go away please.
01:29Heather, stop!
01:30What?
01:31Bloody hell.
01:32Heather, I told you to stop, didn't I?
01:36Think that's poo?
01:37Of course, it's not poo.
01:42It stinks.
01:43It wasn't poo.
01:44It's not poo.
01:45Don't, don't come in.
01:47Don't come in like that.
01:49How far shall I go?
01:50Go as far as you can.
01:52All right, all right, all right.
01:54I think we're doing that.
01:55And wash it off, scrub it.
01:56You what?
01:57Scrub it.
01:58All right.
01:58Here, Heather.
01:59Have I got it?
02:00Down, you think?
02:01Yeah, you are.
02:02Down, isn't that?
02:02Is it off her?
02:03You what?
02:04Is it off her?
02:05Yeah, I think so.
02:06Get a towel.
02:07Here, get her dry.
02:08Me.
02:09There you go.
02:09We've got a smelly little mermaid.
02:11Still smells that.
02:14Is that ticklish?
02:15Yeah.
02:16Tell the other one.
02:17What about that one?
02:19No.
02:19No?
02:20Oh, look at that.
02:36I think it was quite remarkable, really, that with most of the fresh water fish, and England
02:42was just on this stretch, most of it, including the chub.
02:46The chub came later, of course.
02:49They're gone.
02:50What, the chub?
02:51Well, the chub, the barbell, the eels, everything.
02:55Well, yes, I mean, the water's brown.
03:01You don't really think about the colour, um, when you see it every day.
03:08I mean, the brown here just seems normal.
03:11Yes.
03:12You and Eileen still do that water vole register?
03:16No.
03:16That's, uh, no, that day gone as well.
03:22I mean, I, I remember when I first came here that it was crystalline, isn't it?
03:50You never talk about your work.
03:52Well, I'd often, you know, it's, it's part of the training.
03:56It's not sort of, you know, dinner conversation.
03:58Well, you're not, you're tired now.
03:59It's not like I'm a, I'm a Russian spy, am I?
04:02It's not like I'm, you know, not working for Putin, am I?
04:05That makes me wonder now.
04:06Why would you say that?
04:07That's a bit, yeah.
04:08You investigated Ben Coppers, wasn't it?
04:11Yeah, 25 years.
04:12Well, come on, but 25 years, you must have, you must have some stories, mustn't you?
04:17Not really.
04:19Why don't you have the game pie?
04:20I don't like game pie.
04:22Shall we get some mixed greens?
04:23No, I'm just having the soup and the crusty bread, that sounds nice.
04:28I don't think that's extra, is it?
04:29No, no, no.
04:30That's right, yes.
04:32Er, there will have been some minor discoloration in one or two sections of the river.
04:39There's, erm, there's been a discharge from the Burford Works.
04:43A discharge?
04:44Discharge of what?
04:46Er, untreated sewage.
04:47Which, yeah, legally they're allowed to spill after heavy rainfall.
04:53So they can, they can, they can just do that, can't they?
04:56That's what you said.
04:57They're allowed to dump untreated sewage into the river right after heavy rain.
05:03But that, that can't be right, because it rains all the time.
05:07Well, heavy rain, he said.
05:08I don't remember any heavy rain, do you?
05:10You know, I'm gonna, er, write to Thames Water and ask how many times they've put sewage into the wind.
05:15Well, they're, they're not gonna tell you that.
05:17Oh yeah, yeah, they've got to.
05:18What's the law?
05:20Dear Mr. Smith, no untreated sewage has been discharged into the river Windrush for the past three years.
05:27Untreated sewage mixed with treated sewage has been discharged 240 times.
05:32Kind regards.
05:34When did that come in?
05:35When did it come in that you could put untreated sewage into the river per se?
05:41I don't see how putting any kind of pathogens into the river could possibly be allowed.
05:46I mean, people are swimming in there.
05:48Dear Mr. Smith, in response to your request for information, please find attached the documents below.
05:54Kind regards.
05:56Wankers.
05:57This must be like one of your cases, mustn't it? All this.
06:02When you used to be a detective.
06:05No.
06:06But, you know, poisonous stuff in the river, and we're not being warned about it.
06:11That, that'd be a, that'd be a scandal.
06:25It's a tummy bug, 48 hour thing, plenty of liquids. I'll give you some anti-sickness tablets just to stop
06:32the vomiting.
06:33Okay.
06:37Hey, Dad.
06:37Oh, shit.
06:38How many was it?
06:39Two.
06:39The doctor said you've got to take your medicine now.
06:42See.
06:44Close your eyes if you want, ma'am.
06:46Yeah, keep them closed.
06:47Here you go.
06:50Well, exactly.
06:51No, they said treated sewage mixed with untreated sewage, 240 times.
06:56Yeah.
07:10This is free jazz, is it?
07:12Oh, um, no, it's, it's not free jazz. It's, uh, contemporary jazz. It's like free jazz.
07:17Right.
07:19And people pay money to listen to them.
07:21She's just come round to piss me off.
07:24No.
07:24I'm gonna show you something.
07:26Look at this.
07:28So, uh, what is this?
07:29Uh, this is, uh, is this a reply from Thames Water?
07:32They're drowning me in numbers.
07:34Oh, I can see that.
07:35I mean, how are you supposed to make anything of that crap?
07:38Well, maybe, maybe that's what they're banking on.
07:40There's a needle in there somewhere, just, you know, go through the haystack to find it.
07:44You're the Oxford Professor of Mathematics.
07:46Yeah.
07:47No.
07:48Computational biology.
07:49It's not, um...
07:50Still math.
07:51It's nice machine learning, actually.
07:53So, what's that like?
07:54AI?
07:55I know you're gonna take the piss, but it's, it's a bit like free jazz.
07:58Oh!
08:00Depressing and pointless.
08:01Uh, no.
08:02Look, there's rules.
08:04So, there's a kind of order beneath the, the chaos.
08:08Um, and you've gotta listen really hard, uh, for the patents.
08:12Why don't you just email me these and I'll, I'll take a look.
08:24Oh, my.
08:25Oh, my.
08:47these what you've given me that they're flow numbers they track the sewage coming into the
08:52works and the rate which is treated so it's safe to go back into the river but there's something
08:59weird about this yeah well well here look now on the 27th of december the flow of treated effluent
09:10coming out of the works just stops it just stops completely right what do you mean it stops the
09:16flow it just stops there's no there's no treated effluent going back into the river so two days
09:23after christmas the people of burford stopped going to the toilet no no see this is it because
09:29the raw sewage is still going into the works but there's nothing coming out
09:38now that's that's just not right so what do we do i don't know you go back to them and
09:45say give
09:45us a bit more detail is that ashley and peter yeah yes yes well thanks so much for taking my
09:51call
09:51it's commander a lot here the external affairs and sustainability at thames richard lovely to speak
09:58with you listen i thought well why not get on the old dog and bone well we appreciate your calling
10:02thank you not at all having our feet held to the fire like this is the thing that keeps us
10:06focused
10:06yeah we've um what we've been asking about this anomaly in the uh flow data um on on the 27th
10:13of
10:13december there's no treated effluent going back into the river yeah nobody seems to be able to explain
10:19why that is it's taken too long to get to the bottom of this i've had to put some rockets
10:24up a few
10:25jacksies frankly turns out the flow meters at burford were on the blink heavy rain uh the sewage flow was
10:35normal but the the sensors weren't generating any data uh safe to assume uh the people of burford did
10:43not stop discharging uh the measurements were temporarily interrupted and we'd like to invite
10:53you on uh a tour of the burford works it's it's just strange isn't it that um all of the
11:00sensors stopped
11:01working at that one point we can't think of any other explanation frankly but uh you know i won't be
11:07there regretting me but leone will be there and you'll be a very good hat no of course we'd like
11:12to do more but the challenge is that burford sewers are basically victorian does anyone actually work
11:19here it's an unmanned facility yeah it should be unpeopled really shouldn't it
11:25do they have unpeopled works in victorian times
11:27good one no um but we do have a state-of-the-art network of sensors which uh track all
11:34the treated fluid
11:35effluent through the works so um nobody nobody works here the sensors automatically transmit data
11:44to our waste operation control center in reading 24 hours a day right oh that's what we call the
11:51telemetry and what happens if something breaks down oh so our works are serviced by a team of
11:59mobile engineers if a piece of kit malfunctions uh trigger will sensor an alarm and an engineer is
12:06dispatched within two hours all right oh in here is where the engineers log books live
12:15they uh keep a record of anything that happens in one of these but um stuff up here this is
12:20the
12:20really exciting part so this is all the live real-time data being uploaded from the plants
12:26yes i can see it's quite extensive isn't it you can see the information coming through can't you
12:34yeah it's funny because like you know all the data is being pumped out you can see it but actually
12:39no
12:39one's looking at it you could save a bit of electricity there couldn't you what's that over
12:44there you've got um cafe no that is our dedicated breakout zones you know for tees coffees relaxation
12:52um yeah any it's inviting inviting isn't it yeah no it's nice i like it it's just nobody's here to
12:58enjoy the tea oh no no well thank god that would mean something's going wrong all right thank you
13:05great yeah great oh sorry there's a hole there did anyone mention that we've been invited to the
13:13town hall in burford the commander wants us all there it's really exciting actually you know we
13:18think it's important that we hold our hands up when mistakes are made
13:25did you see see her face like you do like i can't believe it and we can ask for all
13:35the
13:35telemetry and you know they've got to give it to us that's that's hundreds of thousands of data
13:40points and everything that goes on in the works right right just but try not to get too excited
13:45well i'm just saying i'm just saying calm down
13:54okay have you been giving her plenty of liquids yes yeah been keeping her warm yes did everything
14:01you said okay and are there any more symptoms yes she's been bleeding from her backside doctor
14:10i'm calling an ambulance
14:16so look i've got the telemetry for burford and i've deciphered the engineer's handwriting
14:2327th of december engineer's name is michael lazarus
14:31it turns out here that at eight minutes past five on the morning of the 27th the alarm got
14:38triggered at the works um the communications had failed but it must have been intermittent because
14:46at eight minutes past six the center got a message to say that both the main inlet pumps had failed
14:55then at 16 minutes past eight another alarm was triggered the storm tank was overflowing
15:05and that's when the dumping started
15:09so the pumps had packed up the storm tanks overflowing you've got three alarms sounding
15:15obviously obviously they dispatched an engineer not for five and a half hours
15:25wet pumps one and two both failed return liquor pump failed balancing tank full untreated sewage tank
15:33fall effluent chamber flooded don't need this
15:44storm tanks fill to the top all the sewage is flushing into the river
15:58set return liquor pump reset might fail again
16:02i don't know how long this is going to hold
16:07trying my best here
16:10everything's failing he did what he could to patch things up
16:13but by then it's been dumping sewage into the wind rush for over five hours
16:19yeah and we know we know that there wasn't any heavy rainfall like aylard said because
16:24it didn't even rain on that day yeah and then the oxidation tank failed on the 28th
16:31the rotation arms packed up on the 29th burford was falling apart they couldn't handle all the
16:38sewage it was taken in so it was just flashing everything into the river and i i feel that mickey's
16:44the kind of person who's in the habit of telling the truth don't you yeah what about commander aylard
17:00the results are back from the lab it's quite serious heather has been infected with e coli
17:10the most aggressive strain 0157
17:17we're going to keep her comfortable keep an eye on her and hope that it passes through
17:24it's possible that the virus could attack heather's kidney functions
17:28which might have serious consequences for other organs
17:39this was really about a temporary malfunction to the alarm we think at least partly caused by the
17:47heavy rainfall that day rather than any actual interruption to the treatment process so what i'd
17:53like to do sorry it's all right can i um can i say a few words commander yes of course
17:59there was no
18:00heavy rain um in fact um didn't rain at all if you'll uh bear with me what what i have
18:09here is uh
18:10the engineer's log books the engineer is called michael lazarus and what you can see from mr lazarus's
18:18logs is that the alarms were in fact uh functioning as normal they were triggered as soon as the
18:26flooding began and the thing is mr lazarus was not dispatched to the works for more than
18:32five hours the plant was falling apart it couldn't treat the sewage it was taking in
18:38and so it was just pumping it all out directly into the river
18:47well um thanks so much ash and to you peter it does look as though i've been misinformed
18:55and i intend to get to the bottom of this and i'll be putting my thumb on whoever so what
19:02are you
19:02going to do about what these two gentlemen have said what's going to happen now i think that we are
19:06we're both shocked absolutely shocked to hear that information because you've said one thing
19:13they've actually backed up with evidence something completely the opposite our river
19:19you're just dumping in and just covering everything up and making money and what's the long-term problems
19:26with the wildlife the fish and the birds what's happening with those the ecological welfare of our
19:32rivers and our waterways is something that we find incredible absolutely and what are you doing so
19:38that's nothing you're you're polluting our water i wouldn't even let my dog scream in the river now
19:43it is a highest highest priority that we will be fixing this as soon as possible i can assure you
19:51from all of us at thames water we are working night and day i think we need to have a
19:57debrief i do i do as
19:58well and um thank you sir thank you for um thank you thank you thank you very much thank you
20:04should we go outside yes i think he just lied to us just straight up and down to our faces
20:12oh no he said he was misinformed princess diane's equerry i mean what is that by the way
20:17it helps when people lie it's how you know they've got something to hide
20:40i mean it's it's ammonia we need to keep an eye out because that's going to read high right after
20:46they've dumped the sewage fuck me it's it's it is actually like one of your cases isn't it
20:52not really no it's more real-time monitoring of the river and the outflow pipes as well
21:01so the question is is burford acting alone because there's what seven seven seven uh works along the
21:11wind rush so we need to know if burford is an outlier you know single failing plant like a lone
21:18assassin just you know killing everything that lives in the water or or are they more like burford
21:24well i mean i suppose i could order that order the telemetry and get it for all of them
21:36dear eir team i would be grateful if you could supply all the telemetry exchanges between the control
21:47center and the works at north beach church hambrough whitney and paul and
21:55i can't find a pulse
22:13is there nothing that's weird
22:23no i can't feel anything no somebody call for help get help no can we get a doctor in here
22:29please
22:36what have you done to your finger oh i don't know i woke up this morning it was like that
22:43feels a
22:43bit weird well do you think that jala should take a look at that i mean she is she is
22:47a chemist isn't
22:47she i know she's a chemist i live with her okay so you know that they sent me all these
22:51uh data flows
22:53in the works at whitney and at church hamburger yeah but what i've done i've converted the program that
22:59i built for the fetal alcohol kids what happened there was that the mothers they were being paid in
23:10wine so most of their children had fetal alcohol syndrome what i did was that i took i took thousands
23:19of photographs of these fas kids and so by showing the machine hundreds of these faces of these unborn
23:28children we taught it to spot the features of fetal alcohol syndrome in the womb
23:41so when the program sees it's in a scan then it can tell the doctor straight away and then they
23:47can
23:47start you know helping the mother and the kid now birth does most of his heavy lifting during early
23:56morning just before everyone goes to work right and and then again in the evening when they come back
24:02home so you can see the uh flows of treated effluent hitting uh the daily peaks and troughs now
24:10that's when the penny dropped the thing is that is just like
24:15the contours on a baby's face by showing the machine nine years of this flow data i've taught
24:24it to recognize when the the usual flows they don't they don't show up when the everyday flows are missing
24:34well they're not treating the sewage and if they're not treating the sewage there's nowhere for it to go
24:40except in into the river except into the river
25:05we've decided to transfer heather to the bristol hospital for children
25:11it's one of the best in the country they'll be able to look after her there
25:16it's getting bigger i think have you been in the river again yeah yeah did you have any cuts
25:24yeah i uh i pricked my finger on a thorn when i was setting up the camera before after you
25:29went
25:30to the river to the river oh right so if there's a pathogen in the water you've given it direct
25:38entry
25:40into your bloodstream is that bad it's bad you muppet you need antibiotics you know a lot of sewage has
25:50drugs in it and if they mix with bacteria then the bacteria becomes antibiotic resistant which means
26:00that the antibiotics might not work on you so they might have to try different types of medication on
26:13so what are you doing i'm just drawing on you because if it if it gets bigger then we will
26:20know
26:22that looks worse now so that's where she drew the marker and that's how much bigger it's got in like
26:29two days bloody hell and that is just from putting your hand in the river yep i'm an idiot we
26:36know
26:36that but i mean if it's doing that to your hand just just think about what it's doing to all
26:41the
26:41creatures that live in the river exactly what was it you wanted to show me oh yeah well you know
26:46i've
26:46got all this data through from uh north leach you know are we onto the wheat chief there oh yeah
26:52that
26:52was overpriced for what it was well i mean you you thought so but anyway look they must have sent
26:57this by mistake because i'm pretty sure they haven't read it why why do you say that because
27:02it says here that the works at north leach they haven't treated any sewage for three and a half
27:08months so so either either the good people of north richard have been holding it in for three
27:14and a half months so now i know they did not do that because i have the log books and
27:21north leach is on
27:23michael lazarus's beat
27:24i fucking hate my life
27:38site flooded due to come failure
27:43site flooded for the fifth day running storm tank high alarm sounding for nearly 48 hours now
27:50storm pump failure alarm sounding for nearly four days all four fire filters not rotating no flow
27:58coming into the works power surges have badly affected all equipment on site serious plant failure
28:08generator generator not running ran in to get the site going
28:12for the fuck's sake
28:14of course
28:16yeah
28:25the dust has completely full
28:28site's still heavily flooded
28:30hunting flood war out of stormland
28:34roadside flooding believed to have been caused by this
28:38oh
28:39fuck off
28:42oh for
28:43fuck's sake
28:52yeah liam
28:53yeah listen mate i'm at north leach
28:56power's gone mate power's packed up the generator's gone
29:00mate it's gone we can't treat sewage without any power
29:04we're either backing up or we're dumping it straight into the river
29:09oh and liam mate
29:12there's sewage coming up from the ground
29:29thames's own data shows north leach hasn't treated any sewage for three and a half months
29:34yeah
29:36yeah so look
29:38there's two works and they're a few miles of each other both rotting into the sludge both
29:44dumping illegally we've got to get this to the environment agency
29:48they've got prosecuting powers what do you mean well they don't have to show their evidence to the
29:52police these are crimes and they can prosecute privately
29:57well so they can just just take them to court yes they're the sewage police
30:05can anyone else do that post office the post office that's unusual
30:11i can see that your swelling's gone down yeah yeah the antibiotics are kicking in
30:16well thank god and it's about keeping us a little bit more local
30:23sorry i'm just going to fold this up actually
30:28we want to strip out as much unnecessary regulation as possible
30:34so under operator self-monitoring we're going to be asking the water companies to monitor their own
30:46so um you you want water companies to monitor their own pollution yeah it's about shifting the
30:58burden of regulation onto the companies and asking the water companies if there's been a pollution to
31:05give us the details uh hang on just just to be clear you want us to ask the water companies
31:17to tell us when
31:19they've dumped sewage it's about pivoting away from away from on-site inspections to a more desk-based
31:28approach yeah it's it's sort of streamlining our process so you want us to stop visiting sewage
31:36works no no no no we'll still be doing on-site inspections yeah of course um provided that we
31:42give the company two weeks notice of our visit yeah but that's a problem that is a problem because
31:47well sorry again yeah um but if we give the water companies two weeks notice yeah they'll just clean
31:53up before we get there i mean it's it it is an honor system so i if the companies say
31:59that there
32:00hasn't been an incident i i don't think we should go looking for reasons to challenge that so what
32:06you're saying is regulate yourselves and then just let us know if you've committed any crimes
32:26to julia simpson area director environment agency dear julia i live in oxfordshire near the river
32:34windrush my neighbor professor peter hammond and i have been gathering evidence of sewage discharges
32:41into our river by thames water we'd like to bring what we've learned to the attention of the
32:45environment agency dear julia we'd like to invite you to meet some members of our group to discuss
32:52issues of sewage pollution dear julia we are going to take a trip down the river on foot and by
32:58boat
32:59looking at possible sources of sewage pollution would the environment agency be interested dear julia
33:05we are still waiting for a suitable point of contact
33:13dear ashley the department for the environment will provide you with a full response by the 8th of
33:19june 2018. she's got an mbe and a bloody big salmon why is she taking so long to get back
33:29to us
33:30doesn't you realize we're doing your job for her i don't know i might put in a complaint
33:39so
33:47so
33:48so
33:48BELL RINGS
34:18Hello? Mr Smith, it's Julia Simpson from the Environment Agency.
34:23I'm so sorry it's taken me so long to get back to you.
34:26Honestly, waiting for DEFRA, it is maddening.
34:29Well, we've found each other now.
34:31We wanted to ask about how the agency monitors sewage dumps into the river.
34:39Spills, yes.
34:41Well, as you probably know, we manage operator self-monitoring.
34:46What, operator self-monitoring? What's that?
34:48Yes, it's for Thames Water to report any potential breaches.
34:52You mean it's Thames' job to tell you when they've dumped sewage?
34:58To report potential pollution incidents, yes.
35:02So what if they don't report them?
35:03We would expect Thames to report 100% of pollution incidents.
35:08So it's not even your responsibility to inspect the works?
35:15For, well, to see if they're working?
35:19Well, no, absolutely.
35:21We inspect the treatment works, yes, of course we do.
35:24How often?
35:25Well, we would inspect perhaps once every few days,
35:29up to perhaps once every six months,
35:32depending on the inspection team's judgment.
35:35Ash, we're aware that there's been some discussion locally
35:38around water quality on the Windrush,
35:41and in fact, we've just completed a new survey,
35:44so I was thinking it would be a good idea for me
35:47to take up your invitation,
35:49come down to the village hall,
35:50and to go over some of the results.
35:53So the good news is that our testing shows that
35:58there's no evidence that the Windrush is seriously polluted,
36:02or that the quality of the water has declined.
36:05We do know that the river is more brown these days,
36:08but our evidence has shown that this brown colour
36:11has got nothing to do with sewage.
36:14Er...
36:16Sorry.
36:16We've spoken earlier on the telephone.
36:18I wonder if you could confirm something you told me then,
36:21that the agency inspects all the works along the Windrush
36:26between every two to three days and every six months.
36:29Yes, that's right.
36:31Professor Peter Hammond,
36:32and I'm also part of this Windrush group,
36:36a colleague of yours told me that actually
36:38you only inspect once every eight years.
36:43And also, I've just been...
36:44Listen, listen.
36:45I've been running your figures,
36:48and so you've only done about half of the inspections
36:53that you'd needed to have been doing.
36:55In fact, you've only been visiting the works
36:57once every 16 years.
37:01We also took a look at your water quality tests.
37:05And the thing is,
37:06they were all carried out upstream
37:09from all the major sewage works.
37:11So it's almost as if you've chosen
37:12the cleanest part of the river
37:14to conduct your tests.
37:17The river is actually devoid of anything in there.
37:21The fish and all the wildfire
37:24and everything that reads on from that,
37:26from your kingfishers to everything.
37:28You've absolutely ruined this place,
37:30and you should be bloody well ashamed of yourself.
37:38And the watercress beds.
37:40You destroyed the watercress beds as well.
37:43That used to be a source of industry years ago.
37:45Totally gone.
37:46We will be taking all your feedback into consideration.
37:50I will have to go away,
37:52and we will listen to your feedback.
37:55I promise you.
38:23Is it Mr. Lazarus?
38:25My name's Ash Smith.
38:27This is my colleague, Professor Peter Hammond.
38:29We're doing some research on Thames water.
38:32And, uh...
38:33Listen, it's all off the record.
38:35We're not disclosing the names of anyone we talk to.
38:38We wondered if you could spare ten minutes.
38:50People call me Mickey, first of all.
38:51Thank you very much for coming here.
38:52I know it's not easy, so...
38:53We appreciate you so much, I can't tell you.
38:55I'm not a grass, OK?
38:58So, I did grass on my mate, like, in year eight, back in the day,
39:01but this is different from grassing, right?
39:03This is like blowing the whistle.
39:04I told you, I'm an ex-copper.
39:05Yeah.
39:06You've told me that as well.
39:06That's made me nervous.
39:07This is not grass.
39:08Grassing is like when you grass on your mates,
39:10and blowing the whistle...
39:12Whistle blowing is when you, like, grass on your boss.
39:14Right.
39:16We've got to start.
39:17Um, all right.
39:18Check this out.
39:21Most water companies get sold every ten years or so.
39:24JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley, Kuwait Sovereign Fund,
39:30Chinese banks, we've had them all, mate.
39:38So, um, Macquarie bought us in 2006.
39:41That's the, that's the Australian hedge fund.
39:44It's known as the millionaire's factory.
39:47Such are the reputed riches of many of Macquarie's key executives.
39:50The vampire kangaroo.
39:52That's it.
39:52And they've earned that name because they are bloodsuckers.
39:54Leading companies rely on Macquarie for advice, access to capital.
39:58The first thing they did was sell our offices
40:01and then rent them back to us.
40:03What?
40:04Wrong-uns.
40:05They make Del Boy look like a fucking amateur.
40:07Then they said that we had to get management clearance to buy pens.
40:12Right to the top to buy a biro.
40:15Not even a parker, not a fancy pen, just a normal pen.
40:18Piss take, all right?
40:19Now, let's say this.
40:20Right.
40:21A pipe's broken.
40:22What do you do?
40:23Normally, you take it out, you put a new one in.
40:25They would tell us to stick a collar around it.
40:28It's not going to hold.
40:29What's the collar?
40:30It's just like sticking plaster.
40:31It's not going to hold.
40:32It's a temporary fix.
40:33The pipe's still rotten, okay?
40:35It's going to go again.
40:36It's a botch job.
40:37It's like Frankenstein.
40:38Why don't they want to do it properly?
40:40Why don't they want to spend money and seal it properly?
40:43They don't give up monkeys about the works.
40:45You know why?
40:46Because they're going to flip you.
40:47If they don't want to spend any money on it,
40:50how are they going to maintain your works?
40:52They don't give a shit.
40:53You know why?
40:54They're like dodgy house flippers.
40:56They're going to go in there.
40:57It's still rotting inside.
40:58And they flip it.
40:59They're out.
41:00That's why I banked with Macquarie.
41:03Macquarie, when they flogged us,
41:05they walked away with around 2.8 billion quid.
41:09It's scandalous.
41:12So how do you know all this then, Mickey?
41:14I started working for Thames when I was 16.
41:16Right, on my second day, I joined the union.
41:20I get people ringing me up every day.
41:22Mickey, it's all falling apart.
41:24We can't keep it going.
41:26Pete, if you were there working there,
41:28you were an engineer, you know,
41:30and the pumps ain't working, you're at capacity,
41:32what's your best option?
41:33Well, the best option, obviously,
41:34is just to get rid of the sewage, I suppose.
41:38The only option is to press the button
41:42that flushes it all out.
41:44I'm not proud to admit that.
41:46And I feel guilty, you know?
41:49I see people swimming in these rivers
41:52and letting their kids swim in the rivers.
41:54What am I supposed to do?
41:54I know what goes in there.
41:55I'll put it in there.
41:58We're at tipping point here, fellas.
42:04So we have run the brain tests.
42:07Heather's brain has lost the ability
42:09to control her vital organs
42:10and unfortunately they are failing.
42:15I'm really very sorry
42:18but I think it's time we consider
42:20turning off her ventilators.
42:21That's it.
42:42So...
43:08Dear Professor Hammond,
43:11I'm a member of Citizens Against Southwest Water.
43:14We formed a year ago to fight the company's sewage dumping
43:17in our bit of Devon.
43:19One of our group was recently given these,
43:22which we thought you should see.
43:29A girl of eight may have been the first person in Britain
43:33to have contracted fatal E. coli poisoning from raw sewage.
43:38Ten other people, including four children,
43:41who all visited the beach on July the 28th,
43:45were also struck down by the same bacterial strain.
43:51Heather Preen died of E. coli.
44:04If you'd like, we could bring her over to you.
44:07Here we go.
44:11Here we go.
44:14Here we go.
44:16All right?
44:17I'll just leave you together for a little while now, OK?
44:25I'm all right.
44:38You're all right.
44:42You're all right.
44:56I'm sorry.
44:57I'm sorry.
44:58There we go.
45:00All right.
45:02There we go.
45:04Be careful.
45:05It's OK.
45:06It's fine.
45:06My phone.
45:07Come over.
45:07Yes.
45:41You're so sorry about getting in.
45:54All right, yeah.
46:09So you know how I taught the machine to look for the anomalies
46:14in Whitney and Church Hamburger?
46:16Yeah, right.
46:17Well, have you been free-jazzin' your numbers again?
46:20Well, it's actually a lot of hard work, you know.
46:22Oh, no, sorry.
46:23Just looking for the patterns and spotting the deviations.
46:26Yeah, right.
46:27And you know that...
46:28You do know that when the machine sees an abnormality,
46:32it can only mean one thing, that it's dumping sewage.
46:35Yes.
46:35Okay, so in the nine years that I've dated for,
46:41these two works alone, Whitney and Church Hamburger,
46:44they've dumped sewage a thousand times.
46:51These aren't accidents, Ash.
46:54It's a policy.
46:58This is starting to look like organised crime.
47:12Oh, fuck.
47:14No, this isn't right.
47:16That's shit.
47:19No, this ain't right.
47:20That's pure sewage.
47:23You say you've got insufficient evidence,
47:25but we keep giving you the evidence.
47:27All we ever do is give you the evidence.
47:29If you don't know what caused the infection,
47:31then you need to shut down the beach.
47:33That's not gonna happen.
47:34I wonder if we should be calling it an outbreak.
47:36I feel like the kind of term that could alarm people.
47:38We are conducting an investigation under section 108 of the environmental life.
47:43Close the beach before this happens to somebody else.
47:46With their kids, with fishing nets, sitting amongst turds.
47:50Reuben!
47:53Reuben!
47:55I need another whistleblower.
48:24I'm finished ThurIP.
48:25Okay.
48:30You're not here.
48:30It's more interesting.
48:30No.
48:44But I can't tell you about this.
48:45Once the shutdown perception seems to be against the limited realm.
48:45If you're paying attention, yeah.
48:45The lockdown 증 ha isn't too Eun booty.
48:46You're pretty unimportant to know what the nightmare.
48:49You're GC14.
48:50You're struggling, so you're up.
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