Labour’s shadow environment secretary, Steve Reid, called on Thames Water to “step up” and carry out “urgent” inspections of treatment plants after it emerged at the weekend that the company had only tested the water at one property.
Over the past two weeks, dozens of people in Beckenham, south-east London, have fallen ill with diarrhoea and vomiting, with most suffering unusually long illnesses lasting up to two weeks, and several people, including an eight-year-old boy, being hospitalised due to severe symptoms.
Last Wednesday, Thames Water tested the water in the home of a person who became unwell, with the result being negative. Since then, other people who have become unwell in Beckenham have requested testing. Thames Water initially said that as the initial test was negative, no further testing was necessary. Thames Water has also not specifically tested widespread water supplies or treatment works in response to this suspected outbreak.
Syreeta Brown lives in Beckenham and her family have been falling ill with diarrhoea and vomiting. She and her daughter suffer from mild symptoms, but her eight-year-old son has been seriously ill for 12 days and was briefly hospitalised. Thames Water has refused her requests to test the quality of her water. After being contacted by the Guardian, Thames Water sent a technician to take samples from her taps on Monday.
“We felt very ignored by Thames Water,” she said. “We have two children so of course they have suffered from diarrhoea and vomiting for years but this was not normal. We went to hospital after I went downstairs to find my son vomiting and too weak to call for help. He was lying downstairs and unable to call for help. Children are susceptible to illness but this did not feel normal.”
She first tried to call the water company but couldn’t get through, so she used the company’s WhatsApp service, where an operator told her not to worry and refused to test the water because one property in the area had already been tested.
“When I saw they only inspected one property I thought, why only inspect one property? It seems a bit odd,” she said.
Others living in the area say they are finding it difficult to get a response from Thames Water when they fall ill and ask for a test.
“Thames Water must get to grips with the situation, be honest with the public and urgently test treatment plants in the area,” Mr Reid said.
Speaking more broadly about the sewerage scandal, Mr Reid said a Labour government would impose tough special measures on water companies: “We will give the regulator new powers so that water company bosses who behave illegally can be criminally prosecuted and multi-million pound bonuses can be withheld until they clean up their toxic sewage.”
The Drinking Water Inspection Agency urged water companies to thoroughly test water if requested by customers, and told them to contact authorities if water companies were not conducting sufficient testing.
A DWI spokesman said: “Water companies Water Supply (Quality) Regulations 2016These regulations include statutory responsibilities for taking drinking water samples, investigating any problems identified in the water system, and reporting to the Drinking Water Inspection Service. This includes a requirement for water companies to investigate and take action to determine whether the water quality meets specified requirements and why. If consumers are not satisfied with their water company’s response, they can contact the Drinking Water Inspection Service, which will investigate the company’s response as a complaint.”
Health and Safety England confirmed it was monitoring links between people locally who have reported being ill but said there was not enough evidence so far to issue any warnings.
Scientists said the symptoms reported were similar to cryptosporidium and other waterborne diseases, but there could be other causes for the symptoms.
Paul Hunter, professor of medicine at the University of East Anglia, said: “Cryptosporidium is the most common and although vomiting will occur, it’s not usually noticeable. The diarrhoea is rarely bloody. There’s a lot of Cryptosporidium circulating at the moment. Giardia is another possibility, which also causes watery diarrhoea but the defining symptoms are bloating and flatulence. They also tend to complain of abdominal pain. Salmonella infections can also last quite a long time. The stools can be watery or bloody, they may have a fever and they may or may not complain of abdominal pain.”
Tim Walsh, professor of medical microbiology at the University of Oxford, added: “This is a food- and water-borne infection that is likely to have arisen from a common source. With good historical epidemiological data and microbiology this should be easy to trace.”
This month, more than 100 cases of cryptosporidium infections were reported in the Brixham area of Devon, linked to unsafe drinking water.
After Cryptosporidium was found in tap water, Southwest Water instructed around 17,000 homes and businesses not to drink tap water without boiling it and cooling it.
A Thames Water spokesman confirmed that no extra testing had been carried out at treatment centres or on-site workshops as a result of customer concerns, but added that further tap tests had been carried out – the company was still waiting for the results.
They said: “We can confirm that there are no issues with the quality of the water in Sydenham Central Water. We take all customer complaints about illness seriously and have procedures in place to investigate any customer contact.”
“Our engineers collected samples from several properties as part of the process and initial on-site testing revealed no aesthetic issues. [taste, smell, look] “There is clearly a problem with the water. Samples have been taken and analysed in a laboratory, but the results that came back showed no issues.”
