The Environment Agency (EA) has extended its online service offering updates on pollution incidents to cover another 16 areas of London and parts of the Home Counties.
The service will be extended further if the alerts prove popular over a six-month period, the EA said.
The e-mail alert service, which has been tested since March in Enfield, Hackney, Haringey, Newham, Tower Hamlets and Waltham Forest, offers information on how the EA is responding to incidents, including river pollution where sewage or another substance has entered the water.
The service initially covered areas along the River Lee, where – in February 2018 – several thousand litres of waste oil entered the Lee in Tottenham.
A joint clean-up from the EA and Canal and River Trust removed 100,000 litres of contaminated water and 100 tonnes of hazardous waste from the water. This is the type of incident that the new service will cover.
People who want to be kept posted on incident management can log on free of charge to consult.environment-agency.gov.uk/hnl/hnl-incidents-notifications and submit their e-mail address.
They can select the river or rivers of interest from around 80 in London, Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Essex and Hertfordshire. The agency will then issue regular updates. The number of e-mails sent out will depend on the size and scale of the incident.
Including all reports of suspected pollution in London and the northern Home Counties, from smells to fish in distress, the EA handled 55 incidents a month in the year to August.
Sam Lumb, area director for the EA in the northern Home Counties and London north of the Thames, said:
“We’re really pleased to be extending this popular service to those with a keen interest in the environment. It means the public can be informed about major water pollution incidents that might affect their property, business, wellbeing or their access to amenities.
“We have already run a test service this year after several incidents in the six London boroughs that have the River Lee running through them – Enfield, Hackney, Haringey, Newham, Tower Hamlets and Waltham Forest.
“The feedback has been really positive, and a number of community groups asked us to include their local watercourse in the updates.”