Olympic gold medallist rower Sir Steve Redgrave has handed a letter to the environment secretary Steve Reed to share his and young people's concerns about "effluent being put into the rivers, and how dirty and vile they are". Head of Communities at River Action Erica Popplewell says she feels "encouraged" that the government has banned bonuses for pollutant water bosses, but wants to see further action. Report by Brooksl. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn
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00:00I'm here today of seeing the Water Minister, Emma Harding, handing over a letter to the
00:08Environment Secretary of my concerns and young people's concerns of effluent being put into
00:15the rivers and how dirty and vile that they are and how it is an issue to safety.
00:24They have put some measures in already in the short term of the government.
00:28Governments have been, over the last few generations, have been given licences to water
00:33companies to be able to pump raw sewage into our waterways and that's just not acceptable
00:38from my point of view.
00:41They can't put on a time where they're going to stop that, but they have actually put in
00:45powers already to put restrictions on bonuses.
00:50How can you give bonuses to water companies and shareholders if you're producing something
00:56very badly?
00:57We feel encouraged thus far.
00:59The government has made some steps.
01:00They have done a special measures bill for water which has banned bonuses, but we need
01:04to see more happening.
01:05There's an independent commission which is happening at the moment.
01:07We want to see that have real teeth and take an ambitious look at the whole industry rather
01:11than just propping up a broken system that's polluting our rivers.
01:14People want to use the river for swimming, for rowing, for kayaking, but if raw sewage
01:19is going into it, it's just simply not safe for them to do that.
01:22It's our capital river.
01:23It's something we should be proud of rather than something we should be checking whether
01:25it's safe because it's full of sewage.