It took a sewage-plagued Boat Race to do it, but people can now see the appalling state of England’s water industry and waterways

Fire up a Chariots of Fire-style theme tune for the speech of the defeated Oxford captain in last Saturday’s Boat Race, beamed edifyingly around the world : “We had a few guys go down pretty badly with E coli ,” declared Lenny Jenkins (the university’s boat club itself says it can’t be that specific on precisely what caused the gut-rot). Having shared a few of the nauseating details, Jenkins concluded: “It would be a lot nicer if there wasn’t as much poo in the water.” Yup, a country that once painted a quarter of the world pink now regrettably advertises itself as mostly brown – encircled by its own effluent and pumping it furiously through its river veins just to be sure. As metaphors go, it is on the nose in all senses.

And so to Thames Water, steward of the river on which that internationally famous race is rowed – a firm that is £18bn in deliriously structured debt , has had to be extensively threatened to spend so much as 30p on infrastructure investment, spent years being used as a cash cow for shareholders, and has pumped human waste into the Greater London area of the river for almost 2,000 hours already this year alone. Despite this rapacious shareholder-facing culture, its current foreign investors have now apparently judged it to be “uninvestable”. Thames Water’s relatively new CEO, Chris Weston, must be struck by that feeling that plagued Tony Soprano. “It’s good to be in something from the ground floor,” the mobster judged. “I came too late for that – I know. But lately, I’m getting the feeling that I came in at the end. The best is over.”

Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist

Letters revealed under FoI laws show council asked environment secretary to investigate plan

The government has been accused of quietly shelving a delayed plan to restore the polluted River Wye after letters from the government show it is incomplete with no publication date in sight.

Letters revealed to the Guardian under freedom of information (FoI) laws show the then environment secretary, Thérèse Coffey, told stakeholders in August that the government was “close to finalising” the plan to save the Wye and measures would be published within three months.

Online videos of disused slate quarry ‘car grave’ led hundreds to come and take photographs but leave rubbish and graffiti behind

An old flooded slate mine used as a dumping ground for cars in north Wales, the eeriness of which attracts Instagram photo seekers, is in danger of being destroyed by visitors trashing the site, it has been claimed.

YouTube videos of the so-called “Cavern of Lost Souls” filmed in the Gwynedd quarry have been viewed by millions and attracted adventurous visitors to the site at the old Gaewern slate mine from where they have posted hundreds of photographs of the “car grave”.

Exclusive: Satellite analysis revealed to the Guardian shows farms devastated and nearly half of the territory’s trees razed. Alongside mounting air and water pollution, experts says Israel’s onslaught on Gaza’s ecosystems has made the area unlivable

In a dilapidated warehouse in Rafah, Soha Abu Diab is living with her three young daughters and more than 20 other family members. They have no running water, no fuel and are surrounded by running sewage and waste piling up.

Like the rest of Gaza’s residents, they fear the air they breathe is heavy with pollutants and that the water carries disease. Beyond the city streets lie razed orchards and olive groves, and farmland destroyed by bombs and bulldozers.

Live, rolling coverage of business, economics and financial markets as minister says water company’s leadership has been a ‘disgrace’

The UK government has said it is prepared for “a range of scenarios” for Thames Water.

A government spokesperson said:

Like any company needing to secure new investment there are a wide range of options available to water companies, including the injection of new equity from any prospective investors.

Ofwat, as the financial regulator of the water sector, continues to engage with Thames Water to improve its financial resilience.

I don’t want to pollute rivers, and nor does anyone in Thames Water. I would point out that E coli has many different sources. It’s not just from sewage; it’s also from land run-off, it is from highway run-off; it is from animal faeces. All of those things contribute to the problem.

And I am absolutely determined that at Thames, that we will pay our part in cleaning up the problem, and so the Thames is a river that people can use as they would like to every day.

Activists call for reform of ‘failing’ industry to tackle waste dumping in England, asking government to put ‘people and planet before profits’

• How polluted is your local river and which regions are worst hit?

Regulators faced pressure to act on Wednesday after new evidence of potentially illegal activity by water companies was revealed.

Analysis of the latest data shows that more than 2000 overflows owned by a number of companies are discharging raw sewage into rivers and seas at a scale that should spark an immediate investigation into illegal breaches of permit conditions.

Rivers in north of England among most polluted, shows new data. Search your postcode to see how sewage spills into your local river

• Water companies in England face outrage over record sewage discharges

Rivers in the north of England are bearing the brunt of the sewage pollution crisis, analysis by the Guardian reveals, with the region’s waters experiencing the highest rates of waste discharge in the country.

Storm overflows around the Irwell valley, where the rivers Croal and Irwell run through to Manchester, discharged raw sewage 12,000 times in 2023 — the highest rate of all English rivers when accounting for length, at 95 spills per mile.

Call for environmental emergency to be declared after data reveals 105% rise in raw sewage discharges over past 12 months

Water companies in England have faced a barrage of criticism as data revealed raw sewage was discharged for more than 3.6m hours into rivers and seas last year in a 105% increase on the previous 12 months.

The scale of the discharges of untreated waste made 2023 the worst year for storm water pollution. Early data seen by the Guardian put the scale of discharges at more than 4m hours, but officials said the figures were an early estimate.