My attention was grabbed by an ITV London Today story this lunchtime, firmly stating that not only is water in the Thames clean, but that it is easily drinkable – the best in the country, no less. London Today claimed: “99.98% of tests taken on samples from the river met national and European standards of safety, appearance and taste.”
Surely not, I thought.
Y’see, the River Thames doesn’t look like a clean river, and it’s not. Anyone living here knows. Its distinctive swirling brown murk is caused by silt stirred up by the fast-flowing tides – that’s not the real problem. The biggie is that sewers often overflow directly into the river after heavy rainfall, meaning it’s still quite possible that the river is – in a sense only too literal for those keen on watersports, or surfboarding to work – full of shit.
We even know 2012 London Olympic organisers are fretting that the sight and smell of London’s backed-up sewage might mar their events. It’s a great scandal.
Yet here was ITV’s local news suggesting otherwise. And not just that there was not a problem; that this was the best draw of water in the land.
A quick (web) surf turns up the truth, in a press release from Thursday: Thames Water, the water company which serves the south east of England, is indeed serving up commendably clean water. But Thames Water does not draw its water from the Thames river, thank God, and this report does not mean the Thames River is clean.
So, ITV News’s claim that “samples from the river” have done so well is, alas, as full of shit as the river itself after a heavy downpour. They mean Thames Water, not the Thames river. But that’s not what they said, while showing library shots of the murky old river itself – just to add to the confusion.
The offending 30 second item is below, recorded off my TV – sorry I can’t stand still. And a warning: paying attention to this news bulletin could be a mistake you come to regret, quickly and repeatedly, all because someone somewhere can’t take a days-old press release and rewrite it properly for a bulletin.
