OUTRAGED protesters will march through Coventry city centre tomorrow (Saturday) after claiming ‘superbugs’ have been multiplying in the River Sowe and posing a ‘health threat more serious than Covid’.
Around 100 Coventry Extinction Rebellion (XR) campaigners will walk from the Godiva Statue on Broadgate at 1pm through the shopping precinct to Severn Trent Headquarters.
They have further claimed the superbugs are a problem in rivers across the UK as raw sewage was being dumped there by Severn Trent Water.
And they have expressed concerns that no drugs are currently available to tackle these superbugs which would mean no safe surgery or childbirth and no reliable treatments for infections.
Prof Elizabeth Wellington, from the University of Warwick’s School of Life Sciences, says he has studied Coventry’s Finham Sewage Treatment works and warned of the dangers posed.
She reported in 2014 resistant E. coli were seven times more common downstream of the Finham sewage plant than upstream.
She said: “If you’re a fisherman, dog walker, wild swimmer, or a child paddling in the shallows, or a canoeist, or you’re just unlucky enough to fall in the water, you are in danger of getting an infection, which could be caused by an antibiotic-resistant bacterium and be more difficult to treat.”
Campaigners will carry a skeleton on a stretcher surrounded by ‘giant piles of poo’ to represent what they claim is the ‘death of modern medicine.’
One protester going on the march claimed they were ‘very ill’ for three weeks, after swimming in the River Sowe while retrieving plastic ducks from a village duck race.
The protester added others had also been sick following going into the river in previous years performing the same task.
Protesters claim last year, Severn Trent dumped raw sewage into Midlands Rivers for 249,000 hours.
Jason Rogers, Severn Trent’s head of water quality and environment , said: “We take our environmental responsibilities very seriously and this year have been awarded the highest 4* status by the Environment Agency for the fourth consecutive year.
“We’re investing heavily in pioneering technology to continuously improve all aspects of our wastewater treatment process.
“This includes a UK first use of ozone disinfectant treatment which will improve river quality and reduce or eliminate pharmaceuticals and personal care products from the wastewater.”
He added the provider was also committed to improving river quality overall and was delivering an industry-leading plan with bold commitments, such as by 2030 operations would cause no harm to rivers.
“In the first year of this plan, we’ve reduced our impact by a third, but we know there’s more to do, which is why we’re continuing to invest hundreds of millions of pounds into making rivers the healthiest they can be.”
