Behind the record fines announced by Ofwat for the routine dumping of sewage into rivers and seas by three water companies, there is a voiceless victim, one that does not sit in boardrooms, or get a chance to count dividends. It is our rivers and coastal waters, subjected to years of continuous pollution under the noses of the regulators, which are suffering.

In all likelihood the £168m penalties for the already struggling Thames Water, Yorkshire Water and Northumbrian Water will be followed by fines for the remaining eight water and sewerage companies, all of whom Ofwat is investigating over failure to treat sewage according to the law.

The penalties are yet more evidence of the systemic, industry-wide failure of the privatised water industry to fulfil its legal duties. Now is the time to ask how much, if any, of the millions in fines, which will all go to the Treasury, will be spent in the months and years ahead on ecological restoration and mitigation for these damaged habitats?

It was concerned local people turned activists and campaigners who put pressure on the regulator to look a little more closely at what water companies have been doing.

Across the country they believed they were seeing clear evidence in their local rivers that water companies were routinely discharging sewage instead of treating it as they are legally obliged to do.

To put it simply, water companies have been using rivers as open sewers for years, failing to properly invest in upgrading their ageing treatment works to cope with population growth and climate change. So it is no surprise that no river in England is in good health.

Campaigners such as Becky Malby in Yorkshire argued in 2020 that discharging raw sewage into rivers was a national problem, as she tenaciously pushed for a section of the River Wharfe in Ilkley to be given bathing water status to expose the scale of the pollution. She said then that the discharges were in breach of the law which states that raw sewage must only be discharged in exceptional circumstances.

Four years on, Ofwat now agrees with her, saying in its findings on Tuesday that the three companies routinely released sewage into rivers and seas, and failed to ensure that discharges from storm overflows would occur only in exceptional circumstances, which had “resulted in harm to the environment and their customers”. Forty-five percent of Yorkshire Water’s storm overflows were operating in breach of their legal permits, Ofwat said. Ofwat’s senior director of enforcement Lynn Parker, by the way, says it will be up to the government whether to ringfence any of the money for environmental restoration in rivers.

At Britain’s biggest water company, Thames Water, 67% of its treatment works had capacity and operational problems, and 16% of its storm overflows were in breach of their permits.

Many of those who have gathered the evidence and forced politicians and the regulators to listen are now asking how Ofwat can survive. It said on Tuesday that the water companies had been “slow to understand the scope of their obligations relating to limiting pollution”.

But which body should have made those obligations crystal clear through rigorous oversight and enforcement? None other than Ofwat itself.

Nor is it just Ofwat that has failed, campaigners say. The Environment Agency, which like the Post Office, has prosecuting powers, is continuing a parallel criminal investigation into Ofwat’s enforcement action. Yet after nearly three years not one water company or individual has been charged as a result of it.

Guy Linley-Adams of the environmental group WildFish spoke for many campaigners on Tuesday. “The fines issued today represent not only the failure of Thames, Yorkshire and Northumbrian Water to treat sewage according to the law, they also indicate a massive regulator failing by the Environment Agency and Ofwat,” he said.

“Neither regulator should be claiming any success today, but instead they should be apologising for failing to regulate the water industry and failing to enforce the law.”

Linley-Adams pointed out that the EA awarded the three offending water companies almost 100% in their environmental performance assessment for sewage permit compliance last year, all while the “appalling pollution goes on”.

Experts within the industry say radical change is needed. Alastair Chisholm, policy director at the Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management, said Ofwat’s findings were not a surprise, and that an urgent and deep review into the operation of the water industry and regulation was needed.

“A healthy society and robust economy need healthy and resilient water supplies. They are not a luxury.”