Real-time pollution monitoring calls after boy nearly dies

Campaigners are calling for real-time pollution monitoring in Lake Windermere after a recent spate of severe infections from contact with the sewage-contaminated water.

A seven-year-old boy nearly died after contracting a dangerous strain of E. coli from contaminated water at the popular tourist destination in Cumbria last summer.

Rex Early was hospitalised for six weeks and needed two operations when he fell violently ill after kayaking on Windermere.

Now his family have joined calls for real-time pollution alerts to better protect people on the lake, which despite the findings, has an ‘excellent’ bathing water classification from the Environment Agency (EA).

Matt Staniek, the founder of campaign group, Save Windermere, explained:

We are told Windermere’s water quality is ‘excellent’, but that label is dangerously misleading.

People are ending up in hospital. Sewage is being dumped into the lake, yet the government continues to allow England’s largest lake to be polluted by the water company without real-time public warnings.

The EA already operates real-time forecasting elsewhere; it must now bring it to Windermere. The government must end sewage pollution in Windermere and put people before profit.

Windermere’s water is not ‘excellent’

Rex became unwell shortly after kayaking near Brockhole Visitor Centre, which is outside of the lake’s designated testing sites. His symptoms began with severe stomach cramps and rectal bleeding.

His mother, Claire Early, told the Guardian:

I noticed the water was murky but I had checked the Environment Agency website and it came up as excellent water quality on Windermere, so I was reassured.

Lab testing revealed E. coli 0157 as the source of the infection — the same strain that killed nine-year-old Heather Preen in 1999, in Devon. Heather’s story recently featured in Channel 4 docu-drama Dirty Business.

Windermere has four designated bathing sites where the EA tests the water between May and September. However, rowers, paddle-boarders and other outdoor enthusiasts make use of wider areas of the lake, which are not tested for contamination.

In another case, in June last year, 42-year-old Graham Jackson was infected with E. coli after swimming in Lake Windermere.

Again, he began to feel unwell that same evening. A trip to the hospital turned into more than a week-long stay and he developed sepsis, a life-threatening condition.

Likewise, Kate Appleby also caught a severe infection after swimming in the lake over the summer. As a local, Kate swam in Windermere regularly for years. However, she was infected with cryptosporidium from the water, which led to severe vomiting and weeks of hospital visits.

United Utilities

In both Graham and Kate’s cases, they were infected during prolonged dry spells over high summer. However, English water companies claim that they only discharge sewage into water bodies during heavy rainfall.

As such, United Utilities — the regional water supplier for the north west of England — claimed that its activities were unlikely to be responsible for the infections.

Notably, United Utilities reported a 131% increase in profits in the six months leading to 30 September 2025. That follows Ofwat approving a five-year plan to raise people’s bills in the North West by 32%, starting last April.

Research from campaign group, Surfers Against Sewage, revealed that water monopolies dumped nearly 8,500 hours of sewage into 43 bathing sites in 2025 — specifically during dry spells. And, as in the Early’s case, these waters are mostly rated ‘excellent’ quality by the Environment Agency.

However, it’s not just sewage dumping causing issues, according to Save Windermere:

A few years ago, researchers at the University of Oxford’s Department of Biology investigated the impacts of treated sewage, agriculture and urban runoff on river systems. Studying four rivers above and below sewage treatment works, they found that treated sewage discharge was the strongest predictor of high nutrient levels, bottom-dwelling algae and sewage fungus, regardless of surrounding land use.

In Windermere’s case, United Utilities discharged 50 billion litres of treated sewage into the lake and its surrounding catchments between 2017 and 2024. This, according to Save Windermere, is in itself a cause for concern:

A drop of water takes, on average, nine months to travel from the top of the lake to the bottom, meaning much of what enters the lake remains there. Windermere is also naturally oligotrophic, meaning nutrient levels would typically be so low that algal blooms are rare or absent.

The vast quantities of treated effluent entering the lake, carrying the nutrients algae depend on, are pushing Windermere away from its natural state and making it increasingly productive.

These conditions are ideal for the growth of potentially toxic blue-green algae, which threaten both the ecological integrity of the lake and its recreational users.

We saw the consequences in the summer of 2022, when Windermere experienced what was likely the largest blue-green algal bloom on record. The entire North Basin turned vivid green, so striking that it was visible from space.

‘Only rainwater’

As such, in March last year, then-environment secretary, Steve Reed, voiced the government’s long-term ambition of only rainwater entering Windermere.

Likewise, the Only Rainwater coalition — including Save Windermere, Love Windermere, the Lake District National Park authority, United Utilities, the Environment Agency, Ofwat, and Westmorland and Furness Council — is conducting a feasibility study in the area.

The study will gauge the measures needed to eliminate sewage discharges into the lake. The report is due in July, and Save Windermere’s Staniek is pushing for the government to implement the findings immediately. However, this will be a long-term project by necessity.

Until that point, Windermere desperately needs real-time pollution monitoring. This would more accurately reflect United Utilities’ sewage dumping, along with other sources of infection. Further than that, it would help to prevent deaths and further cases of severe infection like Rex, Graham, and Kate’s.

Featured image via Pixabay/ Davesart