As one of the country’s most energetic and effective environmental campaigners, Matt Staniek has succeeded in putting Windermere at the centre of the sewage scandal, making news with his combination of dogged research and clever stunts.
But he believes the story that he brought to national attention this week is the most shocking: the near-fatality of a seven-year-old boy made sick by England’s biggest and best known lake. “It’s horrendous. The worst case we’ve had so far: it’s almost killed someone,” says Staniek.
Rex Earley became very unwell with stomach cramps and rectal bleeding after a 45-minute kayaking trip on the lake last summer. He spent six weeks in hospital, had two emergency operations and suffered delirium, partial renal failure, gallstones and a collapsed lung. He eventually recovered but will be under medical supervision for eight years.
Lab tests showed that Rex had contracted the same strain of E.coli as Heather Preen, the eight-year-old who died in 1999 after playing on a beach at Dawlish in Devon, where there had been a sewage discharge. Her death was a heartbreaking storyline in the recent three-part Channel 4 drama, Dirty Business, about the terrible state of Britain’s rivers and coastal waters.
After watching the series, Rex’s mother, Claire, contacted Staniek. “She’s been incredibly brave to speak. They’ve been through such an ordeal. But she’s keen to try and prevent something like this happening again.”
If anyone can help her achieve that, it might be Staniek, 30, the bloody-minded founder and sole full-time activist at Save Windermere, which has made the lake emblematic of the fight against water pollution, drawing the support of celebrities, including Steve Coogan, Paul Whitehouse, Lee Mack and Feargal Sharkey, the Undertones singer and high priest of water activism. Staniek has grabbed the attention of the public and the government and proved a thorn in the side of United Utilities, the water company in the northwest of England that is responsible for Windermere.
Next week will be week 123 of Staniek’s “strike against sewage”, which involves sitting on a lavatory outside the office of United Utilities in Windermere every Monday morning.
Staniek grew up in Windermere, studied zoology and volunteered for Cumbria Wildlife Trust before a car accident in 2019 broke a vertebra in his neck. While recuperating he visited the head of the lake every day to photograph birds. He noticed that when the Covid lockdowns ended and visitors returned the quality of the water declined. He began photographing algae blooms, which are formed when nutrients such as phosphorus and nitrogen enter the water. The campaign began five years ago when he was 25 and for a while he found the experience quite lonely.
We are talking on a bench at the head of the lake on a dazzling, shirt-sleeves spring day and it is hard to imagine it looking more beautiful. But Staniek, who is in his trademark shorts and baseball cap, knows better than anyone what is in the water.
He works closely with Peter Hammond and Ashley Smith, whose investigation into the pollution of the Windrush in Oxfordshire was at the heart of Dirty Business, in which they were portrayed by Jason Watkins and David Thewlis.
When Staniek battled with United Utilities and eventually succeeded in obtaining data on sewage spills from them, Hammond, a former professor of computational biology, started crunching the numbers. Staniek speaks to Smith every day.
It is impossible to confirm what the source of Rex Earley’s E.coli infection is, but it is indisputable that United Utilities discharges treated and untreated sewage into the rivers that feed into the lake. Private septic tanks and farming are also pollutants but these are insignificant compared with spills of sewage, Staniek contends.
United Utilities is allowed to release untreated sewage into waterways via “storm overflows” during heavy downpours to stop the system being overwhelmed. Illegal spills, which have caused particular outrage across the country, are when sewage is discharged even though the treatment system is not running at full capacity or when there hasn’t been rain. Using analysis by Hammond, Save Windermere claimed that there were 140 days with illegal sewage spills in 2024 from six sites in and around Windermere. United Utilities has said these numbers are inaccurate.
Rex Earley’s mother checked the Environment Agency (EA) website on the day they went kayaking and was reassured the water quality at the lake’s designated bathing spots was “excellent”.
However, they were kayaking in an area where there is no testing. Staniek points out the lake is more than ten miles long. “It is misleading that Windermere’s bathing water quality is ‘excellent’.” Other data has shown elevated levels of E. coli, including when Hector Pardoe, the Olympic marathon swimmer, swam across the lake last year.
“It’s not fit for purpose,” Staniek says of the testing system. The sites are tested weekly during the summer. By his estimation that is 19 samples on average in 139 days. “If you were to put 139 cups in front of me and said ‘We’ve sampled 14 per cent of them and they’re OK, but we have no idea what’s going on in the rest of them’, I wouldn’t feel confident to pick one up and drink it.”
The EA says that it takes 20 samples a season in four designated bathing water areas as required by law and the “excellent” rating, which has been consistent for a decade, explicitly refers to those areas, not the entire lake.
The EA said this week that all four designated bathing water areas in Windermere had been consistently rated as excellent since 2015 under strict standards.
United Utilities says that its nearest storm overflow had not discharged for more than three weeks before the Earley family went kayaking. “Windermere is a very slow moving body of water. It takes a long time for these things to make their way through the lake,” says Staniek.
He wants to see the Environment Agency issue pollution forecasts using real-time spill data. “[People say] ‘But it’s going to cost a lot of money to bring in pollution risk forecasts. Do you think it’s worth it?’ Well, what’s Rex’s life worth? We’ve seen in Windermere over the past 30 years the prioritisation of profit above the long-term protection of somewhere so beautiful that is loved by millions.”
CV
- Matt Staniek
- Born January 23, 1996
- Education: The Lakes School, Windermere; studied zoology at the University of Salford
- Career: Volunteered for Cumbria Wildlife Trust and worked in a pub before starting Save Windermere in 2021. Has completed more than 120 weeks of “strike against sewage”; sitting on a lavatory outside the office of United Utilities in Windermere every Monday morning. Briefed parliament with the “Sewage Campaign Network”. Teamed up with the UK Space Agency to use its satellite imagery. Campaigning forced United Utilities to reveal data on sewage spills, and to pledge £200 million to reduce storm overflow discharges. Social media videos drew attention to the campaign, and inspired Taylor Swift to write a song about Windermere
- Family: Lives at home with his mother. Works more than his girlfriend would like him to
The EA says that emerging technologies show potential for real-time monitoring but it is not required under bathing regulations.
This week he also highlighted the case of Graham Jackson, 42, who fell ill with E.coli after swimming in the lake last year. He was in hospital for ten days and later treated for sepsis.
Some Save Windermere campaigners swim in the lake after monitoring it for algal blooms and sewage discharges, but Staniek will not take a dip. He does go into cleaner lakes in the park.
United Utilities says it is spending £200 million over the next four years to reduce storm overflow discharges and improve the treated wastewater that is returned to the environment. “It’s nowhere near enough,” says Staniek. He wants to see Windermere saved in the way Annecy, in France was, with a huge belt of pipes around the lake to remove sewage for treatment.
Under pressure from Staniek and other local groups, United Utilities joined the Only Rainwater coalition and is funding a study into the feasibility of such a scheme.
The study’s conclusions will be reported in July and Staniek says the government must ensure its recommendations are implemented. “We will see whether the government is truly committed to this. If they’re not, then we’re going to turn up the dial. We will have a plan on the table that demonstrates how they do it, how much it will cost. It cannot be put on a shelf.
“Everyone should remain sceptical of anything that the water industry and the government are saying that they’re going to do because we’ve seen such catastrophic failings.”
Last year, Steve Reed, who was the environment secretary, came to Windermere, met Staniek and committed the government to the long-term ambition of allowing “only rainwater” to enter the lake. Staniek hailed the announcement as historic.
Now he asks: “Is it going to be another Labour U-turn? Or are they going to demonstrate that they are serious about getting on top of the water scandal? Windermere is the litmus test.
“It’s very nice of Steve Reed to say the government agrees with the objective to eliminate sewage pollution in the lake, but the government could have brought in a law last year that made it unlawful.”
Reed was replaced by Emma Reynolds in September and Staniek has heard nothing from her. He is scathing about the prime minister, who spent childhood holidays in the Lake District.
“Keir Starmer, in the election, went to Langdale with Gary Neville and talked about his love for this place. There is no way that Keir Starmer is unaware of sewage pollution in England’s largest lake and he’s never reached out to have a conversation. And that to me screams of the leadership in this country wanting to turn a blind eye to problems that are impacting everyday people. You see the story of Rex and you say: ‘this cannot be ignored.’ We need a solution.”
Reynolds said on LBC on Friday that she would be happy to meet Claire Earley. “We’ve got to move to a system where there’s real-time monitoring, where people can see the quality of the water,” she said. She added that the government inherited record levels of pollution and was bringing in tougher regulation so that water companies were no longer self-monitoring.
Staniek was involved in a briefing in parliament on Tuesday by the Sewage Campaign Network. “It was attended by over 100 MPs, on the back of Dirty Business,” he says. This is an enormous issue particularly for Labour MPs that campaigned on cleaning up our waterways. They’re going to feel the pressure in the May elections and the next general election. People are really angry about it.”
Dirty Business has brought the issues to an audience who may only have been vaguely aware of polluted waterways and privatised water companies. “It was incredibly powerful. Those that knew the scale of this scandal were the minority. It needed something that told that story in a different way to reach the majority.
“We are all victims of this scandal. The industry’s taken £85 billion,” he says, referencing a University of Greenwich study that found investors had withdrawn that much from ten water and sewage firms in England and Wales since the industry was privatised in 1989.
What if the government, worried about cutting benefits but needing to boost defence spending, chose not to prioritise a clean-up of our waterways? “It can’t do. It’s a basic human right.”
He lives at home with his mother and runs the campaign from his car and a favourite café. “My girlfriend tries to make me not work at the weekend, but you’re always doing something. We are not going to stop until they stop putting sewage in the lake.”
Staniek has kayaked the length of the lake, hiked to the source of feeder rivers, teamed up with the UK Space Agency to use its satellite imagery and made countless, often humorous, social media videos. “This is a valuable asset to this country, even culturally. Taylor Swift came and wrote a song about Windermere. It needs to be prioritised.”
A kayaker and a paddleboarder pass. People are messing about in sailing dinghies. A ferry cuts across the lake. “This is the people’s lake. It should be absolutely pristine, the representation of fresh water in this country.”
Quick fire
- Lake swim or fell walk? If it’s Buttermere, swim. If it’s Windermere, fell walk.
- Dirty Business or Under Salt Marsh? Dirty Business.
- Labour or Green Party? I stay apolitical.
- Cumberland sausage or herdwick lamb? Herdwick lamb.
- Pint of Loweswater Gold or The Lakes single malt? I don’t drink.
- William Wordsworth or Alfred Wainwright? Wainwright.
