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From The Times
July 30, 2007

Taps on, but water isn’t safe to drink

Marcus Leroux

Thousands of homes in flood-hit areas are getting running water again but it will be at least two weeks before it is drinkable, the Environment Agency said yesterday.

Some 140,000 homes across Gloucestershire were cut off from the water supply after the Mythe treatment plant, near Tewkesbury, was flooded. Tim Brain, Chief Constable of Gloucestershire, said that the recovery operation was moving steadily. “There is light at the end of the tunnel,” he said. “The restoration of supply is beginning very slowly and cautiously, and appropriately so, because we don’t want any mishaps at this stage.”

Victims of the flooding yesterday attacked five-figure bonuses awarded to Environment Agency executives. Baroness Young of Old Scone, the agency’s chief executive, received a bonus of £24,000 on top of her salary of £163,000. Lady Young said last week that water bills would have to rise to cover the cost of flooding.

It also emerged that the agency expressed concern in September that many authorities’ flood evacuation procedures were inadequate.

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