It's disappointing that you ...

It's disappointing that you want to show that Britain "has failed to manage the sustainability its environment such as its water resources" when clearly you know virtually nothing about our management. The most important legislative influences on our water resources and investments in environment improvements occurred during the last 40 years, when the UK was a member of the European Union and had to comply with European Directives. There is a long list of these, but the most important are The Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive (UWWTD), the Drinking Water Directive, the Bathing Water Directive. the Habitats Directive, and the Shellfish Directive. Following first drafting of these directives, all have been subsequently revised to tighten the standards, so there has been a significant ongoing investment in the UK during the last 40 years, totalling many billions of GBP. As an example, the UWWTD initially required primary treatment of coastal discharges unless the waters offshore were labelled "sensitive" and lacking adequate dilution from offshore currents. Later, all coastal discharges required secondary treatment and, with the improving standards required by the Bathing Water Directive, UV disinfection. Another important aspect is environmental regulation. We do indeed have a body equivalent to the EPA, which in England and Wales is the EA or Environment Agency. A similar body operates in Scotland (SEPA, or the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency). These came into existence when the water industry was privatised in England and Wales by the 1979 Water Act. Previously, water pollution prevention was managed by the predecessor Water Authorities, but river management functions were excluded from the privatisation and a National Rivers Authority was created. 5 years later, under the 1995 Environment Act, the NRA was merged with Her Majesty's Pollution Inspectorate (which dealt with non-water pollution) to create the EA. Prior to UK's membership of the EU and publication of the above Directives, the UK was not negligent as far as environmental protection was concerned (e.g. the 1974 Control of Pollution Act, which set new standards for the health of rivers), but had a long way to go to mitigate the effects of our industrial past. Many of our river estuaries were lifeless due to industrial and domestic discharges commenced in the 19th century with the the Industrial Revolution. Work on the River Thames progressively improved its quality and it continues today with the Thames Tideway Scheme, which is costing 22 billion GBP. The purpose of this is to intercept intermittent storm discharges and treat them downstream. There have been other such schemes, e.g. for the Mersey estuary and the Tyne estuary, which now has a good  head of migrating salmon annually, when previously it supported no life and stank in hot weather.