Hold Back the Rivers?

The UK's Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) continues to confirm it's 'unfitness for purpose'. DEFRA has turned down 19 of the 21 Freedom of Information (FOI) applications made by groups wanting to know why, defined locations on their local rivers, cannot be granted protected bathing area status. There's, of course, a very strong suspicion that DEFRA doesn't want to confirm their ineffectiveness in preventing England's river waters being converted into open sewers. River pollution largely comes from 'organic' discharges, made by farming and the privatised Water Companies (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/apr/06/england-river-bathing-area-applications-foi-requests). DEFRA have turned down FOI requests from Cornwall; Kent; Lancashire; Oxfordshire; Suffolk and Yorkshire. Approving protected bathing areas would mean their currently inadequate Environmental Authority repeatedly testing river water for the presence of faecal bacteria. DEFRA could be liable, if people became ill after swimming. Is this what they mean by 'a shit show'?