Our rivers are dying - it's time to make a stand

After years, perhaps decades of inaction, the Government has finally realised something needs to be done about the appalling state of our UK rivers.  According to the Environment Agencies own data, discharges of untreated sewage by water companies doubled from 1.8 million hours in 2022 to a record 3.6 million in 2023,  The number of individual spills also soared by 54% - from 301,000 incidents in 2022 to 464,000, making 2023 the worst year for storm water pollution.  

Announcing the new funding last month Environment Secretary Steve Barclay said:

“The amount of sewage being spilled into our rivers is completely unacceptable and the public rightly expects action. This £180 million of accelerated investment, which will stop more than 8,000 sewage spills over the next year, is a welcome step forward as we continue to push for better performance from water companies and hold them to account".

The accelerated improvements, which will be delivered by April 2025, support the targets under the government’s Storm Overflows Discharge Reduction Plan. This is driving the largest infrastructure investment in water company history, estimated at £60 billion over the next 25 years.

Out of 256 assessments of freshwater habitats on 38 English rivers that are SSSIs, just 23 (9%) were in favourable condition, meaning they are in a healthy state and are being conserved by appropriate management. Liberal Democrat leader, Ed Davey, said the scandal of raw sewage pouring into waterways should be declared a national environmental emergency.  He called on the government to convene an urgent meeting of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) to look at the impact of sewage pollution on people’s health. Rivers are a crucial part of the global water cycle, contain important biodiversity, and are essential for human health. 

Even with this new funding, there are major challenges ahead and it will take years, perhaps decades, to bring our rivers back to pristine condition. Just three examples of the issues which need to be addressed, and urgently.

😠 Chickens are cheap - but what is the real cost?

The river-killing pollution caused by industrial chicken farming has ramped up over the last decade, as the demand for cheap chicken has rocketed. In fact, the number of permits issued for intensively farmed chickens in the UK has been rising at a rate of one million birds per month for the last ten years. This has led to a rapid expansion of the vast sheds that house up to 40,000 or more chickens at a time, and which pollute local rivers with their phosphate-rich manure. The catastrophic result is that dozens of rivers across the country in particular the the River Wye, which is now classified as 'unfavourable-declining'.

😠 Death of a great lake

Over 27,700 hours of untreated sewage has officially found its way into Windermere since 2020. Today marks the annual release of United Utilities EDM data by the Environment Agency, which shows that in 2023, 8787 hours of untreated sewage made its way into the lake; that equates to 366 days of last year. A rare fish, the Arctic char Salvelinus alpinus, has for centuries had a special place in Britain’s largest natural lake, Lake Windermere. Since the ice age, when the glaciers retreated leaving behind a deep cold water lake, the char has lived in its depths.

😠  Sewage crisis on south Warwickshire’s rivers is deepening.
The amount of sewage dumped into the River Avon and River Leam has risen from over 6,000 hours in 2022 to more than 13,000 hours in 2023.Figures from Top of the Poops show that the River Avon was polluted by sewage 1,130 times in 2023, which lasted 10,187 hours. This is the equivalent of sewage being dumped on average 3.1 times a day. The River Leam was on the receiving end of 338 sewage dumps in 2023, lasting 3,521 hours. This means that sewage was dumped into the River Leam on average six and a half times a week.

In April 2023, the MP for Warwick and Leamington invited the then Secretary of State for the Environment, Thérèse Coffey, to visit the constituency and “don a cozzie” and see for herself the state of the local rivers. He said she never took him up on the offer!

Yes - there is much to be done.