RIVER ECOLOGY
How to heal our rivers
Britain’s rivers are in crisis. So how do we resolve the problems and restore these waterways to clean and healthy habitats, fit for the future?
“Everything you throw in the ditch lands in your cup,” wrote Ted Hughes, in a poetic reminder that our waste often ends up in rivers – and that how we treat our rivers rebounds upon us.
Britain’s rivers are currently in a woeful state, besieged by pollution.A recent parliamentary report described many of our waterways as a “chemical cocktail” of sewage, slurry and plastic. Calls to clean up our rivers are growing ever louder, thanks to the work of passionate community groups and charismatic campaigners, including the former punkrock singer Feargal Sharkey.
NO PLACE FOR POO
Sewage pollution has dominated the headlines with water companies villainised for treating our rivers as open sewers. Water companies are permitted to release untreated sewage via ‘storm overflows’ to prevent any risk of it backing up into our homes or streets. While, by law, this should only ever happen in ‘exceptional circumstances’, the reality is that untreated sewage is now regularly discharged into rivers, sometimes after only light rain or no rainfall at all.It’s no longer an exceptional event, but depressingly frequent. On some rivers it happens on most days. In 2020, there were more than 400,000 discharges over more than three million hours.Water companies have been underinvesting in our sewerage system and letting our rivers pay the price.
Plastic is another scourge of our waterways. Every discharge of untreated sewage will carry waves of microplastic from our homes and workplaces. One study of rivers in South Wales found half of freshwater invertebrates had microplastics inside them. BBC Panorama’s The River Pollution Scandal (2021) opened with a sequence of reporter Joe Crowley walking along a river beach in Barnes, west London, revealing that what looked like the bed of the river was actually a grey mound of wet wipes from sewage outfalls.
“What looked like the bed of the river was actually a grey mound of wet wipes”
POLLUTION FROM FARMS
Yet, do you know what pollutes even more rivers than sewage? Farming. Agricultural pollution takes many forms, including soil erosion, slurry spills and fertiliser run-off. To take one high-profile example, the River Wye is being smothered by growing algal blooms, which kill off the plant life on the river bed, destroying the ecosystem from the bottom up (see page 58).Excess nutrients feed the algal blooms.Most of the phosphorous pollution on the Wye comes from the farming sector, particularly intensive livestock. There are more than 20 million chickens in the Wye catchment, producing far more manure than the surrounding land can absorb. Scientists working for Lancaster University’s RePhoKUs project say this overloads the soils with excess nutrients that leach into watercourses or tumble into rivers in eroded soils. Intensive farming also increases soil erosion, causing sedimentation of rivers, destroying spawning areas for fish.
CHEMICAL SOUP
Pollution from chemicals is rife, too, with every river in England polluted in part of its course. Not one is in good chemical health. Think road run-off, the hormones and medications found in sewage and slurry, cleaning products, flea treatments, ‘forever chemicals’ that coat our cooking utensils, clothing and so on. These chemicals accumulate and interact in an increasingly complex soup, brewing up emerging new threats like antimicrobial resistance.
We have artificially straightened many rivers, dammed them up and we are extracting too much water from them. Low flows lead to higher concentrations of pollution and higher temperatures, which threaten freshwater life. So how do we turn our rivers into clean and healthy habitats, fit for the future? I spoke to a range of experts to find out.
WHAT’S THE SOLUTION?
10 ways to heal our rivers
1 STOP SEWAGE POLLUTION
The priority is to prevent pollution at source. Tackling sewage pollution will require investment to improve our sewerage systems and install better water-treatment processes to strip out more chemicals. Feargal Sharkey says: “The amount that we pay in our water bills includes money to maintain and upgrade sewerage systems. The water companies need to do the job they have been paid for.”
2 MAKE POLLUTERS PAY
If fines are too low and infrequent, then water companies will treat them as operational costs, says Ashley Smith, from Windrush Against Sewage Pollution.Even the chief executive of the Environment Agency,Sir James Bevan, said in a recent speech that “water company chief executives should have their pay linked to levels of pollution their companies cause”.
“You have to stop pollution being profitable. When you do that, you win. Until then, you lose.”
3 ENFORCE THE RULES
That is Feargal Sharkey’s top recommendation for cleaning up our rivers. Governments and regulators seem averse to taking enforcement action against farmers and prefer offering advice. Mark Lloyd, chief executive of The Rivers Trust, says:“What infuriates the good farmers who follow the advice is looking over the hedge and seeing another farmer causing damage and not being punished for it.”Legislation designed to regulate the handling of manure has been in force for four years. Yet despite hundreds of reported breaches, the Environment Agency told me that they have only applied one civil sanction.
“Regulators need to enforce the existing legislation”
4 RESTORE SOILS
Restoring healthy soils would be “the quickest and cheapest nature benefit”, says Mark Lloyd of The Rivers Trust. Intensive agricultural practices have compacted and degraded soils. Healthy soils “reduce nutrient pollution, reduce the need to apply fertiliser, lock up carbon, retain more water and are more absorptive, so reduce flooding. They are a total win, win, win – and you could have healthy soils within five years, if you went at it.” As well as reducing flooding, healthy soils also offer more resilience against drought, reducing the need to abstract as much water from rivers in the dry season. Photos: Alamy, Naturepl.com, SPL, Oliver Edwards
5 CUT SINGLE-USE PLASTICS
When it comes to fighting plastic pollution, improved sewerage systems will also help to stop microplastics entering our rivers. In the meantime, we can all assist by ensuring that we never flush wet wipes down the loo. Remember the three ‘Ps’ and only flush poo, pee and paper. The most effective action the Government can take is to dramatically reduce single-use plastic, including wet wipes, by regulating it out of existence.
6 REWIGGLE RIVERS
Humans have previously worked to straighten and contain rivers. ‘Rewiggling’ puts the bends and wiggles back in a river, allowing them to naturally meander through a landscape, which also lengthens them. Mark Lloyd points out: “If you increase the length of a river, then it can store more water. Every pool and ripple sequence helps to filter pollutants out of the water.A river’s biological processes help to purify it – so the longer our rivers are, then the healthier the habitat.” A recent example of river rewiggling is Goldrill Beck in the Ullswater Valley, which featured in BBC series The Lakes With Simon Reeve (episode two, on iPlayer).
7 REDUCE AGRICULTURAL POLLUTION
To prevent farming pollution in rivers, the quantity of manure spread in the catchment must be radically reduced. George Monbiot, the journalist and environmentalist, says: “I don’t see a substitute for revoking planning permission for intensive livestock in catchments where far too many permits have been granted.” He says compensation should be paid to affected farms. “There is just too much manure containing too much nutrient. We can’t save our rivers without closing down some livestock units. No ecosystem, however healthy, can cope with the nutrient burden being landed on it.” Is there an alternative to closure? On the Wye, poultry producers are exploring potential technological solutions to process their manure differently in order to export the excess nutrient out of the catchment.
8 REWILD RIVERSIDES
We need to stop ploughing and grazing right up to the side of riverbanks, and instead embrace nature corridors alongside our rivers. Wide strips of hedges, trees and scrub can provide a buffer against pollution running off the land, helping to filter out sediment and other pollutants while providing more habitat for wildlife and shade for rivers to keep them cool. The Wildlife Trusts say the wider and wilder the buffers, the better for water purification and flourishing biodiversity.
9 REDUCE WATER USAGE
One thing we can all do to help our rivers is to use less water. The average person in England currently uses around 150 litres per day. The Environment Agency says we need to reduce this to an average of 110 litres. Mark Lloyd says: “A river has water in it, that’s the essence of a river – so the less water, the more of its essence ebbs away” Three ways of using less water: when replacing appliances, look for water efficient options; eat more local-and plant-based food to reduce your water footprint; and have a water butt in your garden to reduce reliance on the taps.
10 ENGAGE WITH OUR RIVERS
Spending time by a river means you can rejoice in its splendours while able to raise the alarm if you spot overt pollution. If we act as guardians of our local rivers, we will pass them on in a better state for the next generation. It was an angler in Ilkley, fed up with catching wet wipes on his line, who inspired the formation of Ilkley Clean River –a group that created the first designated bathing water on a UK river. Citizen scientists are gathering crucial data about our rivers, helping to drive improvements.
Nicola Cutcher is an investigative journalist, writer and filmmaker who has worked for BBC Panorama. She is the producer of recent documentary Rivercide, about river pollution.