Quality of west country rivers continues to improve

September 22, 2009

Water quality in England and Wales has improved for the nineteenth year in row the Environment Agency announced today

As a result, more rivers are becoming home for species that were once thought to be in terminal decline such as salmon, eel and otters.

The improvement has been achieved through investment by water companies, tougher action on polluters, changing farming practices and thousands of local projects. The Environment Agency has also announced ambitious new plans to revitalise and transform over 9,000 miles of river by 2015 under a new European directive.

In the South West a third (33%) of rivers, lakes and coastal waters achieved ‘good’ or ‘high’ ecological status under the new and more stringent Water Framework Directive. This compares favourably with an average figure of 26% for England and Wales.

The new directive sets even higher quality standards for rivers using a wider range of measures than previously to assess chemical and biological water quality. This means more needs to be done at certain lakes, rivers and coastal waters to bring them up to the latest quality standards.

Where rivers do not already meet the tougher standards, the Environment Agency will focus its efforts on ensuring they comply with the Water Framework Directive, if possible, by 2015. The Agency already has enough information on 43% of these sites to improve their ecological status. The remaining 57% require further investigation.

The Water Framework Directive will require continuing efforts by the water industry to tackle discharge from sewage treatment works and the removal of water from rivers. It will also require action from farmers to stop pollution from land getting into rivers, lakes and coastal areas. Pollution from towns and cities will also need to be tackled if the improvements required by Europe are going to be delivered.

The Agency plans set out how each of these will be tackled, to clean up rivers, lakes, estuaries and the coast. In the South West it aims to improve 3,470 km of the 8,660 km of river covered by the Water Framework Directive in the South West by 2015.

‘Our rivers are at their cleanest for over a century, but we need to go even further to meet the new EU measures for water quality,’ said Ben Bunting for the Environment Agency.

‘That is why we have announced plans to clean up 13,500 km of river across England and Wales over the next five years. Our strategy will tackle the pollution and obstructions that prevent wildlife returning to some areas and we will working with farmers, water companies and groups such as the RSPB to get the best deal for our environment and learn to adapt to a changing climate.’