The state of UK rivers

The River Wye is the fourth-longest river in the UK, stretching 250 km from its source on Plynlimon in midWales to the Severn estuary in England. It passes through the so-called ‘chicken capital of the UK’, where an estimated 20 million birds are farmed in the river’s catchment. According to Robin Eveleigh, the average supermarket bird costs less than a pint of beer does (as of 14 June 2021, https://www.theguardian.com/ environment/2021/jun/14/bird-costs-less-than-pintwelcome-to-britains-poultry-capital-herefordshropshire-powys). The UK produced 1.7 m tonnes of chicken meat in 2020, up 28% from a decade before. There has been an explosive growth of poultry production in Britain, with over a quarter coming from just the three counties of Hereford, Shropshire and Powys, where the River Wye runs through. And with this growth comes a massive spike in river pollution. Chicken manure from the increasing number of intensive poultry farms is being spread on the land as a fertilizer. High levels of runoff are entering the surrounding rivers, resulting what is increasingly being described as ‘pea soup’ in appearance, also know as deadly algal blooms. As these blooms take over and starve the rivers of oxygen, plants such as ranunculus are suffocated, and the river’s brown trout, chubb and barbel are dying off. The knock-on effect is less food for birds such as the iconic kingfisher. This phenomenon is not caused solely by poultry production, however. The illegal dumping of sewage in the UK’s rivers is a massive issue, where far greater action from the UK government is needed. Emma Howard Boyd, the chair of the Environment Agency (2022), stated in a press release in July 2022 that ‘fines currently handed down by the courts often amount to less than a chief executive’s salary . . . Investors should no longer see England’s water monopolies as a one-way bet’. Data released by the Environment Agency in March 2022 showed that 10 water companies throughout England released raw sewage into waterways over hundreds of thousands of hours in 2021. The 372,533 spills were recorded only on those overflows where event duration monitors were in place: 12,608 of the 14,707 overflows, or 89%. The government said the Storm Overflows Discharge Reduction Plan was a step towards change in how water companies tackle the number of discharges of untreated sewage, which the government and the public have made clear are unacceptable. It may be a good step, but let’s hope it is also a speedy one.