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About 500 yards from my Leeds home the tiny stream of Meanwood beck runs through an urban park. Besides the pleasure it gives walkers, minnow hunters and a few brave swimmers, it is one of a dwindling number of habitats for the indigenous European crayfish, a tiny crustacean, threatened by the larger American variety, which has already colonised the river Aire. The beck is now (July 2001) tolerably clean, but has not always been so. Ten years ago it frequently contained visible sewage from the surrounding housing estates. Decades of neglect had allowed elderly sewage and storm water systems to intermingle, and the old Leeds City Council Water Authority had resisted previous campaigns to upgrade the system on cost grounds.

Things did not change overnight when responsibility for sewage services was transferred to the private utility, Yorkshire Water in 1988, although almost immediately pressure groups sprang up to watch over the new company. "Eye on the Aire", and "C. O. M. B.", Clean Out Meanwood Beck, or as some say, Crap Out of Meanwood Beck, were two. Both groups were openly hostile to the new company, and managed to give them much bad publicity. 

Councils, especially those with large single party majorities like Leeds, can ignore this sort of thing, but not private companies, and Yorkshire Water responded with a massive investment programme, which included local sewage system renewal. The river markedly improved, and in 1998 even the pressure groups recognised that Yorkshire Water was having a dramatic effect on river quality and gave them awards.

Unfortunately the beck had to bear yet more unnecessary damage at the hands of an irresponsible government organisation when over 10,000 litres of oil was released into it on 29th March 1999.  A fuel oil tank at Bodington, a Leeds University hall of residence, leaked via an open storm water drain into the beck. A frantic clean up effort dealt with much of it, but serious environmental damage was done. Between half and 90 percent of the crayfish died, although by a miracle, they are now slowly recovering.

What did the Environment Agency do? It set up an enquiry by Leeds University itself, which not surprisingly concluded that no one was to blame. In the enquiry’s own words;

"The spill resulted from human error (The failure to indicate the correct tank for refilling. The delivery of fuel oil was to a tank already full.) that was compounded by:

1. A standard operating procedure that was inadequate in that it did not anticipate human error and did not fail-safe.
2. A bunding and tanking design that was flawed in that (i) access to surface water drains was located within the bunding and (ii) venting was to the exterior of the bunding.
3. An inspection regime that was insufficient in that if failed to detect and remedy (i) the missing sealing plate to the surface drain and (ii) an insecure oil tank inspection cover."

That sounds pretty bad but the report went on:

"Those University employees directly involved at Bodington site were neither reckless nor malicious. All University staff reacted to minimise the impact to the aquatic environment as soon as the spill was identified and sought to comply with all recommendations for remedial action proposed by the Environment Agency."

This is putting it mildly. The system was that a sign was hung on the window to indicate to the fuel lorry driver which tank to fill, and no one had moved it after the previous tank filling. After that a whole series of design faults and procedural failings led to the environmental disaster. 

Basically the procedures were lax, maintenance was neglected and staff were careless, but the university is non-profit and government-funded, so that’s all right then!

Some traditional anti-capitalist environmentalists still complain about Yorkshire Water, and their "excessive" profits. However, the crayfish know where the real danger to Meanwood beck lies; where it always has, with unaccountable state-run environment agencies and universities. The credit for cleaning it up is due to the investors in Yorkshire Water, and the volunteers from "Eye on the Aire" and COMB who kept them up to the mark.

Jim Thornton 15 July 2001

see reply from council sewage engineer

July 2006 update

John Burke writes to say that there are also brown trout in the Beck.  He is indeed correct.  About ten years ago my son and his friends used to fish for them, presumably illegally, using a piece of sweetcorn on a hook.  They caught a couple too.  They were delicious.  Jim Thornton

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Last modified: November 12, 2006