|
UK
rivers have been given a new lease of life over recent years with both fish and people finding their way back to enjoy cleaner waters.
A survey by the
Environment Agency shows that since 1995 river water quality in the UK has
improved substantially or has maintained its standards. It is published
on the Agency website at www.environment-agency.gov.uk.
Unsurprisingly, this government agency is
claiming most of the credit for the improvement.
Nonsense. Almost all
the improvement results from investment by privatised water companies in sewage
treatment following years of under investment when those water companies were in
public ownership.
Here are some
highlights from the North East
River Calder
 | Many improved stretches, the most significant of which is that
from Huddersfield down to the Aire confluence. This has gone from a
classification of bad or poor to fair or fairly good, largely due to the
improvements to sewage works in the area.
|
| Yorkshire
Water has undertaken a major programme of improvement and rationalisation of
sewage works, including the closure of works at Queensbury and Ossett, and
improvement of works at North Bierley and Spenborough (on the River Spen),
Dewsbury and Halifax.
|
River Don
|
Over £100 million invested by industry and water
companies over the last 20 years. Over 102 Km of the Don
improving from "poor or below" to "fair or better".
|
| The
river now supports a sustainable fishery and brown trout, which are normally
associated with clean upland rivers, are frequently caught in the Doncaster
area. Catches between Conisborough and Sprotborough, and at Kilnhurst, have improved dramatically in the last three years.
Recently salmon reached Sheffield for the first time in 200 years.
|
| Swans
have appeared at Rotherham and Doncaster.
|
| In
the past five years over a dozen sewage treatment works have been upgraded,
refurbished or closed by Yorkshire Water, while scores of overflows from old
sewers have been abandoned. Minewater treatment plants have been installed
at Bullhouse Penistone, Fender Chesterfield and Silkstone Sheffield.
|
| The
chemical industries in Staveley, Bolsover and Chesterfield have invested in
their waste water treatment works.
|
| The
River Don now meets its River Quality objectives for the whole of its length
from the Pennines downwards. A tributary, the Rother, labelled as the dirtiest river in Europe during the early 1990s
now supports a sustainable fishery in its lower reaches.
|
| Two other tributaries, the
Dearne and the Went, still need work and these
should be improved by water company investment over the next five years.
|
River Skerne
River Wear
August 2003 update.
(Thanks to Alan Vickers).
Some
of the improvement may also be due to the cessation of underground minewater
pumping about
four years ago from
Nicholson's Pit (quite close to the Rainton Meadows Nature Reserve) into the
Moors Burn, which later becomes the Lumley Park Burn. Underground
minewater pumping has also recently ceased at the Lumley 6th pumping station
that also used to discharge into Lumley Park Burn.
14
Feb 2004 update.
Alan Vickers has provided a list of all discharges into
Lumley Park Burn. Click here for
details. Great rivers were
unavoidably polluted in the past, and how they are getting cleaner now.
| Bowburn Beck, from its source at
Bowburn to Croxdale, has been downgraded from poor to bad. This should be
remedied in the near future with an upgrade to Bowburn Sewage Treatment
Works. |
16 Dec 2001
|
