Lacklustre Government river plans let big polluters off the hook

Plans published today for the future of rivers in England and Wales will let the big polluters off the hook, say campaigners.

Today sees the publication of the Environment Agency’s 11 River Basin Management Plans. These set out how the river network in each region will be cared for over the next five years to meet targets for wildlife set by the European Water Framework Directive.

But the Our Rivers campaign – a coalition formed by the RSPB, WWF UK, the Angling Trust and the Association of Rivers Trusts – have criticised the plans saying they lack ambition and fail to lay the cost of cleaning up our rivers on those most responsible.

Although two of the main causes of environmental problems on rivers in England and Wales are agricultural pollution and badly planned urban development, the farming industry and local planning authorities are bearing a tiny fraction of the costs of repairing the damage. 85 per cent of the costs are to be paid for by water companies – a cost that will eventually be passed on to the consumer. Because these plans fail to address these major polluters the rivers that people and wildlife rely on will take decades to improve.

We need to see better targeting of farm subsidies to tackle diffuse pollution, ponds and wetlands to treat runoff from roads and car parks and, where incentives fail to improve our rivers quickly enough, a clear commitment from government to use tougher regulation to force action.

Rob Cunningham, head of Water Policy at the RSPB, said: “Three quarters of our rivers are failing European targets that are meant to ensure our rivers, lakes and coasts are thriving with wildlife. These plans will only bring an extra five per cent up to standard. They are facing threats like polluted run off , over abstraction and invasive species which are putting native river wildlife under increasing pressure.

“Its great that the Environment Agency have made a commitment to carry out over 8,500 investigations to try and fill the gaps in the plans, but  after ten years of working on this Directive the scale of improvement they are committing to by 2015 is very dissapointing.

Rose Timlett, WWF-UK freshwater policy officer, said: "The plans clearly show governmental failure to protect and restore the majority of English and Welsh rivers, much loved by millions of people across the country.
 
"This is not only bad news for our rivers, lakes and wetlands but also the unique diversity of wildlife that depend on them. WWF has been working on the Water Framework Directive for a decade and to us it is clear that government has missed a unique opportunity to implement the most significant piece of environmental legislation ever to come from Europe."