Hydropower- the good, the bad or the ugly?
July 18th, 2011 Posted by adminThe Salmon & Trout Association (S&TA) is not against hydropower per say. We believe that increasing the uptake of renewables in the UK is fundamental to reducing our greenhouse gas emissions and attempting to avert climate change. Run-of-river hydropower can play a very small part in this, but we must ensure these schemes are not having an adverse impact on the rivers, and particularly our migratory fish, before they get given the go ahead. At the moment many questions remain unanswered such as ‘what are the cumulative impact of multiple schemes within a river system? Will this lead to increased fish mortality? Will this disrupt fish migration timing upstream and/or downstream? Even if only the 5,000 top priority sites, identified in an EA scoping report, were developed, this could average 40 or so schemes in each catchment- the truth is we don’t know what impact this will have and if we can still ensure that the legal requirements of the Water Framework Directive to achieve good ecological status (or good ecological potential) in all rivers and for deterioration will be met.
On the 1st July the Environment Agency (EA) launched a consultation on revisions to the Hydropower Good Practice Guidelines, first published in August 2009. It will run for 12 weeks, closing on 23rd September 2011. Full details of the consultation can be found on the EA website
If you have an interest in rivers please take the time to response, especially with evidence or experience on hydropower applications/schemes on your local rivers. The S&TA, along with the Angling Trust (AT), will be producing a crib sheet shortly to help with your responses, which you will be able to find on our website. The revised guidelines are expected to be published in December 2011. I sit on the Hydropower Technical Group, so if you have any enquires please contact me: janina@salmon-trout.org .
Join our call for more research and monitoring on the impact of hydropower schemes so we can be sure that this energy really is ‘green’.
Janina Gray
Salmon & Trout Association
