Four firms field river recovery plans
Four water companies, two in combination, launched bold commitments last week to revive their regional rivers. The commitments came from
Thames Water;
Severn Trent Water and Anglian Water; and
United Utilities.
Thames Water
Speaking at the Rivers Trust annual conference, Thames chief executive Sarah Bentley announced plans to “speak up, open up and clean up” on river health. The key elements were:
• a commitment to a 50% reduction in the total annual duration of spills across London and the Thames Valley by 2030, and an 80% reduction in sensitive catchments;
• a report of a successful trial of an open data platform for near real time alerts of sewage discharges from six sites around Oxford – the company said was on track to meet its pledge for live notifications at all of its 468 permitted locations by the end of the year: and
• a 50% increase in funding for working with catchment partnerships and driving collaboration – £5m over five years.
Severn Trent and Anglian Water
The two firms co-launched Get River Positive, a plan based on five pledges to transform river water quality across their regions:
The pledges
Ensure storm overflows and sewage treatment works do not harm rivers – company operations will not be the reason for unhealthy rivers by 2030, and the use of storm overflows will be reduced to an average of 20 per year by 2025.
Create more opportunities for everyone to enjoy our region's rivers – within ten years, 90% of the population in these regions will live within an hour’s drive of a bathing site.
Support others to improve and care for rivers – Collectively launch a new deal for farmers this spring to incentivise regenerative farming practices and provide access to green financing; as well as new partnerships with the agriculture sector. Also campaign for the removal of the automatic right to connect for new developments, champion the Bill to ban wet wipes, and use convening powers to help others address their contribution to river health.
Enhance our rivers and create new habitats so wildlife can thrive – examples include Severn Trent establishing new habitats for native species of wildlife across the Midlands and Anglian working to re-introduce several iconic fish species.
Be open and transparent about our performance and our plans – work with NGOs to ensure they are getting the information they want and need to see to accurately judge river health, and make this information easily accessible via their individual websites by end of 2022.
Both firms said the pledges had been designed to provide water companies with a framework on which to build their own operational and environmental plans.
United Utilities
United Utilities’ plan was framed around the following four pledges, to:
make sure the company’s operations progressively reduce impact to river health;
be open and transparent about performance and plans;
make rivers beautiful, supporting others to improve and care for them; and
create more opportunities for everyone to enjoy rivers and waterways.
Specifically the firm committed to reduce the number of spills from storm overflows by at least a third between 2020 and 2025, via a £230m investment programme, leading to 184km of improved waterways.
United Utilities also said it will support local groups and authorities with new applications for inland bathing waters; launch a community fund to support local river health initiatives; and, working alongside The Rivers Trust, create the opportunity for people to volunteer as citizen scientists to collect data on river health which will help inform further improvement work.
United Utilities is championing legislation to ban wet wipes.
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