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One of our Agricultural Senior Environment Officers explains how her role involves assessing whether the fertilisers and manures that farmers plan to use are what's needed by the crops they're growing. These lost nutrients can pollute streams and rivers.

View the blog here: Nutrient planning is not small potatoes – Creating a better place (blog.gov.uk)

We have just released a new blog about algal blooms in the Wye, which can be viewed here: Understanding algal blooms in the River Wye

Herefordshire Rural Hub and the Environment Agency are working together to promote responsible and resilient farming practices in the Wye catchment. As part of the Wye Soils, Nutrients and Compliance project four videos have been produced which promote good practice on farms. In these videos Herefordshire farmers share their approach to water and nature friendly farming. You can view the videos here

Citizen Science in the West Midlands

My name is Lydia Ashworth and I have been a Citizen Science Coordinator for the Environment Agency in the West Midlands since July 2023.

In this blog, you can find out about the Environment Agency’s ‘Supporting Citizen Science Project’ and some of the exciting innovations in this field that are happening in the West Midlands.

Citizen science is a form of scientific research conducted in whole or in part by amateur or non-professional scientists. It has grown rapidly in the UK over the past few years, particularly in the field of freshwater monitoring. This interest is important for the health of our local waterways and blue spaces and the data being collected has huge potential in helping to make the right decisions for catchment improvement.

The first phase of the supporting citizen science project has been running since April 22 and will finish in March 2025. To find out more, see Kelly Haynes’s blog: Celebrating International Day of Women and Girls in Science and the Environment Agency’s Citizen Science Projects – Creating a better place (blog.gov.uk).

It has been a privilege to work with various teams on this project. Citizen science crosses many of our work streams and collaboration and communication is key to its success. Across our area we have been working with citizen science for many years, most notably through the national Riverfly scheme and through catchment partnership projects, many of which are managed by our catchment coordinators. See Weir making a real difference to water quality on the River Cole – Creating a better place (blog.gov.uk).

Read the full blog: Citizen Science in the West Midlands – Creating a better place (blog.gov.uk)

Welsh Water fined £90,000 for polluting River Wye near Hereford

• Environment Agency prosecute after routine sampling results
• Court told how water company broke permitted levels three times in 10 months
• Case heard at Worcester Crown Court on 7 June 2024

The Environment Agency has successfully prosecuted Welsh Water Ltd for breaking conditions of an environmental permit at a sewage treatment works near Hereford between August 2020 and June 2021.

At Worcester Crown Court on Friday 7 June 2024, Welsh Water Ltd entered a guilty plea and were fined £90,000 for exceeding permitted levels of sewage effluent into the River Wye from the Kingstone and Madely Sewage Treatment Works. The company were also ordered to pay costs of £14,085.05 and a £190 surcharge.

The court was told that officers from the Environment Agency were alerted to an issue following routine sampling results in July 2021.

The environmental permit states that during monthly sampling visits Welsh Water Ltd must not discharge effluent containing more than seven milligrams/litre of biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) on more than two occasions in a 12-month period.

From 6 August 2020 to 19 June 2021, the sampling system showed that Welsh Water allowed levels to exceed the permitted levels on three occasions.

On 8 August 2020 the levels were recorded at 13 milligrams/litre, on 19 May 2021 levels were recorded at 74 milligrams/litre and 19 June 2021 levels were recorded at 41 milligrams/litre.

The court was told that such levels indicated that the treatment works was performing very poorly and that it was extremely unusual to have this many breaches in a 12-month period.

A report concluded that this showed “either poor operational management, inadequate asset provision or a mixture of both.”

Welsh Water, in mitigation, said on the first two occasions they could not identify a “root cause” for the permit breaches. On the third occasion, the company said the breach had occurred during a “significant storm.”

Adam Shipp, a Senior Environment Officer at the Environment Agency and who led the investigation, said: "Incidents like this are preventable and are completely unacceptable.

“Water companies are aware that their activities have the potential for serious environmental impacts, and they know that we will take action when they cause pollution.”

The Charge

Welsh Water, between the 5 August 2020 and June 20 2021, at the Kingstone and Madley Sewage Treatment Works, Herefordshire, failed to comply with, or contravened, an environmental permit condition.

Namely condition 8 (a) (i) of environmental permit AH1001901 (as modified from March 31 2015).

By exceeding the permitted level of 7 milligrams per litre of biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) within the discharge from the said works to the Coldstone Brook, on three occasions within the said period.

For all media enquiries please call 0800 917 9264, including out of hours 

www.environment-agency.gov.uk 

The River Wye Special Area of Conservation (SAC) is failing to meet phosphate targets in some reaches and very close to the threshold in others. There have been reports of algal blooms in the river and anecdotal accounts of ecological decline over the past few years. The scale of data being captured in the Wye Management Catchment is large and a monitoring project to try to improve understanding of the causes of changes in the condition of the Wye has been run by the Environment Agency (EA) since 2021. All this data contributes to the overall picture of what is happening in the catchment. We will combine new evidence with existing datasets to contribute to a common understanding among all stakeholders of the issues and actions required.

The 2023 River Wye Data Analysis Report has now been published: https://engageenvironmentagency.uk.engagementhq.com/science-and-data

Wyescapes; Food, Nature, Water

The Wyescapes project launched on 8^th May with its inaugural meeting held on the banks of the Wye in Hereford. The project brings together 40 land holdings covering more than 4000 hectares of land along the river corridor, spanning the county of Herefordshire from north to south.

The farmers and land managers are working to identify actions and changes they can make to restore the rivers’ health such as reducing nutrient use, reverting high risk fields from arable cropping to grassland, creating new wetlands, floodplain meadows and woodlands.

The project’s long term aim is to restore the Wye catchment to a healthy condition, so its rivers and their tributaries can support the unique wildlife that depends on them, provide clean and plentiful water, be resilient to climate change, mitigate flood risk, provide places for people to enjoy – all while supporting sustainable food production.

What is Landscape Recovery?

Landscape Recovery is the top tier of DEFRA’s Environmental Land Management Scheme (ELMs). Unlike the other elements of ELMs, Landscape Recovery enables groups of land managers to work collaboratively to design collaborative, bespoke, long-term schemes. Landscape Recovery is a large-scale, long-term scheme for farmers and land managers that will offer generational benefits for agricultural businesses, the environment and local communities.

The Wyescapes project has now begun a 2 year Development phase during which the participating land managers and project partners will be:

- Identifying the land management changes they would like to deliver,

- Baselining to quantify the benefit in terms of nutrients, carbon and biodiversity that will be achieved by the land management changes

- Securing long term public and private funding to enable delivery during the potential 20 year implementation phase

- Develop legal agreements to govern the delivery and funding agreements for the implementation phase.

The bespoke agreements of successful projects are expected to deliver environmental benefits for the next 20 years and beyond.

Why in the Wye?

The River Wye and its catchment together create an iconic landscape, hugely important for nature due to its wide range of rare river wildlife, loved by people and important for food production. In 2010 the River Wye was voted the nation’s favourite river, described as "magical and timeless" but since 2020, TV programmes, celebrities and communities have been decrying the polluted and degraded state of the river. In 2023, both the River Wye and River Lugg had their status downgraded by Natural England to ‘unfavourable – declining’ due to diminishing numbers of Atlantic salmon, white-clawed crayfish and aquatic plants.

A strong foundation for collaborative delivery has been developed between local organisations through the Farm Herefordshire partnership. Herefordshire Rural Hub leads the Wyescapes project and will be working with several partners during its delivery including Herefordshire Meadows, Herefordshire Wildlife Trust and the Wye & Usk Foundation.

The impact of farms delivering environmental schemes in isolation has been limited, moving to collective action and operating at larger scale will ensure greater benefits for the future. For food production to be resilient in the long term, farming and nature must go hand in hand. Landscape Recovery projects are pioneering innovative methods to deliver environmental benefits in harmony with food production

Kate Speke-Adams, Director, Herefordshire Rural Hub says:

“This is an incredible opportunity to develop a bespoke scheme with the land managers of the Wye, Lugg and Arrow floodplains. DEFRA’s Landscape Recovery provides us with a mechanism to support farmers in adapting their land management, deliver the multiple ecosystem services that floodplains offer while still supporting sustainable food production. It’s a triumph for Herefordshire and it’s a triumph for the Wye.”

Ben Andrews, participating farmer on the River Arrow, said

“Our Wyescapes project aims to improve the water quality of the River Wye & Lugg, produce top quality food while boosting and protecting nature. It’s a triple whammy and we’re excited to get started.”

Mark Wood, participating farmer on the River Wye, said

“Wyescapes will enable farmers, growers and landowners to take the measures needed to sort out the issues they are responsible for that are affecting the River Wye and improve the whole environment for the long term. The hard work really begins now to make sure the whole scheme is designed right to enable real change for the long-term.”

Emma Whitehouse, Environment Agency Wyescapes Project Liaison Officer, said:

“Wyescapes is an exciting Landscape Recovery project for the River Wye, these projects are pioneering innovative methods to deliver environmental benefits in harmony with food production. It is great to be part of this catchment wide collaboration with its shared vision and commitment to restore the Wye catchment to a healthy condition in the long-term. This much-loved Special Area of Conservation also includes several Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) designations. Catchment partners and the Wyescapes Land Managers have real enthusiasm for this project and what it could achieve for all. We look forward to continuing our support for the project, as the lead liaison organisation as part of Defra’s Landscape Recovery Scheme.”

Contact for enquiries: Max Eckert via wyescapes@herefordshireruralhub.co.uk

Visit the project website

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The Environment Agency and partners continue to do great things in the Wye catchment, supported by the Wye Catchment Partnership and Farm Herefordshire.

This past financial year, through the Water Environment Improvement Fund, the Environment Agency have supported three complementary partnership projects focused on diffuse pollution and river restoration.

Catchment partners have come together and optimised collaboration to achieve more, resulting in the development of a successful Landscape Recovery project.

To find out more about Wyescapes: Food, Nature and Water click here: Wyescapes Landscape Recovery Scheme - Herefordshire Rural Hub

The Farm Herefordshire partnership has published the findings of its 2023 survey. The survey sought to capture the awareness level and engagement within the farming community of the phosphate issues facing our local rivers. Agriculture is the largest land use in the country and is currently identified as the largest source of nutrient loss in the Wye catchment.

Read the full report

We have worked with the Lancaster University RePhoKUs team to conduct a phase 2 study to understand how changes in land use and phosphorus application may contribute to water quality impacts in the Wye catchment. This builds upon the 2021 study which can be viewed here.

We will use this information alongside our extensive data sources to inform our targeted approach to restoring the health of the River Wye. You can view the phase 2 study here.