Thank you for contacting me about river and waterways pollution in Wales.
On the amendments to the UK Government’s Environment Bill, I am assured by my colleagues in Westminster that the Bill has now been further strengthened with an amendment which will see a duty to ensure water companies secure a progressive reduction in the adverse impacts of discharges from storm overflows. The amendment will be brought before the Commons at the next reading. The Environment Bill also already includes:
- A new duty directly on water companies to produce comprehensive statutory Drainage and Sewerage Management Plans, which will set out how they will manage and develop their sewerage and drainage systems over a minimum 25-year planning period;
- A power of direction for the Government to direct water companies in relation to the actions in the Management Plans if they are not good enough;
- At least one new target to drive progress in the priority area of water – including reducing pollution from agriculture, wastewater and abandoned metal mines, and reducing water demand;
- A duty on Government to produce a statutory plan to reduce discharges from storm overflows and their adverse impact, and report to Parliament on progress;
- A requirement for Government to produce a report setting out the actions needed to eliminate discharges from storm overflows in England and costs/benefits analysis before 1 September 2022;
- A new duty directly on water companies and the Environment Agency to publish data on storm overflow operation annually;
- A new duty on water companies to publish near real time information – within one hour – of the operation of storm overflows; and
- A new duty directly on water companies to monitor the water quality upstream and downstream of storm overflows and sewage disposal works.
With regard to river pollution in Wales, as it can be from multiple sources, Welsh Conservatives believe that a holistic solution is needed to restore river beds, rather than adopting stringent phosphate targets as Natural Resources Wales (NRW) did this year, which it did without first agreeing the best way to reduce pollution or conducting a fuller investigation into pollution incidents it recorded. We are also disappointed that NRW is not ensuring that sewage overflow from Dŵr Cymru is sufficiently tackled, given that over 100,000 sewage discharges from combined sewer overflows went directly into Welsh rivers in 2020.
Regarding the claims about poultry units being behind the pollution incidents along the Wye, I note NRW’s investigation found that the overall pattern of failures in the Wye did not support the argument that poultry units are the main reason for nutrient failures on the Wye. Therefore, NRW outlined an investigation was needed to take into account all potential nutrient sources, including smaller local sewage treatment works, which may not have been included in previous work.
Rest assured, my colleagues and I in the Welsh Conservatives will continue to raise concerns about river pollution with the Ministers for Rural Affairs and Climate Change, and you may also be interested to know that my colleague, Sam Kurtz MS, Shadow Minister for Rural Affairs, put forward a Member’s Bill in September to improve the quality of inland waterways which would have placed duties on water companies in Wales, NRW and Welsh Ministers to improve water quality.