Chalk streams are in a unique position where their sensitivities are hymned by ecologists as “iconic” or “precious” but that doesn’t stop them being pillaged by the water and sewage companies as the EA and Ofwat look on.
Take for instance the River Chess. Like most chalk streams it isn’t protected in any special way. It isn’t, for instance, designated as a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) or a Special Area of Conservation (SAC). That means that in terms of conservation, it is undervalued and under-protected. Its value is more readily measured in terms of how much water it has to offer for consumers and how much sewage it can take before its ecological status collapses.
It has a history of over-exploitation and there are real concerns, not surprisingly, that it will not meet its environmental targets. But in 2020, abstraction from the river at Chesham ceased. That seemed to be a very sensible decision.
Last year, however, the EA quietly suggested to the water company (Affinity Water) that abstraction should recommence from Chesham pumping station to control flooding. Anyone who understands chalk streams would know that is a bad idea. Aquifers take time to fill over a number of seasons and you can’t just switch on the pumps when it rains hard.
The arrangement for the abstraction at the once-moth-balled pumping station at Chesham was through a s 20 Water Resources Act 1991 agreement without consultation or any kind of assessment of impact. Indeed, we hadn’t seen the document and had to ask the EA for a copy. It then emerged that the Chess wasn’t the only river being used in this way. It appeared that the EA was entering similar agreements elsewhere on chalk streams to control flooding.
After WildFish wrote to the EA in September last year, we finally received a copy of the s 20 agreement – and a Water Resources Impact Assessment – which was drafted after the agreement and after we had written to the EA. We pointed out that their assessment just didn’t make sense: re-introducing abstraction does not “protect” the river. And no one can understand how “Sustainability reductions in Chess catchment will contribute towards pathway to good”. Whatever that means.
The good news was that after the kerfuffle, the EA sensibly “paused” the s 20 agreement and said it will put the arrangement out to consultation. We said terminate the agreement because it is unlawful.
But there seems to be a happy ending for the Chess. The EA is now proposing to revoke the licence for abstraction from Chesham Pumping Station, with a promise that there will be no further abstraction and an admission that flow and flood risk are “particularly complex”.
We just need to get to the bottom of what is happening on the other rivers where the same methodology has been applied. Watch this space
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