June 2009
River basin bulletin
The Water Framework Directive in the South East River Basin District
Welcome to the sixth South East River Basin District newsletter. Following the consultation launch
of the Draft South East River Basin Management Plan, we want to keep you informed on how
things are progressing and to let you know it is not too late to have your say!
Improve the water environment in the South Where are we in the timetable?
East - there is still time to let us have your
views
We have now almost completed the six month
consultation period for the Draft South East River
Basin Management Plan which was launched for
consultation on 22 December 2008.
The final plan, incorporating your feedback from this
consultation, will be produced in December 2009 and
will be the main framework for improving our whole
water environment by 2015.
We still need your help to make sure we get the final
South East River Basin Management Plan right.
Respond via our website by 22 June
You can respond to our online consultation by visiting
our website at www.environment-agency.gov.uk/wfd. U
Follow the link to the ‘South East’. The consultation
closes on 22 June 2009.
You can also search interactive maps that tell you more
about the state of local waters and actions planned. Visit Date Milestone
the ‘What’s in your backyard’ pages on our website at 22 June 2009 Consultation period ends
22 September Consultation report published
www.environment-agency.gov.uk/maps.
2009
U U
Tell us how we can achieve more 22 December 2009 First River Basin Management
Plan (2009-2015) published
The draft sets out how many waters will achieve good
status by 2015. This headline hides a large number of
tangible improvements to water quality and ecology.
These include 680 km of river for phosphate - a nutrient For more information contact:
which limits biodiversity; and over 500km of river opened
Sue Lade, External Relations Officer
up to fish passage by addressing priority obstructions.
Tel: 01903 832381
In your consultation response, please tell us how you
can help us achieve more, by taking action for water. Email:
We will look seriously at your suggestions, and use them southeastRBD@environment-agency.gov.uk
were possible to set higher targets for 2015. www.environment-agency.gov.uk/wfd
Giving fish a helping hand, Southern
Region’s fish
Obstructions to fish passage is one of the big issues
affecting the quality of our rivers under the Water
Framework Directive. In recognition of this we have
developed a programme that seeks to address fish
passage both on our own assets, such as gauging
stations and flood gates and privately owned structures
like Mills.
Our top 25 obstructions in the South East River Basin
District have been identified. See figure 1 on the next
page for details.
We are already making progress and in February this
year the Botley Mill Fish Pass was completed by our in
house workforce the Operational Delivery Team. This
will enable sea trout and eels to migrate freely up the New fish pass at Botley Mill Hampshire
Hamble, in the Solent and South Downs Area, for the
first time in hundreds of years. For more information
contact Lawrence Talks on 01903 832239
Figure 1
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Water Protection Zones
The process of developing Water Protection Zones
(WPZs) is now underway. These zones will help us to
tackle diffuse pollution from both urban and rural sources
by providing additional regulatory tools.
A selection of High-Risk areas have been decided upon
as priority failing water bodies to be used as “Candidate
WPZs”. These sites will be used to explore and develop
the concept of WPZs and test their effectiveness at
tackling, mainly but not exclusively, diffuse pollution.
Southern Region nominated 2 sites to be considered as A waterbody that would benefit from restoration
Candidate Sites: the Isle of Thanet (Kent), and the Bow
Lake Catchment (Hampshire). The Isle of Thanet Many of the candidates are river channels that have
groundwater boreholes are suffering greatly from previously undergone extensive re-engineering to
pesticide and solvent contamination. The Bow Lake, a help manage of flood flows. In extreme examples
tributary of the River Itchen, is suffering from a wide the river bed and banks have been straightened and
range of rural pressures affecting surface water quality. coated in concrete. The end result is a smooth,
The final list of Candidate WPZs has now been straight channel that allows rapid passage of large
produced, which includes the Isle of Thanet District. It is volumes of water, but is often no-go area for
no surprise that it is considered to be one of the strongest plants and aquatic invertebrates with a knock-on
sites nationally, as all of the boreholes are flagged up as impact on fish. However, algal mats do often thrive
failing Water Framework Directive objectives. on the concrete bed causing the water
chemistry (pH) to swing widely within any 24 hour
Bow Lake was unsuccessful in reaching the final list, due period. The water becomes unnaturally alkaline
to a lack of evidence on specific sources of pollution. We during daylight hours when the algal mats filter the
will continue to identify the sources posing most risk over entire shallow flow of water on the flat concrete bed,
the coming year, and keep the site high on the water absorbing up much of the dissolved carbon dioxide.
quality agenda. This too, makes things difficult for wildlife.
Raising the profile of such challenging water quality In many cases development close to the
issues with area stakeholders will be the first success channel banks constrains our options for restoration.
target of the WPZ project. The overall aim of the project We may not be able to do anything that reduces
is to develop tailored regulatory measures to support channel volume or increases roughness, for fear of
advisory and initiative schemes already in place, which increasing flood risk. We will often need innovative
alone have proved ineffective to date. A further rollout solutions. We are already investigating using
phase for additional WPZs is expected in 2012. It is diamond bladed cutters to cut a new, more natural,
anticipated that the designation of WPZs will help to bring low flow channel beneath the level of the current
more of our water bodies up to ‘Good’ ecological status bed, so maintaining channel capacity.
by 2015.
The challenge varies from location to location. Once
you have helped us to check that we have the right
Restoring our waters to good status restoration candidates, we would welcome your
support in finding the right restoration solution for
The draft plan identifies 37 candidate waterbodies where your local waterbody. We hope that the work we do
we believe that habitat restoration is likely to be to improve the ecology will also result in the
required if we are to meet the goal of achieving good waterbodies becoming more attractive places for
status/potential. We are seeking our partners’ views on local people to enjoy.
whether our list of 37 includes all the highest priority
candidates for restoration. For more information contact Joe Stevens on 01903
832506
The recently created map, figure 2 on the next page,
shows the distribution of the 37 candidates across the
river basin. The next stage will be to identify the nature
and scale of the physical work that will be required at
each candidate waterbody
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Figure 2
Artificial and Heavily Modified Water
Bodies
Sixty per cent of our rivers and most of our coast,
estuaries and lakes are heavily modified or
artificial. This means they need to achieve good
ecological potential by taking action on water
quality and mitigating the impacts of our physical
activities in these waters.
Additional information on artificial and heavily
modified water bodies is available to support our
consultation on the draft River Basin Management
Plan. The information covers the classification of
waters that are currently unclassified together
with a list of mitigation measures. In addition, for
waters that are designated for flood protection,
there is also a list of measures proposed for
waters classified at 'moderate ecological potential
or below' with a supporting explanatory paper. Calling all photographers!
This new information can be found on the
‘supporting information’ webpage (link via left The south east water environment is very special.
hand side of page) on the South East River Basin A new website has been set up to gather and
District consultation page at: share your photos of our waters. It’s easy to use
www.environment-agency.gov.uk/wfd and it’s free! Just sign up for a Flicker account at
www.flickr.com, and share your shots with the
Please provide comments on these assessments Flickr group called South East River Basin
as part of your consultation response. District. Anyone can look at the photos online at:
www.flickr.com/groups/southeastRBD
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