A tanker pumping out excess sewage from the Lightlands Lane sewage pumping station in Cookham, Berskhire which flooded after heavy rainfall, January 10, 2024
ENVIRONMENTAL groups called on the public today to mobilise this autumn and ramp up pressure on the government to tackle Britain’s water pollution crisis.
River Action, Surfers Against Sewage and Greenpeace are among the groups who will join the March for Clean Water in Central London on October 26.
It will mark the end of the first 100 days of the Labour government, and take place just days before Chancellor Rachel Reeves’s first Budget.
An escalating water crisis looms, driven by factors such as ageing infrastructure, lack of investment from water firms and industrial pollution.
More than 3.6 million hours of raw sewage discharges poured into rivers and seas last year — a 105 per cent increase compared with 2022.
Original article by Andrew Wasley republished from TBIJ under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
The river Wye.
The case will argue the meat giant knew of the potential environmental consequences of industrial-scale chicken farming
The US meat and grain giant Cargill must compensate those affected by pollution in the River Wye or face court proceedings, lawyers preparing to sue the company have warned.
Legal papers served to the company by the law firm Leigh Day say hundreds of people have suffered loss and damage because of pollution linked to growing industrial chicken farming in the region. The firm also demands that Cargill cleans up the river.
Leigh Day’s letter to the company, seen by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ), also accuses two of Cargill’s UK entities – Avara Foods and Freemans of Newent – of jointly polluting the river with phosphorus. The companies have two months to respond to the allegations.
Natural England downgraded the river’s health rating last year, citing higher phosphorus levels and increased eutrophication – a phenomenon where a build-up of nutrients prompts some plants to grow excessively, depleting oxygen levels.
“Chicken manure is high in phosphorus, having a concentration four to five times higher than other forms of manure,” Leigh Day’s letter states.
Pollution of the Wye has become a national issue as the number of chicken farms nearby has grown. Today, Avara Foods is responsible for more than four fifths of the 20 million birds reared in the region, according to Leigh Day.
Until recently, waste from the farms was frequently spread on nearby land as a fertiliser, where it would run into adjacent waterways, including the Wye and its tributaries.
In the legal papers, Leigh Day accuses Cargill, Avara and Freemans of being responsible for “substantial water quality degradation and widespread algal blooms”, as well as “species decline [and] a loss of income from tourism, water sports, fishing, hospitality and other local businesses”.
Local house prices have also been affected, the letter notes, along with the quality of life for residents living next to industrial-scale farms.
Initially, Leigh Day only named Avara as a defendant, but in May it announced that Cargill would also face action. Avara is a joint venture between Cargill and Faccenda Foods – a major UK poultry processor. There are more than 100 intensive poultry farms in the Wye Valley over which Avara, and thus Cargill, “has significant legal and factual control”, Leigh Day claims.
Avara has previously said it is “confident that there is no case to defend” and that Leigh Day’s civil claim is “a year-old, opportunistic attempt to profit from a serious environmental issue”.
“It has no merit and is not supported by evidence or expert opinion,” the company said in March. “It ignores the long-standing use of phosphate-rich fertiliser by arable farms as well as the clear scientific data showing the issue of excess phosphorus considerably pre-dates the growth of poultry farms in the Wye catchment.”
The letter also notes that Avara supplies 4 million chickens to the UK retail, hospitality and food service sectors, and is a supermarket poultry supplier.
The case will argue that Cargill, which is headquartered in Minnesota but operates around the world, must share responsibility for the pollution of the Wye and related waterways.
Cargill knew of the potential consequences of industrial-scale chicken farming because of similar legal challenges in the US, Leigh Day argues. There, waste from poultry farms from a number of companies – including Cargill – was found to have contributed to historic river pollution in Oklahoma.
Leigh Day’s letter adds that Cargill’s importing of phosphorus-rich soy, which is then used to make poultry feed, has also contributed to the problem. TBIJ previously uncovered how Cargill soy from Brazil is shipped to Liverpool, where it is processed for use in animal feed at farms that supply Avara.
Leigh Day partner Oliver Holland told TBIJ: “We hope that Avara and Cargill will take this opportunity to engage constructively with the substance of the claim and work with us to avoid court proceedings being issued. However, if they do not, our clients will be issuing court proceedings and looking to proceed with this claim through the high court.”
Original article by Andrew Wasley republished from TBIJ under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Rishi Sunak boards an RAF plane to travel from London to Leeds. Photograph: No 10’s Flickr account
Last week, Rishi Sunak flew from London to Blackpool – his third private jet trip in 10 days. He’s far from the only one using air travel for short journeys. Just how much damage is this doing?
It was a Labour spokesperson who said the prime minister was behaving “like an A-list celeb”, after Rishi Sunak made his third trip by private jet in 10 days. Last week, he flew from London to Blackpool in a 14-seat RAF jet – a 230-mile journey that would have taken about three hours by train. The week before, he did the same to Leeds, which he could have done in two and a half hours by train, but which wouldn’t have looked nearly so glamorous – to go by the ludicrous photograph of him looking important and being saluted as he boarded the aircraft.
Private planes are up to 14 times more polluting, per passenger, than commercial planes and 50 times more polluting than trains, according to a report by Transport & Environment, a European clean transport campaign organisation. “It goes against the fact that the government has committed to net zero by 2050,” says Alice Ridley, a spokesperson for the Campaign for Better Transport. “They have said they want to see more journeys by public transport, walking and cycling. Taking a private jet is extremely damaging for the environment, especially when there are other alternatives that would be far less polluting and would also be cheaper.”
Private planes carry far fewer passengers, while about 40% of flights are empty, simply getting the aircraft to the right location. Flying short distances also means planes are less fuel-efficient.
“A private jet is the most polluting form of transport you can take,” says Matt Finch, the UK policy manager for Transport & Environment. “The average private jet emits two tonnes of carbon an hour. The average European is responsible for [emitting] eight tonnes of carbon a year. You fly to the south of France and back, that’s half a year in one trip.”
Image of the Green Party’s Carla Denyer on BBC Question Time.
Reacting to a new report from the Office for Environmental Protection which says: “government will not meet its ambition that most water bodies will be on the road to good condition or else already in that state by 2027,” Green Party co-leader Carla Denyer said:
“The Green Party wants to see much greater protection of nature in law, and that includes our rivers.
“We would set up an Independent Commission for Nature that would set targets for nature protection and restoration, enforced through the courts.
“This would be groundbreaking and make future governments act to protect our waterways from agricultural and industrial pollution.
“It would allow for the first time the possibility of individuals, communities and conservation groups taking legal action on behalf of nature. Currently, every time our rivers, seas or land is polluted, prosecution is left to hopelessly underfunded quangos.
“We also need water companies in public ownership and an end to leaking sewage.
“We need to give space for all of nature to thrive, and that includes protecting our rivers.”
“You weren’t expecting to go swimming this bank holiday weekend, anyway, were you?”
Coastal tourist hotspots in Wales should be teeming with people this Bank Holiday weekend. But instead, people are being told to avoid them because of sewage pollution.
Surfers Against Sewage, a leading UK marine conservation campaign charity, monitors water quality at over 450 river and coastal locations so people can swim, surf or splash without the risk of becoming ill. This week, the campaigners issued alerts that more than 25 beaches in Wales have been polluted by storm sewage or given a poor water classification.
Some of Wales’ most popular tourist destinations, including Criccieth, Tenby, Colwyn Bay, and Swansea, have been deemed as unsafe due to sewage pollution.
The campaigners warned how storm sewage had been discharged from sewer overflows within the past 48 hours at many beaches. They informed how short-term pollution is caused when heavy rainfall washes faecal material into the sea from livestock, sewage and urban drainage via streams and rivers.
Posting a report of the alerts on X, environmental campaigner Feargal Sharkey, who is vice chair of River Action, mocked: “You weren’t expecting to go swimming this bank holiday weekend anyway were you?”
