This Innovative Proposal Could Clean Up our Rivers – So Why is Whitehall Ignoring it?

An imaginative plan to reduce river pollution, create new industrial jobs, help the UK meet net zero targets and reduce imports from China and Russia has been blocked by Whitehall.

Marinet, a marine community campaigning group, has for the last two years been pressing the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, for a novel solution to stop severe pollution of the River Wye, a Special Area of Conservation (SAC), from intensive poultry farms.

The proposal, if taken up nationwide, could provide a solution for other pollution black spots, including Lough Neagh in Northern Ireland which has been severely degraded by agricultural pollution from the province’s largest intensive chicken farmer.

 There are 100 intensive poultry farms in Herefordshire and a growing number in Shropshire and Powys close by the tributaries of the Wye. Each produces enormous quantities of chicken manure which is then spread on local farmers’ fields only to leach into the Wye. The manure is rich in phosphate and nitrates which cause a major pollution problem for the river.

Marinet’s solution is for all the chicken manure – instead of being spread on local fields – to be collected and processed as agricultural and horticultural fertiliser. This in turn would create new jobs and expand the domestic fertiliser industry.

It would also save UK imports. There is no natural source of phosphates in the UK. It all has to be imported principally from China, Russia and Morocco. Russian imports have declined after the war in Ukraine but the country still imported £35.6 million worth of fertilisers from Russia last year. Chinese imports of phosphates were £120 million last year.

Similarly, 40% of nitrate ammonia is imported. To process nitrate ammonia in the UK uses vast quantities of energy because it has to be heated to very high temperatures to extract the nitrate. If it could be extracted from chicken manure it would cut the extensive use of energy in fertiliser manufacture, so contributing to the UK’s Net Zero targets. At the same time, it would halt the pollution of the Wye.

Marinet has put these proposals to Defra and the Office of Environmental Pollution without any success.

The Office of Environmental Pollution (OEP) was set up by the last Conservative Government to replace enforcement work done by the European Commission after Brexit. It is meant to control and stop pollution in rivers, alongside the Environment Agency.

But it has a very poor record. It has not taken a single enforcement action since it was set up. This is despite evidence sent to it from Marinet about agricultural pollution on the River Wye in the Forest of Dean and in Herefordshire.

The OEP said in its report: “Whilst we are not progressing this specific issue through our enforcement function at this time, we have written to the relevant councils to seek confirmation that they expressly consider the impacts of manure spreading on applicants’ and third-party land on the River Wye SAC when assessing agriculture planning applications in the future. If we become aware of any applications that do not consider these impacts in future, we may consider enforcement action.”

Stephen Eades from Marinet said he had waited two years for the agency to investigate their complaint and then found it had failed to investigate it any way other than writing to the councils involved. Defra’s design of the whole Intensive Poultry Unit (IPU) scheme and its severe pollution the Wye have not been investigated even though, as Marinet told the OEP, Defra has a duty in law to ensure a “favourable condition” status of the River Wye Special Area of Conservation. At present it is “unfavourable, and declining”.

Helen Venn, Chief Regulatory Officer for the OEP, said: “Enforcement activity is one option open to us in certain circumstances. We have carefully considered the issues raised with us in regard to pollution impacting on the River Wye and identified a number of areas of concern.”

She reiterated that the agency had written to the local councils and had also criticised the current water framework directive in protecting rivers.

“We have also looked at the Environment Agency’s role in enforcing legislation concerning the protection of water bodies from agricultural diffuse pollution, including the Farming Rules for Water. We have found there is no indication of a failure to comply with environmental law and therefore we will not be taking enforcement action in relation to this issue.”

On the key issue of an overall solution to the problem she said: “The OEP’s role and remit does not include policy development. That is for Government to do in response to and informed by our findings.”

A Defra spokesperson said: “The level of pollution in the River Wye is unacceptable, and we are fully committed to working with local partners and the Welsh Government to make the right changes on the ground.

 “We are determined to clean up our rivers, lakes and seas for good, and just last week we introduced a Water (Special Measures) Bill and announced a detailed review to shape further legislation.” 

However, this bill covers sewage problems and is aimed at the water companies and does not cover agricultural pollution.

The last Government appointed Anthea McIntyre as River Wye champion a few weeks before the election. She is a management consultant and was expected to form a task force to look at the problems in the River Wye. She lived locally and was a former Tory MEP.  She has now left after the Tories lost the election and Labour has not replaced her.

Stephen Eades said: “Our submission to the OEP stated that DEFRA had acted illegally in setting up an IPU regime with associated poultry manure practices that would and had led to the pollution of the Wye Special Area of Conservation (SAC) whose integrity DEFRA has a duty to uphold (as does the Environment Agency and Natural England), and despite the evidence that the IPU and manure disposal regime was causing  damage to the Wye SAC, DEFRA took no action to arrest that pollution, again contravening its duty to protect the Wye SAC.  This duty exists in law under Article 6 of the Habitats Regulations.

“Does anyone in government – DEFRA, the OEP, the Environment Agency, Natural England and planning authorities – really care about what is happening to the Wye SAC?  If yes, what are they doing to seriously change things?

“The OEP reply to you about DEFRA’s Wye Action Plan noted that small amounts of money are to be made available to finance pilot incineration and anaerobic digestion solutions.  However, these are pilot projects, not strategic remedies. The potential for this IPU manure to form the feedstock of the national agricultural fertiliser industry is totally ignored.  The OEP is not, as it correctly states, able to formulate Government policy, but it is able to explore policy options (and so make recommendations) on a problem where it perceives a problem of potential illegality, and therefore has a remit to suggest how that illegality can be stopped.  The OEP is not doing any of this.”

The failure of the agency to tackle this is a good example of the “silo mentality” in Whitehall. The ministry and its agencies are looking at the problem from their own narrow perspective. To implement the campaigners’ proposal would require a Whitehall-wide perspective involving Defra, the Energy and Net Zero department, the Business and Trade department with some co-ordination from the Cabinet Office and the Treasury. But nobody in the ministry or its agencies want to propose this, and to remedy issues in the current state of Broken Britain, a much bolder approach is required.

In the meantime, there seems little prospect of the Wye being able to recover any time soon.