Pete Tyjas worries about the impact water companies are having on the health of our rivers
The wonderful BBC TV programme The Blue Planet made a huge impact on people's thinking when it came to pollution, especially waste plastic. I am told that companies have been hiring in the waste plastic sector which can only be good news.
I write this foremost as a member of the population but I also write with some continued nervousness when I look at the environment from a fisherman's perspective in other areas.
Recently, I have heard first hand how Southern Water in Hampshire are wanting to have a public enquiry into a license for increased abstraction from the River Test and Itchen. The inquiry would need the approval of Michael Gove to go ahead and would mean even more water is taken from the world famous river.
There is, I’m told, an alternative that would be more costly but if implimented could set a framework for companies elsewhere to follow and have significantly less impact than water abstraction.
Of course, abstraction is a more simple and cheaper solution and is the route that Southern Water wish to follow.
The problem for us as a community is that Southern Water are extremely well financed and can use vast sums of money to fight any form of resistance making this a David vs Goliath case and one that, thanks to some extremely dedicated people is one they are prepared to take on.
I hope as a reader of Eat Sleep Fish that you will consider signing the petition below to show your support too.
Sign Petition HERE
Whilst writing this piece I have been doing some research on Southern Water and their environmental record and it does not make pretty reading. This is against a background of a poor infrastructure despite high profits and dividend payments for shareholders and price rises that outstrip inflation.
Here’s my other worry though. There is a village near where I live. There has been an issue with an ancient sewage treatment works that at times is sending sewage into a little stream nearby. The problem is that planning permission has just been granted for another 200 houses in the same village. Is anything gong to be done to upgrade the treatment works to deal with the extra capacity?
A committee I sit on has started looking at these implications and are trying to do something about it but do we have deep enough pockets to get something done? I know the answer to this and if I amplify what is happening in the little village in my county across the country as the need for extra housing increases am I just looking at the tip of a very large iceberg?
