The River and the Wye are at risk of becoming “dead zones” because regulators and enforcement agencies have been “asleep at the wheel for 35 years”, according to Gloucestershire civic chiefs. The scathing comments directed at the Environment Agency and Ofwat came as backed the creation of an action plan and called for a crackdown on river pollution in the two nationally important rivers. Populations of salmon have fallen by 75 per cent across the globe with eels and elvers at risk of becoming extinct in the Wye and Severn, according to those calling for action.
Councillor Andrew McDermid, (G, Lydney East), who put forward the motion at a meeting in Coleford on May 30, said it is about reversing the progressive destruction of the Severn and the , estuary and the coast. “We are looking at the endgame of dead zones in these rivers due to the impact on them of various different types of pollution,” he said. “Top of the list is farming run-off, pesticides and fertilisers, that’s 40 per cent, it is reckoned.
“Secondly, untreated sewage is 35 per cent and road run-off is 18 per cent. Plus now we’ve got a more modern form of pollution down to pharmaceuticals and microplastics.” He said nobody is unaware of the public outcry over the sewage outflows “unchecked by the regulator the Environment Agency”.
A recent survey by the Soil Association found that 15 per cent of the public were unaware that farming was the biggest polluter of the country’s rivers, he sa.
