We need a completely different value system for managing water.  I am proposing that the government fundamentally rethink how water is managed.  Create a new types of organisation, new laws, rules that puts quality (a zero tolerance to pollution) and not wasting this precious resource first and first.  Rivers cannot be arbitrarily divided up to suit a bidding process for managing waste water to suit a political will.  Each rivers and their tributaries need to be managed in their entirety, from source to estuary and beyond into the sea, by a single management team.  River geography should become the defining factor in ensuring a high quality environment.

The problem

Water companies and the Environment Agency (EA) are not fit for purpose to manage this precious natural resource.  Waste is polluting our rivers, whilst consumption is draining them.  The EA does not have the resources to test water courses, investigate the source of pollution, apply and follow through with fines and check remediation has taken place.

We are now at a time when not one river in England can be said to be clean and pure.  Very few rivers can be said to be not harmful to people and wildlife along their entire course.  Chemicals, rubbish and effluent are all dumped in our rivers, often on purpose and often with commercial gain in mind.  We must not forget that our coast line is also commonly being used as a direct point of effluent overflow.

Rivers should not be arbitrarily divided up to suit a bidding process for managing waste water.  Where rivers run through multiple areas managed by different water companies, pollution from one literally flows through the next downstream.  Lines of responsibility are therefore muddled.

The human condition all too often drives us to take advantage of natural resources, without considering the ‘costs’.  Costs to nature that initially are unseen but accumulate and before we know it, affect us all.

The geographical boundaries and value systems by which water is managed, needs a comprehensive overhaul.

The Environmental Audit Committee (a House of Commons select committee) is fighting a rearguard action. Whilst good work is being done, deadlines are slipping and aspiration are too low.

The vision

A fundamental shift in attitude and priorities is required.  Money should not come first.  Water companies should not be solely about ‘dealing’ in water, but first and foremost about protecting water along with the EA, ensuring purity of water form source to estuary.  To do this will take vision and a new type of organisation, backed up by new legislation, rules and penalties.  Water needs to be managed by water driven geographic areas.  Rivers and their tributaries need to be looked after in their entirety, from source to estuary and beyond into the sea.

It is a ‘crime against nature’ that England does not have a single clean river, one without, effluent, chemicals or waste floating through it.  Water; rivers, aquifers, lakes, and our seas, should be a national asset, one for the benefit of us all, for the benefit of nature.  I would truly like to see the creation of protected river parks from source to estuary, were all can enjoy pure unpolluted water.  This should be a simple reasonable aspiration.  The fact that this is an aspiration, rather than a given, shows how far we have drifted away from a proper responsible and caring attitude towards managing our natural environment.