09 Nov 2024
Local Lib Dem MPs Daisy Cooper and Victoria Collins joined campaigners at St Albans City Station on their way to the March for Clean Water on Sunday.
They were joining thousands of other demonstrators all dressed in blue, marching for clean water from the Albert Embankment to Parliament Square in London.
The campaigners, led by Ver Valley Society and St Albans and District Friends of the Earth, asked the MPs to highlight the plight of local rivers and to ask them to press the Labour Government to enforce legislation and ensure that the dumping of sewage into rivers like the River Ver comes to an end.
The River Ver has been subject to over 2,600 hours of sewage discharge from Thames Water’s Markyate sewage treatment works this year alone, often during dry weather when the sewage works should be able to process all sewage properly.
Not only is the sewage a hazard to health but, the high nutrient levels coming from sewage cause algal blooms that lead to the depletion of oxygen which has an impact on aquatic species at the bottom of the food chain.
This in turn has an impact on fish populations and other wildlife. Chalk stream rivers like the River Ver should have pure, crystal water and a clean gravel bed that is clear of sewage fungus and algae.
Ver Valley Society Chair John Pritchard said: “It was uplifting to see so many people turn out to protest against water pollution. Internationally rare chalk stream rivers like the River Ver have been abused for long enough. Thousands of hours of sewage discharge just this year into the Ver from Markyate sewage works is completely unacceptable.
“We believe that Government intervention could ensure the law is enforced more robustly and that a shake-up of the water industry regulators is long overdue.”
St Alban District Friends of the Earth coordinator Amanda Yorwerth added: £We can’t let water companies get away with it. Their shareholders have pocketed huge payouts while our bills increase. We joined the March for Clean Water to show that we care too much about rivers like the River Ver than to let them end up being ruined in this way.
“We believe that everyone deserves the right to a healthy environment. That’s why Friends of the Earth is campaigning to enshrine this in law as part of a new Environmental Rights Act, which would empower communities to hold regulators and public bodies to account for failing to protect our precious waterways and allowing companies to pollute with impunity – risking the health of British people, wildlife and our environment.
“We urgently need to enshrine the right to a healthy environment in UK law, to give communities the power to take back their local rivers, to hold polluters to account, and ensure this never happens again.
“New legislation could really add teeth to our fight against sewage being dumped in the river and we hope that our MPs will be able to campaign successfully to make this legislation a reality.”
The March for Clean Water was supported by a coalition of more than 130 organisations including River Action, Surfers Against Sewage, Save Windemere, the Open Water Swimming Society, the Angling Trust, Save the Wye and the WI.
