Latest hydropower decision: angling rights to be sacrificed ‘for the greater good’
A recent licensing decision by the government body tasked with promoting sustainable development and at the same time protecting the country’s existing natural assets has thrown into sharp relief where its priorities may actually lie.
The first hydropower scheme on Lancashire’s River Lune, one of the best salmon rivers in England, has been given the go-ahead by the Environment Agency (EA) at Forge Weir, even though it will significantly harm the local recreational fishery by diverting the majority of the river’s flows through the turbines during the fishing season. Salmon and sea trout will either no longer lie in the ‘depleted’ pool or will be almost impossible to fish for if they do; downstream, they will be subjected to the large artificial ‘return flows’ from the hydro.
The Luneside and Forgewood beats at Halton, just upstream of Lancaster, together produce an annual rod-catch of some 150 salmon and 100 sea trout, over half of which are caught in the weirpool below Forge Weir, making it one of the best fishing pools on the river and indeed in the country. The angling rights in the weirpool alone have a probable capital value of over £500,000. Fish Legal has been campaigning for months on behalf of its members to stop the development from being approved in its present form. In response, the EA simply stated that “angling in the Forgewood and Luneside sections of the weirpool would not be prevented altogether”, that “it is unclear whether the fisheries would reduce in value and if so, by how much”, and that in its view “the impacts would be outweighed by the benefits to the local community”.
The scheme was approved just days before the EA published its revised ‘Good Practice Guidelines’, which would have prohibited the development from going ahead. Anglers were largely excluded from the planning discussions except during the one month period when the Agency ‘advertised’ the application in late 2012, when a large number of objections were lodged. Anglers also provided details of the precise impact that the development would have on the fishing when the EA asked them for this information in March 2013. There was no further communication from the Agency until just before Christmas 2013, after anglers discovered that construction activities had already begun. The Agency then produced a 100-page ‘determination report’ which it claimed demonstrated how the fishing concerns had been comprehensively answered.
One reason given for granting the hydropower licence was that the developer would otherwise lose grant funding of £350,000 from the EU and other sources. The report claims that the impact on the fishery will be ‘minimised’ by a condition requiring that anglers are now provided with an access allowing them to walk over the hydro and into the ‘depleted reach’, where they will have to wade out a further 5 metres in order to avoid fishing near the new fish pass (as required by local byelaws).
They were not consulted about this condition, which they view as both farcical and potentially dangerous. Now that the scheme is to go ahead, Fish Legal will be checking that the licence conditions are properly followed, including by not permitting heavy construction activities to take place during the salmon migration season (although it believes that this has already been allowed by the EA), and by making sure that the fish passage and counting requirements are rigorously adhered to by the developer, to minimise the impacts on the salmon and sea trout stocks of the river as a whole. Local anglers are furious about the decision and the process by which it has been reached.
Alan Jackson, whose family owns Luneside Fisheries, said: “As riparian owner of one of the two beats affected, I am staggered that the EA have not thought to contact me with respect to how the hydro will affect the weir pool. I supplied my contact details to them as requested but no one, other than the Lune & Wyre Fishing Association, has had the courtesy to contact me about it. One would have thought that as the water flow through the weir pool – our most productive pool – will be completely changed for more than half the season, and that I and my syndicate may not be able to fish it in October when the majority of fish have historically been recorded as passing through, someone from the EA would have been in touch. It is absolutely outrageous.”
Andrew Kelton, Fish Legal solicitor, said: “The Environment Agency has handled this proposal with an alarming disregard for ordinary democratic principles. Its position was at first that it did not need to take fishing (ie. property) rights into account when making this decision, and then that the relevant legislation justified the harm to those rights ‘in the community interest’. In our view both positions are contrary to the basic legal principle that the State should respect and not violate individuals’ rights unless any such harm is clearly justified by statute and fully compensated for – neither of which has been the case here." He added: “The fact that one of the two fishery owners (who is not a Fish Legal member) belatedly reached a financial settlement with the developer does not alter that fundamental issue of principle. We hope that the shoddy way in which anglers have been treated in this case will not be repeated, and that the new Good Practice Guidelines will ensure proper protection for fishing interests whenever future hydropower projects are being considered. Regrettably, in the meantime the Forge Weir hydro will have to serve as an object lesson in bad process.”
Mark Lloyd, Fish Legal's Chief Executive, said: “Fish Legal’s team have worked tirelessly on this case for the past 18 months in order to resolve this situation in the best interest of Luneside Fisheries and other River Lune members of Fish Legal, but because of evidently determined official resistance, and the fact that one of the two fisheries directly affected is not a member, they faced a very difficult challenge. This kind of situation where anglers’ rights are ridden over roughshod by the authorities and a private developer is a clear example of why more individual and club members need to join the Angling Trust and Fish Legal to support our work fighting for fish and fisheries.
An ingenious new system to help baby eels (elvers) migrate up UK rivers has just been voted joint winner of the Environment Agency Project Excellence Awards 2014 for Innovation.
Hundreds of sites that have been almost impossible for elvers to reach in the past could, potentially, be opened up thanks to this groundbreaking technology. Agency officers faced a major challenge when they was asked to design an eel pass for Bitton Weir on the River Boyd between Bristol and Bath. Surrounded by 9m high steel sheet piling river walls with a 4.5m vertical drop, the weir was a major obstacle to migrating fish.
To add to the difficulties, there was no mains electricity at the site. Undeterred, officers teamed up with Kingcombe Aquacare Ltd and came up with an original solution. Using technology dating back to the 18th Century, they installed a series of hydraulic pumps to provide a steady flow of water down a custom-made eel pass. A special fuel cell and solar panels provide the electricity for monitoring cameras and equipment on the site. Kingcombe Aquacare fabricated sections of the eel pass at their workshop in Crewkerne, Somerset before fixing it to the vertical sheet piled wall of the weir channel. The bottom of the eel pass channel is covered in a bed of bristles that enables elvers to wriggle up over the weir. They are attracted by the constant flow of water coming down the eel pass. Remarkably, elvers started using the eel pass almost immediately.
Within 24 hours of its completion, several baby eels were filmed on the site’s CCTV cameras ascending the channel and reaching the upper waters of the river for the first time in decades. The pass has opened up another 10 miles of the River Boyd to elvers and should help restore eel numbers that have suffered a major decline in recent years. The Boyd is a tributary of the Bristol Avon. Previously, the young eels only had access to less than a mile of habitat. By harnessing energy from water tumbling down the weir to power hydraulic pumps, the scheme designers avoided the far more expensive option of having mains electricity installed at the site.
‘This was a challenging project that called for an innovative solution. We knew that if we could design and install an eel pass at this site would could put an eel pass in anywhere. We are very pleased our efforts have been recognised through the Environment Agency’s Project Excellence Awards 2014 for Innovation and that we have been selected as joint winner,’ said project manager, Gareth Varney. 'This eel pass is British engineering at its best. Working closely with the Environment Agency, we’ve produced a successful working prototype that has significant implications for similar sites across the UK and abroad. There are 26,000 recorded obstructions to fish passage in the UK. About 500 could be resolved using this solution. It could also be used at thousands of other sites across Europe. It’s carbon-neutral, sustainable, and cost effective,’ said John Colton of Kingcombe Aquacare. ‘I was thrilled when eels began using it so quickly and I’m delighted that we’ve won this award,' added Mr Colton.
Also involved in the project were AP Land Surveys who surveyed the site and Papa Pumps Lts who helped with the design and commissioning of the hydraulic ram pump system. The eel pass channel was supplied by S&D Plastics Ltd of Highbridge. The other winner in the innovation section – the Severn Estuary Flood Risk Management Strategy – looked at the best way to manage more than 200km of defences and protect approximately 100,000 properties from flooding. A key innovation within the strategy was to develop a method that could attribute habitat change to natural, uncertain or man-made causes.
This helped influence national discussions between the Environment Agency, Defra and Natural England and has UK-wide implications. The work was underpinned by strong scientific understanding and political engagement. Application of this innovation has turned it into a deliverable strategy; removing the risk of legal challenge. Early schemes around the Severn Estuary that protect around 50,000 homes from flooding can now progress without further habitat creation schemes, saving at least £5 million.
The river close season always sparks debate as to whether it is still fir for purpose, actually benefits our rivers, or is just an antiquated rule that should be removed?
The Angling Trust has set up a page with comments and views from a range of knowledgeable anglers,
To see what they think click Here
Not withstanding any debate, our rivers are closed until 16th June and should not be fished. To report illegal out of season fishing please call, 0800 807060
The Environment Agency (EA) has admitted that it has failed to follow its own procedures when investigating pollution incidents which cause fish kills. Fish Legal has criticised the EA about its pollution response several times over the past few years, but the Environment Agency had previously refused to accept this criticism.
Fish Legal has now been able to use the EA’s own data, obtained through a freedom of information (FOI) enquiry, to back up its complaint. The EA then commissioned an internal audit in response, which confirmed Fish Legal’s findings that there were serious issues that needed addressing.
The EA audit and Fish Legal’s analysis exposed poor or non-existent record keeping, and a failure to monitor performance in responding to pollution incidents as part of the EA’s fisheries function. It found that fish kill assessment reports and post-pollution fish stock surveys were lacking or inconsistently provided. Response times to pollution incidents similarly appeared poor, and expert fishery staff were often not sent out to investigate fish kill incidents. Fish Legal concluded in its letter to the EA Head of Fisheries that – among other factors – structural and internal management issues caused this poor performance, with insufficient focus on fisheries team involvement when incidents were being reported. Operational instructions were also not being complied with by Environment Management Team staff, who decide on the nature of the initial response to reports of pollution incidents.
This is important because the quality of regulatory response depends on accurate information being obtained early on through appropriate and timely action. The failings exposed by Fish Legal and the internal audit mean that enforcement action against polluters can be severely hindered (or not occur at all), because of failures in reacting to pollution events and/or keeping accurate and complete records of consequent investigations. Furthermore, Fish Legal has at times not been provided with the information it needs when fighting civil claims against polluters on behalf of its member clubs and fishery owners, because the Agency simply does not have it. The EA’s internal audit accepted that action was required to address Fish Legal’s criticisms.
The Audit recommended further action by Environment Agency Directors in several areas:
1. Internal record-keeping
2. Accuracy of information recorded
3. Involvement of fisheries staff following fish-kills
4. Compliance with its own internal procedures
5. Contacting angling clubs and fishery owners to record amenity impacts of pollution
The EA took approximately 6 months to respond to Fish Legal’s FOI request, and even then it was unable to confirm that the information it had supplied was entirely accurate or complete. It took a further 9 months for the audit findings to be presented to Fish Legal, apparently because EA senior management was unwilling to reveal its findings outside the organisation. Fish Legal welcomes the Head of Fisheries’ efforts towards greater transparency, and also his personal commitment to work with Fish Legal and the Angling Trust to improve performance and build confidence in this area. The Environment Agency is now drawing up a plan to implement the audit recommendations on which Fish Legal and the England Fisheries Group will be consulted. However, at the heart of this problem is too few fisheries staff, conflicting internal priorities and under-funding, all of which will be made worse by imminent government spending cuts.
Fish Legal and the Angling Trust remain concerned that the Environment Agency is in danger of failing in its statutory duty to maintain, improve and develop fisheries unless matters improve, and they are calling for:
1. The Government to cancel its planned funding cuts, which will lead to the loss of approximately 1,500 EA staff.
2. An increase in fisheries staff undertaking a more prominent and consistent role in pollution investigations.
3. More of the costs of investigations to be recovered from polluters who are prosecuted. Often these are not fully recovered and are met by the government and revenue from anglers’ rod licences.
4. Structural reform within the Agency to address the fundamental problems with the chain of command, which puts fisheries staff under the control of Area Managers, rather than the Head of Fisheries.
5. Immediate action to improve record-keeping, and the accuracy of records kept.
Penelope Gane, Trainee Legal Executive at Fish Legal, who currently leads the investigation said: “We are pleased that the Environment Agency has at last agreed that it has not been responding to pollution incidents correctly. Whilst we appreciate that it is not possible for a fisheries officer to attend every pollution incident, we certainly do not expect them to be kept in the dark if there is a fish kill on their patch. We will be watching very closely to check that the Agency collects and records information about the effects of pollution in future so that polluters are held fully accountable for their actions and so Fish Legal can claim adequate civil damages on behalf of its affected member clubs, riparian owners and fisheries.”
William Rundle, Head Solicitor at Fish Legal said: “This audit confirms that Fish Legal was correct in claiming over many years that fish kill investigations have regularly not been properly carried out. One of the major surprises coming out of this investigation was that in some cases the regulator was simply unable to tell us what it had done or why it hadn’t acted in a particular way following a fish kill incident. This needs to change. The EA needs to sharpen-up in its protection of fisheries. EA fisheries staff do an excellent job under very difficult conditions, but we need more of them and for them to be much better resourced." He added: "If the EA were better at recovering the costs of investigations from polluters then this could mean more money for better incident responses, and a greater willingness of managers to spend resources in this area.”
Mark Lloyd, Chief Executive of the Angling Trust and Fish Legal said: “Our legal team has done a huge amount of work to expose these failures and to get the Agency to accept that change is needed. We are very grateful for the support of tens of thousands of anglers who have generously paid subscriptions and donations to Fish Legal and the Angling Trust, without which we would not have been able to win this important battle for the benefit of fish and fishing. We will be pressing for fundamental change to the way the organisation operates in future on the back of this investigation, which has been upheld by the Agency’s own internal audit.”
Dredging isn’t a ‘silver bullet’ to solve the winter flooding crisis. It can actually make downstream flooding worse, is usually bad news for the environment and would have delivered a staggering extra 550 million gallons of floodwater a day into the flood hit communities of the Lower Thames. That was the stark message taken to Parliament by Angling Trust Campaigns Chief Martin Salter on behalf of the Blueprint for Water coalition.
The Environment Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee held a special hearing on the flooding which has rocked parts of Britain this winter. The RSPB’s Rob Cunningham and the Angling Trust’s Martin Salter answered questions from the committee on behalf of the Blueprint for Water coalition. They emphasised how land management practices, such as farming, should be modified to reduce the run off of soil and water and how floodwater needs to be better stored higher up the catchment to reduce the risk of flooding further downstream. The Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management’s (CIWEM) Martin Whiting also gave evidence, providing a technical assessment of where and how dredging may be one component of a package of measures, while emphasising the need to improve management of water on a whole catchment basis.
On 14 February, CIWEM published a report, endorsed by the Blueprint for Water coalition. The report – Floods and Dredging, a Reality Check – suggested solely relying on dredging can even make some communities more vulnerable to the risk of flooding. The report calls for leadership from the government in promoting sustainable measures across whole catchments to minimise flood risks, rather than politically-motivated, knee-jerk reactions. It also warns against using the artificially reclaimed landscape on the Somerset Levels, which requires regular dredging, as a template for the management of the natural rivers of Britain.
Martin Salter told the committee: “Wholesale dredging for flood risk management, rather than for navigation, stopped on the Thames in the early 1980s because the key engineers concluded it was a complete waste of time and money. They discovered that the river bed has barely changed over centuries, exemplified by the fact that they were pulling out Bronze Age remains in the dredging buckets when they dug into hard bed. Like many rivers the Thames is by and large self scouring and an extreme flood event will move more silt than the dredgers ever can.
Furthermore, estimates from the Environment Agency’s Flood Risk Management team revealed that had the upper and middle Thames and its tributaries been subject to the wholesale dredging some have called for, there would have been at least a 10% increase in floodwater hitting the Lower Thames communities around Old Windsor, Wraysbury and Staines where I grew up. This equates to an extra 550 million gallons of floodwater a day at the peak of the flood delivering a minimum of 6 inches to a foot more flooding to already hard hit communities.” Mr Salter added: “Politicians need to stop looking for quick fix solutions and recognise that extreme weather will create more flooding and that this will require a stronger, not weaker Environment Agency, more restrictions on building on the floodplain and real incentives to improve upland farming practices to slow down the flow of water throughout the catchment.” Mr Salter described the recent attacks on the Environment Agency by government ministers as "a low point in British politics. "
Whilst out looking at the River Hogsmill in Kingston upon Thames, a local fisherman spotted pollution being pumped direct into the water from a large building site. The keen eyed angler called the Environment Agency hotline to immediately report what he was witnessing.
This pollution is not only illegal and highly damaging to these known Chub spawning grounds, but shows some people have little respect or care for what goes into our rivers.
Thanks to his prompt action the Environment Agency can act against this renowned large building company and we hope they will be successfully prosecuted through our courts.
Key to this is getting evidence, and in this case his quick thinking was to film it on a smart phone
If you see pollution of any sort, it must be reported in to the Environment Agency on 0800 807060, get pictures and/or video, evidence is key.
The Environment Agency will give a reference number, if you do not have a pen ask for it to be sent by text or email, and ask for them to call back with an update.
As anglers we are the eyes and ear of the rivers, and as this case proves, don't ignore it, report it.
TAC
The Blueprint for Water coalition of environmental groups has welcomed changes to the Water Bill that will increase the sustainability of the water industry by placing a new, strengthened ‘resilience duty’ on the regulator.
The Water Bill currently passing through parliament will give Ofwat a duty to promote ‘resilience’ by ensuring that water companies ‘manage water resources in sustainable ways and reduce demand for water.’ The Blueprint coalition, which includes WWF, RSPB and the Angling Trust, had raised concerns that the Bill initially defined resilience in a way that ignored the vital role it plays in supporting the resilience of the natural environment.
The Government have now amended the ‘resilience duty’ so that it includes environmental resilience, and Blueprint members now believe this duty could play an important role in ensuring that water companies deliver environmental improvements to the UK’s already stressed and over- abstracted rivers and watercourses. However, Blueprint believes that even with these welcome amendments the Water Bill is still far too timid and fails to live up to the 2011 Water White Paper, which promised abstraction reform.
Martin Salter, Campaigns Chief for the Angling Trust said, "All the environmental groups have been working hard to ensure that the water regulator was obligated to take account of environmental concerns and not just economic pressures. This new and strengthened resilience duty, with its obligation “to manage water resources in sustainable ways and reduce demand for water”, goes some way to addressing our concerns and we are pleased that the government has listened." The main thrust of the Water Bill is introducing competition in the retail market for water, but the Bill also introduces competition in the so-called upstream market, namely in water abstraction, treatment and disposal of sewage. However, environmentalists are concerned that without reform of the system by which we abstract water, upstream competition could incentivise existing abstraction licence holders to sell their water to water companies even when the catchment is already ‘over- abstracted’ or ‘over-licensed.’ Given that the Environment Agency estimate that nearly 40% of water company abstraction volume is not used1 and that 18% of catchments are over-licensed already2, this is no paper risk.
Rose O’Neill, Water Policy Manager at WWF said, "We are urgently calling on the Government to set out its commitment on abstraction reform in the Water Bill. Without this, our already over- stressed water environment could be further degraded, and the potential benefits of upstream competition will never be realised." The Blueprint for Water coalition is calling for the Government to amend the Water Bill so that it:
•Creates a framework for a sustainable abstraction regime;
•Introduces safeguards for the environment against upstream competition;
•Gives customers the right to choose universal metering in their area;
•Ensures that fracking companies have the funds to pay for the cost of clean-up, should pollution occur.
The Angling Trust has raised concerns that the Community Energy Strategy announced by Energy Minister Ed Davey today, coupled with the already generous Feed in Tariffs offered by government, will lead to a fresh wave of applications for planning permission for hydropower turbines from community groups that could do great damage to fisheries for many decades to come.
In response, the Trust has published a free guidance document to community groups and developers to provide practical advice about how to reduce the impact of hydropower on fish and other wildlife. The Angling Trust has reviewed hundreds of applications for hydropower schemes in recent years and its experts have concluded that the majority of them would have a detrimental impact on the ecology of rivers. It has successfully objected to numerous schemes and Fish Legal, which acts as the Angling Trust’s legal arm in England, even managed to get a legal injunction to stop a major hydropower project going ahead last year on the River Trent.
The Trust has also battled successfully over the past four years with the Salmon & Trout Association to get new guidelines introduced by the Environment Agency which should reduce the scale and number of schemes coming forward. According to Government figures, the maximum amount of electricity that could be generated by all of the 26,000 sites which have potential for run of river hydropower would be less than 0.5% of national electricity demand, and in practice it will be much less than this because many schemes would be unfeasible. The Angling Trust has repeatedly questioned whether it makes sense to support hydropower with public subsidy when it can do great damage to fisheries and yet generates so little power on a national scale. Many community groups have spent considerable time and money developing plans for schemes which have turned out to be unfeasible.
For example, North Devon Council wasted almost £150,000 on the development of plans for a community scheme on the East Lyn in North Devon to install a new concrete weir to generate hydropower. With one of the last healthy salmon populations in England, this beautiful river is a Site of Special Scientific Interest and the scheme was axed. Other community groups who have managed to get permission to develop have been disappointed when the financial returns promised by consultants has failed to materialise.
Mark Lloyd, chief executive of the Angling Trust said: “We are very concerned that these grants will lead to another wave of damaging and pointless hydropower developments that will damage our fisheries for generations. Our advice document is aimed at communities who are motivated to do their bit to save the planet from climate change, but who might not be aware that their schemes might actually do more harm to the environment than good. The Angling Trust wants to avoid communities’ good intentions leading to unintended consequences and urges them to look at other ways of generating power than hydropower.”
