The Wildlife Trusts are deeply concerned that the River Wye’s official status has been downgraded to ‘unfavourable-declining’, by the Government’s advisor, Natural England, today. The organisation’s new assessment shows that the much-loved river, which flows for 155 miles from mid-Wales to the Severn estuary in England, has experienced declines in key species such as the Atlantic salmon and white-clawed crayfish.
The new assessment covers the parts of the Wye that flow through England. When it was last assessed in 2010 only 1 of the 7 English units was ‘favourable’ and the remainder were ‘unfavourable recovering’, which means that actions underway could be expected to improve the condition over time. However, a new interim assessment out today shows that this has not happened – and now the Wye’s condition is worse, not better. The results are significant enough to reclassify all 7 units of the Wye, as well as all four units of its tributary the River Lugg, as ‘unfavourable declining’. The assessment on both the Wye and the Lugg record declines in salmon and crayfish, with declines in important aquatic plants also seen on the Wye.
Whilst the assessment has not recorded a failure against water quality targets on the Wye – though the water quality targets were failed on the Lugg – phosphate is close to its limits at some monitoring points. In recent months, concerns about nutrient pollution from intensive chicken units, livestock farming and from sewage have escalated on both sides of the Welsh-English border, with phosphate and other pollutants fuelling algal blooms that turn the river into ‘pea soup’.
As the Secretary of State for environment, Thérèse Coffey MP, convenes a River Wye roundtable today to hear about the issues, including the extremely high numbers of chickens in the catchment (estimateD put the number at over 24 million – the first algal blooms of the year are already appearing. The new assessment means that without urgent help and appropriate management the river will never reach a favourable or recovering condition.