Green campaigners came together at Flatford to draw attention to the plight of the River Stour on 25th September 2022, World Rivers Day.
This iconic river, made famous by the paintings of Constable and Gainsborough, together with Suffolk's entire river network, has failed to achieve the Government and Water Framework Directive (WFD) target. All of Suffolk's rivers are under threat from pollution, over-abstraction and climate change.
Dangerous levels
Last year sewage was dumped into the Stour on 389 occasions, for a total of over 4,000 hours. This year campaigners along the Stour have found concentrations of E.coli in some cases 20 times above the Government standard.
The Stour is not designated as bathing water, but people do swim in it, children paddle, and more people are kayaking and paddle boarding. Anglian Water says that it is committed to taking “bold action” to enhancing rivers and ensuring its sewage treatment works do not harm rivers.
Campaigners called for more action and visible proof that Anglian Water is committed to a programme of work now.
Committed action
At the World Rivers Day event, the campaigners declared themselves stewards of the Stour and will be joining with others to become citizen scientists, taking samples from the Stour, and testing them to monitor Anglian Water’s operations.
Green Campaigner, Laura Smith said, “Last year the Environment Agency reported that Anglian Water had more serious pollution incidents than any other water company. It has been fined three times this year already by the regulator but appears to think that’s just a normal cost of doing business. It’s predicting an operating profit of over £440 million this year so it needs to put its money where its mouth is, and we are going to make sure it does.”
