The Environment Agency faces new allegations of neglect of the River Wye after a project by a conservation group found effluent and contaminated waters at free-range egg farms flowing directly into watercourses in the catchment.
Out of 47 sites visited in England and Wales in the Wye catchment, 19 had drains running from the poultry units to a nearby watercourse. Many of the farms had drains excavated within a few metres of the sheds.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The Environment Agency faces new allegations of neglect of the River Wye after a project by a conservation group found effluent and contaminated waters at free-range egg farms flowing directly into watercourses in the catchment.
The River Wye has been blighted by poultry pollution, with hundreds of new production units approved in the last two decades to feed the nation’s huge demand for chicken meat and eggs.
In an email to Environment Agency officials sent in February last year, the Wye and Usk Foundation said that drainage water from the farms was “a pollution risk and should not be directed to watercourses”.
Noble has been actively engaged in helping to find and fund solutions on the farms that supply them, and their support is driving the progress that is being made to resolve the issues.”
The initial evidence suggests that the impact of free-range farming is likely to have a minimal, if any, direct effect on the increased phosphate levels in the Rivers Wye and Usk.”
Rhian Jardine, head of development planning at Natural Resources Wales, said: “[Welsh Water] has published data which indicates that rural land use is contributing to 72% of phosphorus loading of the upper Wye.
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