Water companies, not farmers, to blame for river pollution

Ecologist

15th April, 2010

Household sewage waste rather than farm slurry should be the target of tough pollution measures to reduce phosphorus levels in English rivers, says study

 

Phosphorus from human and household waste, rather than fertiliser run-off from farming, is the main source of river pollution, according to recently published findings.

A ten-year study of nine rivers including the river Thames used another chemical, boron, found in washing powders, to help identify household waste as the main source of phosphorus.

The study, led by Professor Colin Neal, from the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, in collaboration with scientists from Bangor and Durham University, has now been published in the journal Science of the Total Environment.

Dangers of phosphorus

Excess levels of phosphorus in water contributes to the process known as eutrophication, whereby certain species, for example algae, thrive and rapidly begin to dominant the river at the expense of other species, including fish. When the algae die, their decomposition removes vital oxygen from river waters.

Farming – in particular the over- and mis-timed application of pig, poultry and dairy slurry, has previously been blamed for phosphorus run-off and pollution of water supplies.

As recently as 2002, Defra had estimated that agriculture was responsible for about 50 per cent of phosphorus inputs to surface waters in the UK, with human and household waste responsible for some 24 per cent.

However, scientists now say agriculture’s contribution has been exaggerated and that it is likely to be the source of just 20 per cent of phosphorus pollution, with household waste contributing 73 per cent.

The Environment Agency, commenting after the publication of the findings, said it agreed with the analysis and believed sewage effluent accounted for 60-70 per cent of the total phosphorus entering rivers in England and Wales. However, it said that for lakes, agriculture was still seen as the main source with household sewage second.

Impact of sewage

The study found the impact of sewage on river ecology was greater because its highest levels coincided with spring and summer growing periods.

‘The critical time for biology is during the growing period when flows are relatively low and the effluent inputs are diluted the least. So, when biological activity is high phosphate concentrations are highest due to effluent inputs,’ said Professor Neal.

‘During the winter there may well be a high agricultural input of phosphorus, but this is not the critical period for biology and in many cases the phosphorus in agricultural runoff is in particulate rather than dissolved form – it is the dissolved form that is critical for eutrophication,’ he said.

Professor Neal said their study did not argue that farming should be ignored and that high-risk areas of intensive livestock production should still be targeted. But he said that in agricultural areas greater emphasis should be placed on identifying effluent sources from houseolds, including septic tanks and local drains.
 
At the national level, he said their studies indicated that sewage should now be seen as the ‘prime target for phosphorus remediation in rivers.’

River ecology

However, Professor Neal warned that simply removing phosphorus might not provide the solution to good river ecology.

Analysis of targeted phosphorus removal on the River Kennet, off the Thames, found eutrophication to still be a major problem.

‘The Kennet example shows that the problem cannot be solved just by removing phosphorus – the whole ecosystem needs fixing. We have to think more about how to make our rivers clean and how to restore the ecosystem back to what was before.

‘We need to address far more than phosphorus concentrations in rivers, such as flow, habitat, and water resources which requires new science that looks at the complex relationships between hydrology, biology, chemistry and habitat, as well as our interactions and needs,’ said Professor Neal.

Useful links
Centre for Ecology and Hydrology

Climate science moves on while politics stalled

Hobart, Thursday 15 April 2010

New reports from the global Argo project, showing how fast the oceans
around Australia are warming, are just the latest new science backing up
the need for urgent and serious action on the climate crisis.

“We are relentlessly heating our oceans and atmosphere while politics
has stalled,” Australian Greens Acting Leader, Senator Christine Milne,
said.

“We cannot afford right now to let climate politics stall, but neither
can we afford to simply accept policies which are so poorly designed
that they lock in our polluting economy for years to come.

“The Greens have a proposal on the table, designed by Professor Garnaut
and supported by the whole environment movement and many social groups,
that would get Australia moving with climate action right now.

“Our simple carbon levy proposal is popular and effective – it gives
industry certainty straight away, but is designed to be strengthened as
time goes on. It is a building block for action with real teeth.

“Mr Rudd should embrace this opportunity the Greens are putting forward
to his government for Australia to get moving on climate action before
the election.”

Tim Hollo
Media Adviser
Senator Christine Milne | Australian Greens Deputy Leader and Climate
Change Spokesperson
Suite SG-112 Parliament House, Canberra ACT | P: 02 6277 3588 | M: 0437
587 562
http://www.christinemilne.org.au/| www.GreensMPs.org.au
<http://www.greensmps.org.au/>

Churches must not be allowed to sabotage ethics lessons
 
Media release: 13 April 2010
 
Moves by the Sydney Anglican church hierarchy to interfere with the development of an ethics-based alternative to religious instruction in public schools could severely disadvantage children from non-believing families, according to Greens NSW MP John Kaye (SMH, Tuesday 13 April 2010, p 1, http://bit.ly/smh100413).
 
Dr Kaye said: “For 130 years organised religion has exercised absolute domination over one hour a week of public school time.
 
“Children from families that do not support a particular creed or prefer to arrange their own religious instruction have been forced to waste an hour of their valuable school week.
 
“The ethics-based alternative is a sensible plan to allow these students to use the school time profitably.
 
“This has nothing to do with the Anglicans, Catholics or any other religious group. They remain free to attract students and instruct then as they have always done.
 
“The ethics based classes are absolutely none of their business.
 
“Kristina Keneally should show she is the premier for all NSW households, including the atheists, agnostics and those that reject organised religion.
 
“She should not allow the religious leaders to sabotage the ethics-based course.
 
“If the Sydney Anglicans or other creeds are worried about losing students then they should look to what they are offering and how they teach it.
 
“Last year Education Minister Verity Firth sensibly supported a pilot program being developed by the St James Ethics Centre to offer a secular alternative instead of the students watching videos, playing games or wasting time.
 
“The Keneally government must stand up to Archbishop Peter Jensen and prelates and their insecurity and allow the trial to go ahead without hostile interference,” Dr Kaye said.
 
For more information: John Kaye 0407 195 455 
 
 

 

His intervention comes as negotiations between the premiers and Mr Rudd enter a final week ahead of next Monday’s Council of Australian Government’s meeting.

The Prime Minister will today unveil a $739m package supporting 5000 aged-care places. The announcement will increase pressure on Mr Brumby, who last week issued a rival blueprint rejecting Mr Rudd’s planned hospital takeover in favour of a 50-50 funding model and continued state control

In Brisbane yesterday, Mr Rudd again pressed premiers to sign up next week.

“I believe that working families, pensioners, carers right across the country have already reached a conclusion that the current system is not good enough,” he said.

“It needs to be improved.”

But Mr Brumby attacked Mr Rudd for releasing the package one element at a time.

“It would have been better to deal with the whole health system in one go rather than in bits and pieces,” Mr Brumby said.

“I don’t believe you can separate it out.”

Mr Brumby said the Prime Minister must put more money on the table for the states to agree to his plan.

In today’s announcement, the commonwealth will offer to take full funding and policy responsibility for aged care, including home and community care currently provided by the states, to enable a nationally consistent aged-care system. Mr Rudd will offer the states $280m to fund older people who occupy hospital beds while waiting to get into aged-care facilities, which in 2006 numbered 2400.

The package also includes $143m for providing zero real interest loans to aged-care providers to support development of 2500 new aged-care places.

It promises to work with the states to release more land and accelerate planning approvals to enable aged-care homes to become operational more quickly.

Incentives will be provided to general practitioners to increase services to people in aged-care homes, in a $96m plan over four years.

It is estimated that 27,000 hospital admissions a year could be avoided through better GP care in aged-care homes.

State premiers have been demanding key detail on the federal government’s plans for aged care since Mr Rudd unveiled his $50 billion public hospitals reform plan last month.

But Mr Corbett told Seven aged care was a prime example of why the hospitals reform plan should be opposed.

“If you’re involved with aged parents and trying to navigate your way through those services, they are hopelessly unco-ordinated and, I think, a national disgrace run by, I might say, the federal government.”

Mr Corbett said Mr Rudd’s planned local area hospital networks would only add to confusion and lead to more public servants.

Mr Rudd’s aged-care instalment will add to a string of big bang announcements from the commonwealth in the past few weeks, including the weekend’s $500m funding injection to cut waiting times in emergency departments to a maximum four hours and $500m to treat diabetes.

“I would say to any premier or chief minister who thinks that their system is currently good enough and doesn’t need to be improved, to go and have a long, long conversation with people currently queuing for attention at the emergency departments of their hospital this morning,” Mr Rudd said.

Claiming the biggest shake-up to the healthcare system since Medicare, Mr Rudd has proposed that the federal government contribute 60 per cent of public hospitals funding in return for clawing back 30 per cent of the GST.

The government has threatened a referendum for a full commonwealth takeover of health if the states fail to agree to the plan.

Tony Abbott yesterday accused Mr Rudd of throwing money at problems. “It seems that the Prime Minister is throwing money at problems in a transparent attempt to bribe the state governments to sign up to his plan,” the Opposition Leader said.