Thames Water face unlimited fine over Wandle pollution

Thames Water's pollution of the Wandle last Autumn has been referred up to Croydon Crown Court after local magistrates in Sutton decided that the incident deserved a more severe punishment than the maximum £20,000 fine they were able to impose.

Two tonnes of dead fish had to be extracted from the Wandle following the spillage of 1,600 litres of hydrochloric acid (bleach) into the river last year. Fortunately, no lasting damage was done to the river and after remedial works and extra investment the Wandle is again thriving.

The company now faces an unlimited fine; which is right except even though the people who ultimately pay for this criminal negligence are you and me. Thames Water behaved appallingly over this incident - not only by letting the acid escape in the first place but then trying to cover up their error by tightening security and putting up new signage before the Environment Agency had arrived to find out exactly what happened. And yes, they have spent over £500,000 rectifying the damage but that doesn't erase the original error.

I write regularly about issues affecting the Wandle: you can read my news stories about the river at www.stuartking.net/blog/wandle.htm

Restoring the Wandle

I'm passionate about getting the river Wandle, which forms the Putney constituency's eastern boundary, cleaned up. I've written about the importance of the Wandle regularly since being selected, and when there's something to say about it, I'll continue to do so.

I grew up with the Wandle on my doorstep but when I was growing up the river was polluted and very nearly dead. Today, the news is very different, despite the Thames Water acid spillage a few months ago.

Not only is the water cleaner but The Wandle Trust has been organising cleanup events to haul the huge amount of trash that has been dumped in it over the years. This isn't just about aesthetics: rubbish in any river raises the water level - and that worsens flooding, so it's important to keep the Wandle clean AND clear.

The Wandle will never return to being the vital channel for industry it was in Victorian times: servicing 90 mills along its length, but it can once again be a proud and important river no longer buried by planners or polluted by fly-tippers. That's something I hope we can all welcome.

If you'd like to get involved with one of the cleanups call the Wandle Trust on 0845 092 0110.

A river runs through it

There was some coverage over the weekend of proposals by London's Mayor Boris Johnson to unearth or open up London's rivers.

Because so many of these have been concreted-over or have dried up it is unsurprising that many who aren't familiar with London's history have no idea that our Capital has far more rivers running through it than just the Thames.

Locally, we are fortunate to have one of the few that remains above ground, at least for large sections of its length: the Wandle. The Wandle was also one of the rivers highlighted in the news coverage of the Mayor's plans. Although they would mainly affect areas downstream of the Southfields sections of the Wandle I welcome them; as I do any plans to reveal as many of London's forgotten rivers where it is practicable to do so.

I hope the Mayor's ideas also help defeat the plans to over-develop the Ram Brewery site which runs alongside the Wandle near its mouth into the Thames. Although these plans do not cover-over the Wandle, the huge tower blocks - of up to 42 storeys - proposed will create a dark canyon either side of it that will hardly enhance the river.

I'd also like a duty on those who own property abutting the Wandle (and other above-ground rivers) to provide a public path along the river enshrined in London planning law, in exactly the same way policies like this helped, over thirty years, create the Thames Path many of us enjoy today.

Large expanses of the Wandle, not least alongside King George's Park, are already open - there's a Wandle nature trail that takes you as far south as Croydon - but far more could be opened up, especially where there are prime re-development sites backing onto the river. Not everywhere will be appropriate - such a policy wouldn't force residents to surrender their back gardens for instance - but a lot more could be done to make the river more accessible.

And it will ensure that never again will councils be able to build shopping centres like Southside over the Wandle. One of the great missed opportunities of the Arndale (Southside) development is that had a more sensitive plan - which made the Wandle its feature - been implemented it would today be a far more vibrant, welcoming and popular shopping centre.

Life returns to the Wandle

I reported last November on Thames Water's accidental release of chemicals into the River Wandle that wiped out wildlife for hundreds of metres downstream.

I'm pleased to report that after coughing up 500,000 - the least Thames Water could do to make up for their debacle - signs of life are returning to the river. Trout have been spotted in the affected area, which is great news.

While I don't want to sound like some latter day Huckleberry Finn, I grew up alongside the Wandle and I think London's minor rivers are among the capital's greatest treasures. So many of them have either dried up or been paved over as the city expanded and grew that it's really important to cherish the rivers that run through our urban, built-up environment.

That's why the return of wildlife to the river, alongside more active efforts to return the area's indigenous creatures like water voles - which I've also blogged about - is news to be celebrated.

Thames Water pollute the Wandle

On September 17th, Thames Water accidentally discharged industrial bleach into the River Wandle from their sewage treatment works in Beddington.

As a result, it's estimated that over 2,000 fish died between the plant and Morden - though we can take limited comfort that Thames Water believes that the bleach had so dissipated further downstream that there has been little to no effect on the Southfields stretch of the river, which is of course part of our constituency.

This is just the latest in a catalogue of mishaps and poor service from Thames Water; which includes:

• The discharge of raw sewage straight into the Thames whenever it rains heavily
• The lamentable waste of water through pipe leaks while at the same time the company charges us ever more and lectures us about saving water;
• The poor standard of water quality revealed in the Thames report (which I covered here) and
• Reducing mains water pressure which forced residents living in blocks at the top of Putney Hill to shell out for additional pumping equipment in order to maintain their service

While Thames Water have funded the cleanup and are better monitoring their Beddington sewage plant, it's becoming clear to me that the diffuse regulatory regime governing this company (with responsibility split between the Environment Agency and Ofwat principally) is allowing this company to get away with, quite literally, murder (or at least manslaughter - of Wandle wildlife).

Voles for the Wandle

The River Wandle and Beverley Brook form, respectively, large parts of the boundary of the Putney constituency: the Wandle separating Southfields from Wandsworth, Earlsfield and Tooting; and Beverley Brook Putney from Richmond Park, East Sheen and Barnes. They are also hidden from public view - and perhaps therefore overlooked - for much of their length - either being routed under development like the Arndale or just difficult to access.

The London Wildlife Trust (LWT) has just announced plans to reintroduce Water Voles, which once were a substantial part of the Wandle's character, following a successful project in nearby Watermeads Island in Mitcham earlier this year. The Water Vole is one of Britain's fastest declining mammals, partly due to human encroachment on their habitat but also because Mink have been hunting them. Shockingly, there is now only one water vole for every 20 that existed just 80 years ago.

The last Wandle Vole was spotted in the 1960s but flood protection work in the 1970s is thought to have ensured their demise. This project, which I fully support, should also see other forms of wildlife cultivated, including dragonflies and Irises, and lead to an even more diverse, interesting and beautiful Wandle.

You can find out more about this and other London Wildlife Trust projects (as well as taking their quiz to find out what London Animal you most closely resemble!) by clicking here and you can visit the River Wandle - which exits into the Thames in Wandsworth town just past Point Pleasant - at a number of spots but especially from King George's Park in Southfields.