London Waterkeeper

Waitrose to suspend mackerel sales due to overfishing concerns bbc.in/3ZVX6AS

F ing h*ell, what have @thameswater done now?!? MASSIVE flood in Caledonian Road, right outside my house (basement flat), RIGHT NOW!

"While non-plastic textiles are not as long-lived as plastics, with many composting within weeks to months, they can last long enough to accumulate and cause damage to plants, animals and humans." theconversation.com/why-some-biode…

Banning most plastic wet wipes from 2027 may see little reduction in sewer blockages. Non-plastic wipes can still cause fatbergs if flushed. They don't disintegrate like toilet paper. Producers must pay towards the £100m it costs to clear them. bbc.co.uk/news/articles/…

We need an approach that encourages businesses to internalise the costs of pollution prevention and treatment. If we rely too heavily on fines there is an incentive not to invest which sees the environment bear the burden. There is a financial disincentive to be cleaner.

In addition to Environment Agency attending all serious pollution incidents is the need for more preventative work. We need greater compliance so there is less pollution in the first place. That way investment and best practice are rewarded. bbc.co.uk/news/articles/…

Conventional drainage funnels rain off surfaces as quickly as possible, increasing the flood risk for those downstream. Add to that the countless green spaces paved over not using greener options. London is many years behind cities like Copenhagen, so there is much to do.

One way to stop pollution from paved surfaces reaching rivers is parking areas with gaps. They also help reduce the amount of rain entering drains, cutting flood risk. The recent London strategy sets out what needs to be done to unseal the city: london.gov.uk/programmes-str…

This problem alone sees rivers fail water quality standards. londonwaterkeeper.org.uk/run-off-from-i…

Sewers don’t pollute rivers every time it rains, but roads and paved areas do. Where surface water systems are connected to rivers all the muck that builds up in dry weather is dumped into them. This problem is unquantified and unregulated by the Environment Agency. 1/2

A cloudy morning will keep the Lea in a precarious position. It needs sun so aquatic plants can replenish its oxygen. When the river doesn’t have to process our pollution it regains it's health. Sadly, it's never long before it has to cope with more. telemetry-data.com/open?profile=l…

The sensor in the River Lea at the Olympic Park shows how it's struggling tonight. Pollution washed in by rain saw dissolved oxygen fall. It increased a little but is now sluggish. Still above the 20% danger threshold thankfully. It wants to be healthy, despite everything!

The turbidity increases when the rain flows in (brown line). The blue line shows the drop in dissolved oxygen (black oval). The monitors are here telemetry-data.com/open?profile=l…

The River Lea is looking vulnerable at the moment. Dissolved oxygen above Lea Bridge Weir has dropped below 20%. The rain has washed in accumulated muck from 80 square miles of paved areas. It churns up pollution in the silt & turns the water cloudy so plants produce less O2.

A great example of how to protect London from flooding & cut river pollution. These rain gardens are in the valley of the lost River Fleet at St Pancras. They soak up 49,000 litres of rain & help prevent sewers spilling. But we've paved so much of London we need many, many more

@Petex70 Yes, looking forward to it!

@LDNWaterkeeper Are you going to the River Summit in Morden Hall on Tuesday?

It takes the Lea 2 days to recover from one change in conditions. Clouds on Weds cut the oxygen produced by plants in the river. Levels dropped to 35% (light blue line). Below 20% & fish struggle. Luckily not enough rain to wash in pollution which could have cut them to 10%. 1/2

A few more millimetres of rain would have washed accumulated pollution from 80 square miles of paving into the Lea. in June 2023 it rained, and dissolved oxygen levels fells below 20%, killing fish. See the water quality monitors here telemetry-data.com/open?profile=l… 2/2

The River Lea's monitors show how vulnerable it is in the summer. Warm water holds less oxygen but sun boosts photosynthesis. Today's clouds mean less oxygen (the red ovals). We're lucky there wasn't more rain to wash pollution off paved areas. In 2023 thousands of fish died. 1