MADAM,

I have followed with interest the continuing saga of the sewage discharge into the River Wye at Redbrook and the insistence of the Environment Agency that there is no evidence that the “treated” effluent has any adverse effect on the water quality.

The outfall from the Newland works originally passed into the valley brook until, in the 1980s, both quantity and quality killed everything in the brook and the stench became unbearable in the village of Redbrook where the brook enters the Wye. Consequently, the effluent was piped, two miles, directly into the river, by-passing the brook. Even then, the smell in the village was unacceptable and the outfall was extended into mud-river and a line of boulders installed to keep it there. Over the years, as more properties are connected to main drainage, the quantity of effluent, which takes place continuously, has continued to increase.

I cannot believe that this pollution which, according to the Environment Agency meets statutory standards, has no effect on the river, especially in times of low summer flow.

Perhaps the Environment Agency can explain:

1. Why there are no bullheads, a fish indicative of good water quality, to be found in the river below Redbrook when once they were very common. This fish is one of the six species which gives the river its special area of conservation status.

2. Why the freshwater shrimp has also vanished when once it was present in countless myriads. This is an important species in the aquatic food chain.

3. Why salmon no longer spawn in the lower river as they once did. Developing pairs were at one time common in all the shallows throughout the year.

4. Why swifts, martins and swallows no longer hawk along the river in the summer evenings feeding on the abundant fly life which the river once produced.

Perhaps none of these have anything to do with water quality but they still need investigating, something which our regulatory bodies seem unwilling or incapable of attempting.

I have fished the Wye and known it intimately for well over 70 years and its present state bears no comparison to the river I once knew. This saddens me enormously.

Maurice Hudson

(St Briavels)