Water UK fights for nature-based solutions

Water UK has called on the government to give catchment-based solutions to nutrient removal greater prominence by removing an amendment to a new bill that favours traditional grey engineering.

The Levelling up and Regeneration Bill (LURB), currently passing through the House of Lords, is designed to generate growth and enable homebuilding to progress with fewer restrictions.

However, the water sector has raised concerns, voiced by lobbying efforts of the trade body, that the prescribed approach to deal with excess nutrients in waterbodies is not the most effective and contradicts government ambitions for nature.

An amendment to the bill intends to prescribe that water companies should rebuild sewage works with new concrete and steel, rather than creating woodlands, reed beds and wetlands.

Stuart Collville, director of policy at Water UK, said pouring more concrete at wastewater treatment sites is neither the most cost effective or environmentally sound approach to mitigate phosphorus and nutrients that potentially damage rivers and streams.

The water sector is calling for catchment-based solutions to be deployed where appropriate in partnership with landowners who would be paid by a water company to deliver nature-based projects. Aside from the environmental benefits of enriching landscapes with wetlands, cover crops or developing woodlands, it could be worth up to £50 million annually to farmers and landowners incentivised to take part in such schemes.

Agricultural runoff is the main contributor to nutrient pollution, followed by wastewater treatment processes as reasons that rivers fail national environmental standards.

Partnership working with agricultural land users to incorporate nature-based solutions across a catchment area can be faster, more effective and cheaper, Collville argued, as well as being better for nature.

“We’re asking government to make a small change to their amendments that could unlock tens of thousands of homes years sooner,” he said.

Nutrient pollution can cause damaging amounts of algae and weeds to grow in waterways. Therefore developments must be nutrient neutral in areas designated as habitat sites, which requires developers to show how they will mitigate the extra nutrient impacts from additional homes before they can be connected to existing sewage treatment works.

Collville argued that Defra’s “blanket approach” is overly prescriptive when other methods could better achieve equivalent result of lower nutrients as well as other environmental benefits.

“We need the government to look again at their amendment, and we need to hear from ministers that they are committed to enabling catchment-based solutions to all nutrient issues through primary and secondary legislation or through clear guidance,” Collville said.

Without that change there is a risk of grey engineering will dominate nature-based catchment options to address nutrients, which would generate more chemicals and carbon also.

“This is a crucial moment for nature and for environmental markets: kickstart them now using water company investment or lose the opportunity to harness this capital once the investment has instead been made in hard-engineering solutions,” Collville wrote in a blog post regarding the amendment change.

The LURB is due to have its second reading in the House of Lords on 17 January.