England set to break extended deadline to meet EU water pollution targets and already risks legal action for failing to meet original 2015 deadline, reports ENDS

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

Most rivers, lakes and coastal and ground waters in England will still not meet legally binding EU water pollution targets by 2021 – six years after the initial deadline.

According to the Environment Agency’s (EA) draft river basin management plans (RBMPs), analysed by ENDS, compliance with Water Framework Directive (WFD) standards will have risen to just 25% in 2021, up from 17% in 2015 (see table 1).



Facebook Twitter Pinterest Table 1: Water bodies failing to meet overall ‘good’ ecological status by 2021. Photograph: Environment Agency

And improvement measures over those five years will cost the country more than £25bn (see table 2).

The original deadline for bringing all water bodies to ‘good’ overall ecological and chemical status was 2015 and the UK is already at risk of legal action from the European commission for its failure to meet it.

Now it transpires that the extended 2021 deadline will not be met either.

Last year the EA blamed a more stringent regime as part of the reason for the poor performance. The commission has brought in more comprehensive assessments, tougher standards and a one-out-all-out rule which means that, if a water body fails on just one of up to 40 elements, the whole body is categorised as a fail.

As a result the EA has downgraded the objectives for some water bodies and extended the deadline for compliance in others within the RBMPs, citing technical infeasibility, disproportionate expense and slow recovery times.

However, the low compliance rate masks better performance on individual elements. Between 82-88% of all chemical and biological elements are predicted to be at ‘good or better status’ in all river basin districts by 2021.

The main pressures affecting water bodies are: physical modification, which changes flow and creates fine sediment; chemical and nitrate pollution from agriculture; and phosphate pollution from the water sector.

If the EA’s proposed measures are put in place, the lion’s share of the cost burden will fall to farmers and landowners (£12.4bn) and the water industry (£10.2bn) (see table 2). It will cost the government £3.1bn and wider industry £940m.

RBMPs must be reviewed and updated every six years. The draft updated versions for 2016-21 have been submitted to ministers and are awaiting approval.