THE MAGAZINE FOR THE DRAINAGE, WATER & WASTEWATER INDUSTRIES
ENVIRONMENTAL NEWS
to encourage collaborative research and training between academics and experts from the water industry, Government and Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs).
The celebration of the official opening welcomed high profile guests including regulators, government officials, local business owners, alongside academics and water experts.
The facility is a living laboratory, a place in
which energy and water efficiency is continually monitored, analysed and optimised via a digital twin to continue to be “Net Zero in Operation”. The building itself will provide valuable insights and offer up discoveries that can help support partners around the world to achieve their own Net Zero targets.
As the only water sector facing partnership to receive support from UK
Research Partnership Investment Fund (UKRPIF), as well as being the largest supported RPIF-sponsored project in the South West, CREWW’s official opening signals the start of a pioneering programme of research projects that will make a real, significant difference, with the team becoming thought leaders in our collective plan for water and its environmental challenges.
Highway runoff contains toxic chemicals at excessive levels, even at so-called “low risk” outfalls
A report launched by Stormwater Shepherds and CIWEM shines a light on the toxic cocktail of pollutants that runs off the UK’s road network and into our rivers and water sources every time it rains. The pollution comes from tyre particles, fuel spills and other vehicle fluids, road surface fragments, sediment and herbicides. These contain heavy metals and toxic chemicals such as polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) which have shown to be carcinogenic and hormone disrupting to aquatic life. There are likely 100s of thousands, if not millions, of highway outfalls across the country discharging this toxic mix into the water environment. Yet these outfalls are unmonitored and largely uncontrolled, despite the control of pollution from National Highways’ road network being a statutory duty.
The lack of routine monitoring of these
outfalls by the Environment Agency, National Highways and local highway authorities means that their impact on aquatic ecosystems and human health is not well understood. With sewage dominating political and media attention this pollution has been flying under the radar.
Other polluting discharges to water must be controlled under the Environmental Permitting Regulations subject to a sequence of tests being met. Yet highway outfalls are not permitted, due to a voluntary agreement between the Environment Agency and National Highways1
,2 .
Samples analysed by this research from nine locations (three motorway outfalls and six local highway outfalls) show that the discharges concerned are multiple times above the Environmental Quality Standards (EQSs)3
site between 20 and 730 times greater.
3 2 1
for several PAHs – at one
Sampling from the River Lostock at Cuerden Valley Park demonstrates a motorway outfall causing PAH levels above EQSs in the river itself. Assessment undertaken against the Environment Agency’s environmental permitting guidance indicates that this type of outfall should be considered permittable. National Highways uses a risk assessment tool to ascertain the highest risk outfalls from its road network that require remediation (Highways England Water Risk Assessment Tool – HEWRAT). But there are questions over the efficacy of HEWRAT. The samples unveiled in the report with the highest concentrations of PAHs are in fact from an M6 outfall classified as ‘low risk’ by the tool. Stormwater Shepherds and CIWEM are concerned that there is currently no robust process to systematically prioritise remediation of harmful highway runoff. The report calls for HEWRAT to be
1Highways Agency. Memorandum of Understanding between Highways Agency and Environment Agency: Annex 1 - Water Environment. November 2009) 2Highways England, Environment Agency. Memorandum of Understanding. April 2018 (National Highways, FOI/7262) 3Environmental Quality Standards are limit values set by the Water Framework Directive regulations.
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