How polluted is the River Medway?

How bad can some sewage, phosphates, and e-coli really be?

River pollution is a big issue at the moment, with water companies discharging vast amounts of untreated sewage back into rivers and seas around the country on an almost daily basis. These discharges are contaminating our rivers with some rather unpleasant things, and as a result, the issue has become one of the political issues of the day.

But just how bad is the situation in Medway?

River Medway in Chatham. stock.adobe.com

Based on the data alone, pretty bad.

In 2022, there were 30 sewage spills in Medway:

• Gillingham - 21

• Chatham - 7

• Rochester - 2

The vast majority of the spills in Medway in 2022 occurred at the Strand in Gillingham, and we should be relieved they happened there rather than at a place people regularly visit.

By 2023, this had increased to 557:

• Chatham - 198

• Rainham - 149

• Gillingham - 92

• Rochester - 43

• Strood - 36

• Hoo - 20

• Grain - 17

• Cuxton - 1

• Halling 1

By this point, all parts of Medway are seeing significant increases in the amount of sewage being pumped into our rivers. The full data is available in useful infographic form from The Rivers Trust if you want to really depress yourself.

So, what’s going on?

It’s clear that the level of sewage being pumped into our rivers is increasing, not just in Medway but across the country. It should be noted that a certain amount of sewage spills is sometimes necessary to avoid the system becoming overloaded, but these releases are only supposed to occur in periods of extreme rain when the risk is higher and the sewage can be somewhat diluted. Clearly, the problem goes deeper than an increase in weather-related overflows, though, with Southern Water discharging nearly 30,000 spills in 2023 alone.

Some of the factors causing the increase are solvable, some will be more challenging. Our creaking sewer infrastructure now struggles to keep up with demand, but fixing that will require significant investment at a time when no one seems to have any money.

Blocked drains are apparently responsible for many thousands of spills, and people could reduce these by not flushing things they shouldn’t down the toilet. Alas, human behaviour means that one isn’t as straightforward either. The government began the process of banning wet wipes that contain plastic, one of the main culprits of blockages, but any movement through parliament has now been hampered by the early General Election.

Sewage overflows. stock.adobe.com

Of course, while it’s easy to be alarmed by numbers in the abstract, maybe, as some politicians have suggested, pollutants being poured into our rivers aren’t really that bad.

The Angling Trust has been measuring the level of chemicals in rivers and found that the River Medway was one of the most polluted in the country, with chemicals associated with sewage. As if that wasn’t concerning enough, they also found increased levels of phosphates, chemicals that can be found in agricultural waste and detergents. Phosphates in water lead to further growth of algae, something that further damages the ecosystem of the water.

In Medway, the Liberal Democrats have been going on about the state of our rivers for a while now. Earlier this year, they decided to take samples from the river at both the Strand and St. Mary’s Island and found they contained large amounts of e-coli. The bacteria can cause vomiting and diarrhoea in those who come into contact with it. At the Strand, levels were found to be nearly three and a half times higher than those declared safe by the Environment Agency.

It is clear that the current level of sewage dumping into rivers isn’t sustainable, but any attempts at a legal resolution don’t seem to get very far. Repeated votes in parliament, forced by opposition parties to force water companies to curb the issue, have been struck down by the Conservatives. The three Medway MPs either voted to allow water companies to continue dumping or abstained on all votes on the issue.

On a local level, it’s difficult for any local council to do much due to the flowing nature of rivers and limited power over national companies and organisations. That doesn’t mean they can’t make at least gestures in the right direction, though. Maidstone Borough Council declared that the River Medway has certain rights of nature to flow and be free of pollution. This initiative was pushed by Green Party councillor Stuart Jeffery, who has since become Leader of Maidstone Council following recent local elections. Of course, this kind of measure is largely symbolic, but it does at least send out a signal that people are watching and care about the state of our rivers.

Speaking to us last year, Leader of Medway Council Vince Maple said he had been pondering the question of who speaks for the river:

I've said to people over the last year, ‘who speaks for the river Medway?’ It's not supposed to be a kind of kind of esoteric question. It's quite genuine, because actually there's lots of places where you have trusts and CICs and things like that. We need some people to be the voice of the Medway. The river strategy will talk around what those things may look like moving forward. Of course, technically the Mayor of Medway looks after a bit of the Medway from one point to another, but I think it's a bit more operational than that. I'm hopeful that our river strategy, which will come forward in due course, will cover a lot of that. Who speaks for the River Medway? It's a good question, and one that I hope this administration will answer.

So far, there has been little publicly visible movement on the river strategy to try to answer that question, but perhaps we will see it in the coming months.

Realistically, this is an issue that can likely only be resolved with government intervention. With the General Election now on the horizon, we will have to wait until after the next government is formed to see just how strong the political will is to clean up our rivers.

Footnotes

Music that soundtracked the creation of this edition: Grace and the Bigger Picture by Johnny Foreigner and Peanut Butter by Joanna Gruesome.