| Archive for Downsizer For an ethical approach to consumption |
| bodger |
Do you think that this is typical of how are rivers.Are being cleaned up ?If there been a remarkable improvement in the water quality of our inland waterways, how much of it is down to a genuine effort compared to a general melt down of the countries manufacturing base ? Just a handy bye product of econmomic disaster ? |
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| cab |
When I was a kid, the Tyne was revoltng. Really nasty, often kind of oily and to a childs nose often distinctly 'chemicaly'. Hardly surprsing with big shipyards and many other industries thereabouts. Now its relatively clean there are otters being spotted right near the centre of Gateshead. No industry, but otters.
We've effectively exported the industry, and with it the pollution. Make of that what you will. |
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| Behemoth |
It's a bit of both. What industry there is has been required to clean up and what industry there isn't doesn't pollute any more. However there are industrial legacies. The Tyne is still affected by heavy metals, particulalry lead following heavy storms in the northern pennines, which washes through the old spoil from lead workings going back to Roman times. Domestic sewage for the most part is treated to a much higher standard than in the past. | ||||
| dpack |
overall better over the last forty years but not unaffected by human activity
compared to rivers where there has been little mass or industrial activity most british rivers are struggling, low oxygen /high substances bio restricted systems i could rant but to no end |
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| James |
This drives me absolutely mad. I'm fed up to the back teeth of hearing this sort of comment. Do you think that salmon just appear in our rivers like magic? The seals that now come up as far as Tadcaster- are they random accidents of nature? The river corridor floral diversity which is second to none within Europe doesn't just happen by fluke of circumstance. Two generations ago, we had the by far the worst rivers in Europe. Now they are out and out the best by a long chalk. I've spen almost all my working life trying to stop contamination entering rivers. I've helped clean up more land than you could shake a stick at. And as such, my work has had a dirrect impact on the quality of our rivers. To say otherwise is to say what I do is pointless. Its hard science, I deal with stuff that you cant see in 4 dimesions. I deal in chemical break down products, half lives, fluid dynamics and monte-carlo probability models. Thats how our rivers are kept clean. In 2005, one of the big four supermarkets spilled 115,000 litres of diesel into one of the major rivers in the north east. The Environment Agency have spent the last 10 years encouraging Salmon back into this river, and have succeeded. Shortly after the spill, diesel started appearing in the river. Environment Agency officers controlled the spread of the leak to a very limited area and stopped gross pollution of the estuary (which had two SSSI's at its mouth). The environmental prosecution team called me in to determine the risk to the river, and to enter into discussions with the geological consultants employed by the supermarket. The arguments went on for two years. I prepared a detailed report on the physical, chemical and geological risks to the river associated with the spill. Two days before I was due in court, they backed down and were fined vast amounts of money. Two weeks ago (four years after the incident..), I signed off the land surrounding the river as clean. In the meantime, Environment Agency staff have been constantly working to ensure that no pollution enters the salmon river. The result: The river has been kept clean, the supermarket has been fined, Salmon still swim up stream. It was "genuine effort" on our part over many, many years that brought about this successful outcome. And you know the real irony of it ? You paid for this work in your taxes. and you don’t even realise we do it. And you have the audacity to say it's just because our industry has collapsed. Laugh? I almost pissed myself. Do you think that the contamination stops when the company goes bust? 
Most of my workload is from industrial contamination that’s over 100 years old impacting on the rivers. Couple that with the fact that we use more hazardous substances now than we did 50 or 100 years ago, and it becomes clear that surely...somehow these hazardous chemicals are being managed properly given that the river quality is improving..... I'm fed up the back teeth of people saying we don’t do anything important and its all just dint of circumstance. And if you think its all about the past and the now, you probably don't realise that right now, we're working to ensure the quality of your green and pleasant land under future climate change risks fifty years in the future. I'm doing stuff today to make sure your children can enjoy cleaner rivers and better environments. Go on then, go back to the good ol' days when rivers stank of coal tar and had no fish in them at all. Do you miss seeing frogs with no sexual organs? Do you miss seeing floating excrement in the little brooks? We produce more sewerage now than at any point in the past….but tell me truthfully the last time you saw human excrement in a river? If it comes over as a flame…its meant to be. It makes me SO MAD. Don’t go spouting off on stuff you don’t know enough about. post script:
Ironic, dont you think? There are a lot of quiet, wise people out there doing important stuff . Just 'cos you dont know about it, doesnt mean its not happening. |
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| dpack |
well put james
a lot of good work has been done but there is much still to do |
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| dpack |
but re sewage in a river was my local colne recently due to storm water flushing the sewers through the overflows
any help appreciated until 3 years back it was pretty clean but now it is a 4/5 low diversity water |
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| Behemoth |
Agree with you both. | ||||
| James |
there certainly is lots more still to do. Many rivers are much lower quality than they should be. Interestingly, the most common reason for lower water quality is now agriculture. Many of the Yorkshire rivers have problems with ammonia, phosphates, permathrin and dieldrin (..as an asside here, we're not picking up any glyphosate...) Cleaning up industrial point source pollution is a walk in the park compared to changes farming practices...
Storm water overflows are a big issue, and the water co's are trying to reduce their numbers (everytime there's a pollution incident like your example, they get fined). One big advance is that all new sewers are seperate from surface water drains, so they dont get flooded in times of heavy rain. Changing infrastructure takes time and £££, but the amount of money available is somewhat dictated by the annual water co. pricing review, which has just demanded a reduction in water bills. Good news for consumers, not so good news for environmental bennefits. Not wishing to polish Behemoth's ego or anything, but Yorkshire water are pretty good in the bigger scheme of things. Compare your Colne example to Brighton, for example, where they still have a constant raw seweage discharge dirrect into the sea. YWS have put big money into places like Hull to ensure this type of discharge stops. |
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| Jonnyboy |
Our house is built near a water course and the authorities took the placement of our septic tank, it's type and the soakaway location very seriously. | ||||
| Tavascarow |
I don't know the answer but I know the biggest polluter of rivers in this area isn't local industries but the water authority themselves.
Ask the people of Camelford what they think of South West Water. |
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| mihto |
James, thank you.
You are spot on and your posting included so many different and highly valid aspects. The pollution sins of our fathers will follow us for generation, as will the sins of today's pollution make problems for our grandchildren. So often highly important work is done out of the public eye. Our society does not realize that it isn't run by itself; that what we take for granted is laboriously worked on by highly skilled people behind the scenes. The big problem arises when the politicians, in order to save money nobody know how is used anyway, take away the funding. The negative results can take years to surface, but the damage done may sometimes be irreparable. |
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| twoscoops |
[quote="James"]
This drives me absolutely mad. I'm fed up to the back teeth of hearing this sort of comment. If it comes over as a flame…its meant to be. It makes me SO MAD. Don’t go spouting off on stuff you don’t know enough about. It came across to me as a question, which is what it was. I also thought it was one worth discussing, rather than getiing precious over. |
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| Rob R |
I didn't understand the question, or to what it referred; 
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| Behemoth |
Camelford is a different issue, how many Camelfords have there been since? And what do you mean by 'pollution', are you referreing to pollution incidents or just that effluent, treated to various levels, is returned to rivers? The south west is a challenging environment for waste treatment and an expensive one. The draft determination of prices the other day knocked out the proposed investment on the east coast to raise bathing waters from good to excellent but the door's been left open to convince Ofwat otherwise, we have a lot of customer support to do this work. Intermittent discharges, storm overflows are difficult to deal with manage and resolve but the industry as whole has been getting better. They have a very high priority in our company and reducing pollution incidents to zero is the target. This costs a lot of money. On thing on the horizon is the designation of the Humber Estuary as a 'sensitive water'. This is a bureaucratic designation of some estuaries etc across the whole of Europe and requires them to meet certain standards, it has nothing to do with local ecology. If this goes through it will cost £500m (half a billion) to meet the standards. To put that in perspective out investment programme is usually about £1.5 to £1.8 billion over five years. The benefit to the environment will be marginal. As James says, diffuse pollution form agriculture has a greater effect. |
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| Treacodactyl |
What was Yorkshire Water's last annual profit? |
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| Behemoth |
About £150m. Some of which is reinvested an some goes to the owners as their return. We're owned privately, no shareholders, no dividends, but we still have to pay the owners a return for their investment. Generally the owners want it reinvested to grow the capital value of the company.. They are a bunch of banks and are more interested in their asset book value being worth more that having a little bit more cash. | ||||
| Rob R |
Something we all have a hand in, and trying to treat it as containment, like most other industries is unlikely to ever work, given the area of land it occupies. |
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| Behemoth |
Absolutely and there's a legacy. Even if nitrates are stopped/reduced/applied more effectively we'll still be treating groundwater to remove them for several decades to come. | ||||
| Rob R |
Ah, cheap food 
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| James |
actually, after writing my initial comments,I thought about it further and I realized it was a question as well. I did consider suggesting that the discussion would be more suited to the "does it really matter if..." forum, but then its not my discussion... However, I feel it is worth getting precious about. It may have been written as a question, but personally I don't think it was meant as a question.
Yes, it seems inevitable that with the UK so in debt now, our public sector funding will be greatly reduced during the next government. The conservatives have already said the Environment Agency (for whom I work) is in their sites. The future doesnt look at all safe. Its not helped by the fact that most people dont realise what we do. |
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| Dr Rob |
I grew up in a mining village in the south Wales valleys at the confluence of the rivers Cynon and Taf when the coal mines were in full swing. The rivers were black and opaque (Welsh 'humourist' Gwyn Thomas remarked that the fish had to wear contact lenses - except that there were no fish). I remember playing on the black 'beaches' wondering where the smell came from. Until I was about 7 I thought all rivers were this colour.
The transformation today is stunning and down to the work of those like James... |
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| Rob R |
Or that the people who are employed to interact with the public really shouldn't be allowed out, while the people that really know what they are talking about are just beavering away quietly in the background. 
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| Mutton |
Lets not forget the pollution introduced by building windfarms on peat hillsides.
Braes of Doune http://www.swap.org.uk/index.asp?pageid=86885 and See http://www.swap.org.uk/Documents/Reports/2006-08_EI_on%20the_Braes.pdf Derrybrien http://www.swap.org.uk/index.asp?pageid=86548 And there was damage done at Cefn Croes as well http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~hills/cc/gallery/ |
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| Behemoth |
We're trying to mend the damage done in the pennine catchments by the deep drainage ditches put in years ago. Actively blocking them and trying to reduce run off. The peat erosion and other chemical changes cause raw water quality problems and if nothing is done will require even more expensive water treatment works to clean the water. | ||||
| dpack |
complicated thing having a biodiverse river
i did a very quick and subjective high survey on saturday and the colne has a good catchment above marsden plenty of invertibrates for fast cleanstone water below the first little town the picture changes i need to do a full survey 5 miles down the kingfishers ,herons and fish have gone this one is personal most rivers are far far better than even ten years back due to legislation and the folk who work to meet it |
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| bodger |
Well James, I've only just come across this vitriolic out burst of yours and to say that I'm not impressed with your attitude towards what i thought was a sensible question is to put it mildly. I find your answer to be most unpleasant and full of of your own self importance.
Well here you go, suck on this. Do you think for a minute that our rivers would be in the state that they are in now if the UKs economy was still depended on the now defunct polluting industries ? Get real and get pleasant. |
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| bodger |
I take it that you havent noticed that all the mines have been closed. The likes of James could work as hard as they like but if it wasn't for economic changes they'd be swimming backwards. Funds wouldn't be made available to pay for improvements, the will from goverment wouldn't be there and millions of tons of industrial waste would still be emptying into our seas and rivers. |
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| Jamanda |
This is nonsense Bodger - and very insulting to the people who do work hard to protect our waterways. | ||||
| bodger |
Nonsense ? To many, what I say will be common sense. and unlike other peoples remarks, mine are far from being insulting. | ||||
| Treacodactyl |
Aren't some of todays problems due to the mines being closed so no companies are looking after them even though dangerous chemicals are still leaching? I would expect working mines to actually be safer as it would be in the interests of the owners to monitor the emissions. |
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| Behemoth |
There are still very many highly toxic and polluting industries and procees carried out in this country. There are fewer of them but you only need one toxic spill to kill a river. | ||||
| bodger |
In this case, we are not talking about heavy metals leaching out of old workings but the rivers and beaches actually being black. The closure of the mines must surely have been a major factor in their condition changing for the better. | ||||
| Jamanda |
Our little stream was rendered sterile a couple of years back by an over flow of the cleaning chemicals from the local meat processing plant. The alarm kept going off, so they thought it was broken and turned it off.
The stream went black for a couple of miles down stream and everything died. It's just starting to recover now. But it's OK they were fined a few hundred pounds. |
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| Treacodactyl |
That assumes mines and industry would work to standards of a 100 years ago rather than todays doesn't it? |
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| bodger |
I presume that Dr Rob is nowhere near being a hundred years old.
Does anyone genuinely believe that changing economics and the decline of the UKs manufacturing industries hasn't had a major impact on our rivers improved water quality ? |
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| Jonnyboy |
Indeed, it's a bit like saying the death of the british car industry improved car emmissions. | ||||
| Behemoth |
Partly, but that very visible pollution masked other sources, just as the improvement of sewage treatment has resulted in better quality effluent, but not better quality rivers due to other sources of pollution. It's a part of a larger story. |
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| bodger |
The comparison doesn't hold water. Our car industry has declined so we have imported more cars so that the emmissions from cars in the UK hasn't dropped. Our heavy industry has disappeared and the pollution that it caused has dropped. |
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| sean |
Bodger, was your first post supposed to contain a link to a news story or something? | ||||
| Behemoth |
Without legislation, enforcement and investment rivers would still be dead, despite the closing of our heavy industry. The closing of that industry did not save the rivers. Hence James's annoyance. Even today there are problems. Ask Dpack, as he's mentioned there's a river he's got a relationship with in old industrial Yorkshire which is being damaged today. |
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| bodger |
It should have done. I'll go and fetch it.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/8120394.stm |
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| Rob R |
Ah, thanks, the original questions make a lot more sense now. 
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| bodger |
Behemoth.
If those industries were still in full production and the country still needed them, then the economic good of the country would come before environmental good and James's work wouldn't be going on to the extent that it does. A great deal of that pollution has actually been exported to other countries, if you doubt me, simply look at the back stamp on many of your own everyday items. Its not rocket science, but in a nutshell our rivers have become cleaner because its been expedient to clean them up. |
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| Rob R |
Re: Do you think that this is typical of how are rivers.
About 90/10, perhaps. |
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| Behemoth |
Maybe, maybe not. Thousands of once polluting process are now licensed, controlled and managed everyday to prevent pollution. Why don't we let these busnesses to act as they like, supporting their contribution to our economy? Who knows if we would have continued to tolerate despoilation of our environment? The basis for most of our pollution control legislation was introduced in the 1970s. Your original post implied that the environmental improvement was due to the loss of the industry, which it is in part, but it's not the whole story. Now we've seen the link we can see that the consequential protection, improvement and restoration of this river environment is down to the likes of James. Without this work the river still would be dead, coal or no coal. I understand where you're coming from and my cycism is that 'big business wins' but so much has changed. |
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| bodger |
A hell of a lot has changed, which is what I've tried to explain. I've obviously failed with some people.
As far as James is concerned, I don't know him from Adam, nor he me but I found his attitude aggressive and unacceptable. He obviously has a number of supporters on the forum but fortunately I have broad shoulders and I also know that my view is a reasonable one and that I'm not alone in holding it. |
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| goosey |
You are not alone holding that view. | ||||
| Treacodactyl |
I don't think anyone's supporting a point of view just because of someone else, most are responding to your question.
If, for example, a new pit was opened in Wales in a years time do you expect pollution to be poured into the rivers and everyone to accept it? With rising energy prices I thought new coal mines were a possibility, so perhaps that's a more pressing question. |
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| Rob R |
What exactly is your view? Your questions & more recent comments implied that you think that the lack of industry has had more of an effect than clean up operations & the efforts of officials and the remaining companies, but I'm not exactly sure where you stand in relation to your original questions. The article seemed to consider that it was a mixture of the de-industrialisation of the area and concious efforts. | ||||
| cab |
(cut) I've been following this with bafflement. Its clear to me that huge effort goes in to limiting the damage done when contaminants are accidentally (or intentionally) released. Anyone who works with chemicals of pretty nearly any sort these days knows that the regulations for disposal seem to get tighter every year. And the state of many of our rivers reflects well on people like you. I think thats beyond dispute. But what I don't get... I dunno, thinking back on how dirty many of our rivers were when more industrial waste was pumped in to them, do you think that what you do would be possible in rivers like, say, the Tyne, the Wear, or the Tees if there was still the historical volume of heavy industry? Is it not the case that the decline in British manufacturing industry has created an environment in which tighter legislation on pollution has become possible? I don't seek to de-value what you do at all, but would it be possible to do it with major, dirty industries lining our rivers? Or, to put it another way, is that scale of manufacturing compatible with clean water ways? |
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| Jonnyboy |
Back in my days at British Steel, I can remember them getting some tumping great fines for polluting the severn, and I can also remember them ploughing millions into developing reed bed systems at Llanwern for pollution control and neutralisation. The fact that they cleaned up their act was down to legislation and enforcement, and very little else. | ||||
| goosey |
I hope I am not mis-using the unwritten rules of discussion on this forum, my intention is merely to contribute. I wish I had time to go into the public library to retrieve the info I need, but I have a load of work with the animals outside, which I hope you will understand.
I don't live near a big river like the Tyne, or the Taff, but the little Embrook. It runs through a small industrial estate down Fish Pond Lane. Over recent years, incidents when a lot of dead fish have floated up, have prompted reaction and investigation by the waterway people. It was one or other of the companies down Fish Pond Lane. Ooops sorry, they pay the fine and carry on til next time. Now there is a recession, a lot have shut down, and the Emm has been ok. I used to be very involved with the Biodiversity Action Forum in the District, Holding a handling licence for surveying GCNewts, but became rather disillusioned by the professionals. It is about meeting targets like how many barn owl boxes go up, but not about educating the farmers about hedge-cutting at the correct time to maximise berries for the mice, for the owls. It's a big topic and I have a lot of views. But I think finance, commerce and politics still can overide even the most conciencious environmentalist. |
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| Rob R |
There are no unwritten rules on this forum, at least none that I have been informed of. I assume that your post is in response to my question for bodger, as intended.
Indeed, as per dpack's example. |
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| dpack |
a very complex subject
many factors affect river biodiversity im trying to find out what is going on in my local river ,recon it may take a while and some help to re run what we did in the 1970's and get it back to life after a nasty incedent a couple of years back a long stretch is dead but to know why it is not recovered and to recover it is a long task i need more intel before i can convince folk to do it |
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| Behemoth |
Which might go someway to explain why a passionate and concerned environmental practitioner can get a bit wound up about stuff. |
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| bodger |
Again the comparison does not hold water. I'm not talking about a one off deveopment such as one new pit but about a whole countries industry once being founded on the practice of being able to pollute at will inorder to to produce the countries wealth. This not the case now but it was once. One last effort to get the point I innocently tried to make a couple of weeks ago when I innitiated this thread. Countries like India and China are just as aware as the UK as to what their industries are doing to the environment but unlike the UK still depend on their factories output to fund their economies. If they were in the position that we find themselves in, they to would be cleaning up their acts. We can afford it, they can't. |
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| Behemoth |
Dredging my memory back to my Uni days IIRC the first recommended effluent standards were set in 1912 by a Royal Commission (might be wrong), for COD and BOD. Later, standards were required to be set but there was no obligation to set them at the recommended level, a very high standard was set which mean the discharge would rarely fail. That started changing in the 1960s and particularly in the 70's with the creation of the old water authorities and the concept of catchment management. | ||||
| bodger |
Rearrange this well known phrase or saying 'service lip' | ||||
| Behemoth |
Yes, for a long time, but things changed in the late 60's leading to the creation of the water authorities, which was a good start for policing the environment and setting standards across a whole catchment rather than just a local authority. However they were mistakingly continued the old local authority model of having the responsibility of treating and discharging sewage and enforcing breaches of consents, i.e. policing themselves. Poacher and gamekeeper. Hence the creation of the NRA in the late 80's leading to the EA today, both being independent, by which time heavy industry was gone but the rivers were still dead, due to ongoing discharges from remaining industry and sewage works. We were the dirty man of Europe. Since then James and his ilk have turned things around. It's cost industry and customers a lot of money to do this and at times been hugely unpopular, but it still was done. That's why i say maybe, maybe not. | ||||
| Jonnyboy |
Brief article from nine years ago here
Shows how far we have come. |
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| bodger |
The improvement is not in doubt. | ||||
| cab |
There are Hansard transcripts of specific debates with regard to certain rivers dating back to the '60s and '70s lamenting how badly these things were handled (also dredging up Uni memories here), but you're right, for things like sewage effluent there was a turning point, of sorts, about then. But thats only part of the story, while sewage treatment started to improve in that era, industrial waste still made a hell of a mess of rivers like the Tyne (choosing one I know reasonably well here). Thinking about the Tyne around 1980, it was an oily, slimy looking mess that smelled of chemicals. Thinking of the Tyne by the mid '80s (with the vast bulk of the heavy industry having been gutted and filleted by the Thatcher and her asset stripping cronies) the water was cleaner; it smelled of 'river', allbeit nothing like as clean as it s now. Being concerned about specific chemcal or waste spills... It just wouldn't have made sense when the background level of contamnaton was so high. The work done to get our rivers clean has been splendid, but outside of the context of industrial decline would it be worth a damn? |
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| Rob R |
There seems to be a lot of questions being asked, answers being dismissed & alternative answers omitted in this thread. If industrial decline were to be more of a driver for change in our rivers, the investment in enforcing legislation, monitoring & restoring polluted areas would surely have been better spent in further declining the polluting industries. As a declining industry is not so concerned with the long term future (often cutting costs to survive) I think the effects of declining industry could have been a lot worse without those concious efforts (particularly once the industry had gone). | ||||
| bodger |
The industries that you term as declining have actually gone. If they were still booming and in full production and the country was still economically dependant on them the rivers would be nothing like as clean as they are now and yes! I know that I've made this point umpteen times now. | ||||
| Rob R |
No, they haven't actually gone (the main one to which I was thinking of applying the term was to agriculture, because it has declined but is clearly still with us and I know it better than others) but their impact has largely been improved (see Behemoth's first post on page four). Your point is clear but your view (in relation to your original questions) is not;
What do you think is the answer? |
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| bodger |
I'd rather hoped that over this epic I'd made my point rather clearly. Our rivers have been made cleaner because of the demise of traditional polluting industries.
The various agencies have done a lot of work and are continuing to do so but if the country was still dependant on heavy industry then neither the will or the way would have been found for these improvments to have been made. This is why I referred to countries like China and India. They are no less civilised or technically advanced than us, its just that their economies are still based on heavy industry. |
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| Rob R |
So you think that the answer is all because of industrial decline? but the concious efforts have made recovery more accelerated, or somewhat better? It's still about as clear as the waters of the Humber at the moment. Are you referring to the colour of the water as a main indicator or the BOD?
I agree that if we still lived in the nineteenth century, the rivers wouldn't be a lot better, but as we don't I also think that it is a joint effort between those left to clean up the industrial legacy, the legislators, the campaigners, and the continuing industry to protect & restore the life in our rivers. I think India & China are heading the same way, there is just the time delay, as with the UK, for them to get fed up of the damage they cause to themselves. That is why I think it is foolish for us to base our future on continuing cheap Eastern imports and start paying a bit more for responsibly produced goods over here. |
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| bodger |
When and where did i use the word 'All' ? | ||||
| cab |
I think that to view 'pollution' as one thing is a mistake. While the rather toxic effluents that used to make their way into many major rivers have largely declined due to the industries that lined them dieing (there would be little hope of enforcing laws for major releases of such contaminants if the constant output made such releases irrelevent), it is fair to say that issues such as eutrophication of rivers and lakes have declined because of better regulation of outputs from sewage works and agriculture. But even that really only gets the attention it deserves if you're not poisoning everything in the river anyway. I think therefore that the decline in industry has provided a context in which genuine, valuable work to clean up our waterways can work. This discussion has rather simplistically lumped all of these things together as 'pollution', when really the impact of various pollutants on both fresh and brackish water ecosystems is far more varied than that. |
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| cab |
I should imagine that the up-hill struggle that we've had cleaning such rivers would have been more like a cliff than a hill on rivers like, sticking with the same example, the Tyne. Honestly, you'd be able to tell which way the tide was going under the Swing bridge because of what kind of crap covered the surface of the water, if it was coming from down the river (the shipyards down at Wallsend) it had a metallic, oily sheen, if it was coming from upstream it sometimes looked kind of soapy, I remember seeing dead rats floating down it once in a great number and being told they'd been gassing them at one of the factories. To state that the effort put in to keep such water courses clean in that kind of industrial environment would be much, much harder seems to me to be uncontroversial. |
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| Rob R |
You didn't- the answering a question with another question is what is making your point even more unclear. Just as you said in response to your original post; it was not a statement, but a question (for you), just trying to establish your answer & exact viewpoint. I may even agree with it, if given a chance. |
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| Jonnyboy |
We have more cars than ever and they are the infinitely cleaner than those in the 70's. Our home electricity dependence continues to rise yet the carbon output from generation falls. The heavy industry that we have is highly regulated and and from those in the field we have first hand evidence that a massive amount of work is done out of the public gaze to clean up legacy problems.
Based on this the only rational conclusion I can make is that if we continued to have large scale heavy industry sector, then the waste outputs would be controlled and much reduced. I don't see the logic in a different conclusion. |
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| bodger |
Can you see that we have but a fraction of the heavy industry that we used to have ? | ||||
| Calli |
Toe in the water.....
Agriculture in Ireland has damaged the natural waters more than so called heavy industry, Nitrates and phosphate pollution and yes it is pollution has now created monster reeds. And weeds. We now import thatch - indigenous reeds grow too quickly and are hence too weak to use. Irish thatched cottages....hmmm So don't just look at the industry look to the culture. The supermarket trolley replaces the placed shelter.... http://www.wildtrout.org/index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=1 |
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| bodger |
Mmmmmmmmmm!!!!!!!!!!!!! Irelands economy up until recently, has been based upon agriculture and its not really been known for its almost non existant heavy industry.
Is thats down to culture or economics or are you saying that the two are one and the same? Have Irelands recent boom years and the change in its almost total dependence on agriculture meant that legislation to limit farming practice has been more affordable ? |
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| Jonnyboy |
Can you see that the other major areas of pollution has been massively cleaned up, regardless of their growth, or decline? |
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| bodger |
But only as economic conditions have allowed. eg We don't need heavy industry anymore, we've hardly got any heavy industry anymore, so we can afford to clean it up. | ||||
| Rob R |
So, a downturn in the industrial economy, with margins being tightened, means it is now more affordable to clean up? Yeah OK, if you say so.
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| bodger |
Think beyond stage one Rob. We are not talking about todays credit crunch but the demise of heavy industry over the last few decades and its replacement by the sevice industry that our economy is now based around. By the way, its not just because I say so. | ||||
| Behemoth |
Believe me there have been and copntinue to be many many polluting processes out there. I sit next to 8 double filing cabinets of discharge consent conditions. Everything from car whashes to steelworks, via garages, engineeering works and fabricators, paint shops, abbatoirs, butchers, laundries and dairies. | ||||
| Rob R |
I am thinking way beyond stage one, the present day in fact. Your original post was a question, not a statement, OK I accept that and posters have given answers to your question, which you have argued against, but as you haven't actually stated what you think are the answers, I am not sure to what end you are concluding. I won't ask again. It is somewhere between none & all of the improvements in water quality being due to the decline of heavy industry, in which case I agree.
There is no doubt that where an industry dies it will not be directly adding to water pollution. It does leave a legacy, but then it would always have done in anycase unless it had carried on & been made to clean up its own problems. If mass industry had continued on the same scale I would expect it to have been subject to the same regulation & self-improvement (in order to comply with that regulation) as has the industry which has continued to operate. One in ten factories may shut, but one can still kill all the fish in the river, so the effort to regulate & self-regulate in that remaining factory is no less important as in ten (hence my 90/10 answer, which may not be entirely accurate, but it was an answer, you could say it's 50/50 and I wouldn't be in a position to disagree). If mass industry had continued I would expect regulation to be even tighter, as pollutant levels are often decided upon what is considered 'safe', and so ten factories would each have to contribute less to achieve the same levels that we have today. One of the reasons that industry did decline in this country is because companies found it less regulated, and therefore cheaper, to move production over to other countries. I don't think you can separate the two. |
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| cab |
The decline in heavy industry was something that was, in a lot of places, disproportionate to the entire economic state (as evidenced by the deepening North/South divide of the '80s). So, yes, the downturn in heavy industry causing immense harm to certain waterways really did coincide with more funds for cleaning up waterways and better policing the remaining industries. |
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| cab |
They've been around for donkeys years though. And obviously the available legislation for dealing with that is immensely important; would we ever have bothered with that on the more seriously polluted industrial rivers while there was still such reliance on heavier (more polluting) industries though? I rather doubt it. |
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| Behemoth |
I doubt it too but not with certainty of others. We do still heavy heavy industry, chemical plants, wool processing etc. Not as much, but it's regulated. If one of them polluted a river would we say "Oh well, the river's dead now, the rest of you might as well go ahead as well?" We did in the past but not now. | ||||
| bodger |
Rob. if you sit down and read what i've put on this thread, I think that i've made my position abundantly clear and repeating myself is not going to make it any clearer. | ||||
| Jonnyboy |
I actually do doubt it, hence my comment way earlier about British Steel gettings fines in the late 80's early 90's for discharge into the Usk and Severen, and that helping to push them to develop reedbed technology. |
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| James |
Lets take the Tees Estuary as an example. In a triangle from south of Hartlepool to Middlesbrough to Redcar (In other words, the few miles around the Tees estuary), there are... 71 Industrial pollution prevention sites 94 waste management sites. These include... - A nuclear power station which also holds a licence for waste incination. - The largest working steel smelter in the UK. - The longest hot rolled steel plant in Europe. - The only hazardous waste landfill in the North East of England (presently taking most of the Olympics waste from London...) - A dockyard presently dismantling the US Navy's (and soon also the Frech Navy's) "Ghost Ships"- derelict military hardware imported for demolition. - One of the four largest oil terminals in the UK - A north sea gas reception facility receiving 40% of the UK's north sea gas - Billingham chemical works: formally ICI Billingham, a chemical facility the size of a small town - Teesport: the second largest freight port in the UK A lot of the above environmental pressures are greater than when Cab was a child. I’m not sure how old you are, but the Nuclear power station hasn’t been there for that long, and Teesport is larger than it has ever been. The steel works (until a few months ago…) has been increasing production year on year. As has the oil terminal. ....and yet the river quality has improved. Fish counts are up, Seal numbers are up. Its one of the few industrial estuaries that is now a salmonid water course. |
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| Jonnyboy |
Careful now, you'll be upsetting people with your informed facts and logical analysis. | ||||
| bodger |
Interesting reading.
http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1970/dec/18/severn-estuary-pollution |
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| Jonnyboy |
Any bit in particular? | ||||
| Rob R |
Bodge. I've been sitting down, and I've been reading (several times in some cases) your posts (and my own) to see exactly where you have answered the points/questions clearly. OK, you think you have answered your own, but you certainly haven't answered mine, though I have tried to deduce the logical conclusions from what you did actually say. Repeating yourself does not make anything clearer (apart from in the spoken word), which is why I don't ask you to repeat yourself. Your position appears to be entrenched, and if this is how you reply to a post in which I say I agree, it makes me wonder how you would respond to someone out rightly dismissing your views.
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| bodger |
Not entrenched at all. The position that I'm sure that I've made clear to most people,  is that without demise of heavy industry within the UK, no amount of good work by environmentalists and the like would have gotten our rivers into the improved condition that we now find them in.
As well as the fact that less pollution is being pumped into our rivers because the polluters have ceased to be, it can also be argued that if we still had and needed our coal, coke and steel industries etc to survive economically then the regulations that we have to protect the environment would never have been brought into being. When has idealism and right been stronger than the pound ? |
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| Nick |
Do you dispute James' last post, then?
I don't think you're necessarily wrong, but I'm minded to think that James has actual facts and knowledge, rather than guess work. |
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| Rob R |
Thanks cab, for your earlier concise response to my question on page 5. The above quote of myself is taken a little out of context from the post to which it refers however. From Jonnyboy's 'regardless of their growth, or decline?' and the response, it sounded as though we could only clean up after declining industries & would be less inclined to clean up after the ones that did still have a worthwhile (even increasing) economic role. I don't believe that is the case, as there are more drivers for change at work here than the change in the financial contribution of industry. As such China & India are good examples now but already we are beginning to see, they are just on the same cycle we have come through. I don't see what reason is there to suppose that improved quality of life (in this case in the form of the environment) is a result of, as opposed to a precursor for, industrial decline. As they, as a populace, become richer I can't envisage them putting up with & adding to the pollution they have brought upon themselves just because it continues to make them money. With wealth usually comes a desire to improve one's surroundings that is not coincidence- that wealth being a direct result of the success, not the decline, of industry. In agriculture we are seeing tightening of spray & fertiliser regulations. I don't think that it is any coincidence that wealthy people in commuter belts are complaining about such things happening on their doorstep and it is contributing towards, as opposed to a result of, making agriculture less competitive on the world market. Those that remain will either have to find ways of cleaning up and remaining competitive, or leave the industry. |
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| Rob R |
I was assuming entrenched as I find your replies to me quite patronising, such as the rolling eyes & addressing me by name as a single sentence, even when I am largely in agreement (I think). Please just answer me this, what proportion of environmental improvement do you think is down to industrial decline & concious efforts, respectively? I assumed, because of your abrupt question-as-an-answer, that it would be less than 100/0.
Incidentally, I concur. |
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| James |
when its enshrined in law |
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| cab |
You're right, the Tees is clearly cleaner than it once was... If I recall correctly, the Tees is one of the rivers most studied for finding the link between levels of industry and pollution, is that correct (seems to be an example you're most familiar with, hopefully that means I don't need to re-read this; I was reading up on lead and arsenate contamination a couple of years ago, can't remember where I'd have the papers stashed away now  )
There have been a series of interesting papers on it; do I recall correctly that the levels of heavy metal contaminants (and also things like arsenic/arsenates) have been directly linked not only with peak levels of mining in the Tees basin, but with the processing of said mined materials in the catchmetn of the Tees? So yes, there are still petrochemicals there, there is still a steelworks there, etc. but you're not really comparing like with like; older, environmentally damaging industries have been lost, they've been replaced with other sectors which are not spread out around the river, they're based on the estuary because of the transport/freight/pipeline links that offers. They're bigger individual sites, making monitoring feasible, meaning also that tracing contamination is possible for the first time. I don't seek to put down the good work done in monitoring these sites in any way; but would there be any way of doing that, indeed any point in doing that, if there were dozens/hundreds of mining/extraction operations in the catchment zone for the Tees each contributing a small, practically untraceable amount, which in totality were causing more harm than the well monitored big operations? Wasn't that, historically, where most of the serious contamination in the Tees came from? |
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| cab |
Reflecting on James giving us the Tees as a counter example to the one I used (the Tyne), it strikes me that there are three phenomena going on here. One is industrial decline, i.e. major polluting industries are killed off and stop contributing pollutants to waterways, the second would be the change of heavy/chemical industry away from being many small sites into fewer, larger, easier to monitor sites, and the third is the intentional enforcement of better environmental standards. Talking to old timers back on Tyneside... I dunno, but you never hear them say 'oh, gosh, but it was dirty the Tyne, it would have been nice if someone had enforced better standards of cleanliness', what you hear is 'well, the river was dirty, but we had work in the shipyards; my dad was a left handed riveter, he earned more there than his brother who stayed in Stanley and went down the pit'. People who grow up with heavy, dirty industries supplying wealth and work, people who entirely rely on that, don't tend to be nimbys. And even now if you go into the CIU clubs in Wallsend and tell them that the post-industrial Environment is better so they've got a better quality of life, they'll laugh at you; your definition of 'quality of life' has more reliance on a clean environment than many others would have. |
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| cab |
It would be foolish to dispute the facts as laid out by James, but I do think that the story of pollution in the Tees is broader than that. |