GRIMSBY-AREA DRINKING WATER UNDER THREAT FROM FARM CHEMICALS SEEPING INTO AQUIFERS

                                                                    

Visual of the proposed nitrate-treatment building off Chelmsford Avenue, Grimsby

SO concerned is Anglian Water  about potential future contamination of its drinking water by farmland chemicals seeping into underground aquifers that it has decided to spend big on remedial action.

The Peterborough-based company has revealed plans to install a new nitrate treatment building and two tanks at its Littlecoates water treatment works off Chelmsford Avenue, Grimsby.

The investment will enable it remove any nitrates or other harmful chemicals - from farmland, industry and local authorities - before they makes its water too risky to drink.

Says a report seen by the Grimsby News: "One of Anglian Water’s key priorities is to increase the resilience and reliability of its drinking water supply.

"Our borehole sources are experiencing a general trend of rising nitrate levels, largely because of farming practices. 

"Chemicals used in fertilisers seep into underground acquirers or rivers from where water is then extracted."

"Unless there is intervention, nitrate levels are predicated to continue rising over the next four to five years, and ultimately allowable nitrate levels risk being breached.

                                          

Sprayed with what? Menacing sign on a local farm field 

"Construction of a new nitrate treatment plant will ensure that water can continue to be abstracted from Littlecoates in the future - otherwise, in due course, it will have to cease."

The situation has been heeded by NELC which has this week granted consent for the works to go ahead.

The cost of the vital anti-pollution work is not yet known, but it will be met not by the farming community but, through their water rates, by Anglian Water’s customers.

The Grimsby News says: This situation is unsatisfactory. Anglian Water is obviously right to make the investment, but why should its customers - you and me - have to foot the bill? What happened to the principle of 'the polluter pays'? But perhaps we should not be too hard on farmers. They operate in a competitive world and need (so they would say) to apply ever-larger chemical drenchings to their increasingly exhausted soil in order to keep up crop yields. In the short term, perhaps there should be a levy on the companies that manufacture the chemicals, then export it (doubtless much from overseas) to North East Lincolnshire. But in the medium term, or preferably sooner, we need to come up with  methods of farming less likely to threaten not just our water but also the birds, bees, butterflies and wildflowers that are also important to the environment. When will our local MPs and councillors speak out?