The state of rivers in England and Wales is pretty poor. Only 22% of the length of rivers in England and Wales is in Good Ecological Status (GES, which has a rather technical definition but it means pretty much what you'd think it means).
And lest anyone thinks that this blog is being unfair, it is true that 24% of rivers are in GES (so smaller ones are a bit better than bigger ones) and that when you look at water bodies as a whole - including lakes and coasts - the figures rise to 27%. But, however you look at it, only a quarter of water bodies are in good nick - and that's poor. The RSPB is a partner in the Our Rivers campaign.
And lest this blog should be accused of being unfair - of course this state of affairs reflects the lack of progress made by successive governments, it isn't just this one's fault. But then we did point this out to the previous adminstration too.
So it is good that yesterday Defra announced an extra £110m to help with England's river quality. Being a cynical bunch we immediately asked whether this was new money - all governments are keen on recycling when it comes to good news - but it seems to us that at least £92m is new money and that is very much to be welcomed - so we do welcome it.
Some of this money (it's not clear how much) will be spent on catchment restoration projects (it's not clear of what sort) in places yet to be determined. Will this be in the 10 already identified pilot catchments or somewhere else - it's not clear? And how much will it aid the improvement of status of Natura 2000 sites which all should be in GES by 2015 - we'd say they should be already?
So we can welcome the headlines but would like to know the details. The announcement was made at almost the last possible time before government goes into purdah and can't make big announcements because of the up-coming elections. It's a time to rush out good news, which this is, however vague it might be (and this is quite vague).
This announcement also comes hard on the heels of the withdrawal of a judicial review of of River Basin Management Plans.
As you say Mark the key is in the detail. I'm not quite sure what is meant by "clean up". What is the cause of the lack of water quality? The Environment Agency is responsible, I believe, for industrial and other discharges into our rivers, so is this the prime culprit and does the Environment Angecy need to spend most of this new money in tightening up on discharges, or is the problem primarily agricultural run off from pesticides and fertiliser? On a further point, I get worried when people talk about cleaning out ditches and streams just because there is a lot of silt and vegetation in them. Silt and vegetatation, providing it is not algea bloom, does not necessarily mean the water course is polluted or of poor quality. It is often quite the reverse, undisturbed streams, ditches and rivers with a lot of fringe vegetation often hold rare and important wildlife and an immense amount of damage can be done by physically "cleaning them out". So as you say we need to find out more of the intent and the detail.