River Pollution

O’Hara, Glen

doi:10.1057/978-1-137-44640-4_4

River Pollution

Glen O’Hara²

Chapter
First Online: 30 March 2017

234 Accesses

Abstract

Post-war British governments inherited a very fragmented and localist inland pollution control regime. The 1948 River Boards Act rationalised that system, creating 32 (later 27) River Boards. Any improvements in water quality were, however, very slow in coming, partly because the Boards lacked the administrative capacity quickly to survey waterways, and to some extent because local authority members of the River Boards were themselves responsible for a great deal of the pollution, as they were in charge of sewerage systems. It eventually took the 1973 regionalisation of the water industry, and the 1974 Control of Pollution Act, as well as the decline of many polluting industries, to enforce the clean water standards that many river users (such as anglers) had been advocating for decades.

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Notes

1.
L. Rosenthal, The River Pollution Dilemma in Victorian England: Nuisance Law Versus Economic Efficiency (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2014), p. 21.
2.
H. Cook, ‘A Tale of Two Catchments: Water Management and Quality in the Wandle and Tillingbourne 1600–1990’, Southern History 30 (2008), pp. 94–5. I am grateful to Prof. Andrew Spicer for this reference.
3.
Rosenthal, Pollution Dilemma, p. 15.
4.
B. Luckin, Pollution and Control: A Social History of the Thames in the Nineteenth Century (Bristol: Hilger, 1986), pp. 163–71.
5.
A very similar story to that of the Prussian state’s similar 1877 rivers law: see J. Radkau, Nature and Power: A Global History of the Environment (Cambridge; Cambridge University Press, Eng. trans., 2008), pp. 237–8, 247–8.
6.
A.S. Wohl, Endangered Lives: Public Health in Victorian Britain (London: Dent, 1983), p. 251.
7.
D.W.M. Johnstone and N.J. Horan, ‘Institutional Developments, Standards and River Quality: A UK History, and Some Lessons for Industrialising Countries’, Water Science and Technolgy 33, 3 (1996), pp. 213–14.
8.
J. Sheail, ‘Town Wastes, Agricultural Sustainability and Victorian Sewage’, Urban History 23, 2 (1996), pp. 194–5, 200–203, 205.
9.
Inland Water Survey Committee, First Annual Report, 1935–36 (London: HMSO, 1936), p. 2.
10.
NAUK HLG 50/2150, Hetherington to North, 10 September 1942.
11.
Post-War National Development Committee, Post-War National Development, Report No. IV: Inland Water Survey (London: Institution of Civil Engineers, 1942), pp. 3–5.
12.
NAUK HLG 50/2275, MHLG memorandum, ‘Reconstitution of the Inland Water Survey Committee’, November 1948, MHLG press notice, n.d. but filed in 1949.
13.
NAUK HLG 50/2281, Inland Water Survey Committee memorandum, ‘Statutory powers for the collection of surface water information’, June 1950, Coventry Corporation Water Undertaking, ‘Memorandum on the survey of surface water considered in relation to other aspects of the inland water survey’, 4 May 1951, Dr Buchan memorandum from Geological Survey, ’Statement prepared…at the request of Capt. McLean’, 11 June 1951, Inland Water Survey Committee, minutes, 29 November 1951.
14.
R.A. Downing, ‘Groundwater Resources, their Development and Management in the UK: An Historical Perspective’, Quarterly Journal of Engineering Geology and Hydrogeology 26, 4 (1993), pp. 338–9; the list is from Water Resources Board, Water Supplies in South East England (London: HMSO, 1966), technical report, p. 3.
15.
NAUK HLG 50/2515, Titherley memorandum, 23 May 1952, Dugdale to Macmillan, 27 May 1952, Circular 54/52, ‘Economies in local government services: water supply, sewerage and sewage disposal, private street works, coast protection and miscellaneous services’, 27 June 1952.
16.
NAUK HLG 50/2515, Ionides to Marples, 28 January 1952, Cheetham to Macmillan, 11 June, 2 July 1952. On the ‘Geddes Axe’ and the Ordnance Survey see W.A. Seymour (ed.), A History of the Ordnance Survey (Folkestone: Dawson, 1980), esp. pp. 230–6.
17.
NAUK HLG 50/2515, Titherley to Wrigley, 30 May 1952.
18.
NAUK HLG 50/2515, Parliamentary Secretary meeting with River Boards Association, minutes, 25 November 1952, Macmillan to Barson, 18 December 1952, Macmillan to Secretary, 19 July 1953.
19.
See M.L. Lees, ‘Inland Water Surveying in the United Kingdom – A Short History’, in Institute of Hydrology, 1985 Yearbook, Hydrological Data UK Series(Wallingford: Institute of Hydrology, 1987), p. 41; also L.E. Craine, Water Management Innovations in England (Washington DC: Resource for the Future, 1969), pp. 48–9.
20.
H. of C. Debs., vol. 517, col. 1863, Ernest Marples, Adjournment Debate, 13 July 1953.
21.
Ofwat/ Defra, Development, pp. 8–10.
22.
Water Resources Board, Interim Report on Water Resources in the North (London: HMSO, 1967), p. 7.
23.
Craine, Innovations, p. 45.
24.
OECD, Water Management, p. 44.
25.
NAUK COU 7/75, Devon River Authority, ‘Report of Section 14 survey’, 1972.
26.
NAUK 127/1210, Woodward, Mersey and Weaver RA, to MHLG, 29 December 1969 and 6 January 1970, British Waterworks Association meeting with North-Western local authorities, minutes, 8 May 1970.
27.
Water Resources Board, Water Resources in Wales and the Midlands (London: HMSO, 1971), table E, p. 11; Water Resources Board, South East England, table IV, p. 5. These projections were given in cubic metres, and the conversion to gallons has been conducted using http://www.metric-conversions.org/volume/cubic-meters-to-uk-gallons.htm, accessed 28 July 2014.
28.
Water Resources Board, Water Resources in the North, table B, p. 6.
29.
Water Resources Board, South East England, tables I and II, pp. 2–3.
30.
Ministry of Housing and Local Government projections were for a 28m population in South East England by 2001: Water Resources Board, South East England, technical report, table A, p. 8. But the 2001 Census revealed ‘only’ 20.6m people living across London, the South East and the East of England, albeit in a slightly smaller survey area. See: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/uk/03/census_2001/html/population.stm, accessed 28 July 2014.
31.
See Water Resources Board, Water Resources in England and Wales (London: HMSO, 1973), table 8, p. 30, and table 9, p. 31.
32.
J.A. Rees, Industrial Demand for Water: A Study of South East England (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson/ LSE, 1969), table 25, p. 150.
33.
See Water Resources Board, South East England, technical report, p. 16; Water Resources Board, Water Resources in the North, p. 9.
34.
Water Resources Board, England and Wales, pp. 55–60.
35.
On Scotland see W.R.D. Sewell, J.T. Coppock and A. Pitkethly, Institutional Innovation in Water Management: The Scottish Experience (Norwich: Geo Books, 1985), pp. 71–2.
36.
Craine, Innovations, table 1, p. 44 and pp. 64–5.
37.
J. Sheail, ‘“Never Again”: Pollution and the Management of Watercourses in Postwar Britain’, Journal of Contemporary History 33, 1 (1998), esp. pp. 117–20, 130–2.
38.
NAUK HLG 133/45, River Pollution Survey Report, January 1959.
39.
NAUK HLG 127/540, MHLG official meeting on Tyne pollution, minutes, 16 July 1959, (Beddoe?) to Waddell, 27 July 1959, Beddoe to Parr, 25 September 1959.
40.
NAUK HLG 127/540, Parr to Beddoe, 31 July 1959, Beddoe to Key, 22 September 1959.
41.
NAUK HLG 127/540, Tyneside sewage disposal, reports by the technical sub-committee, 19 January, 27 April 1962.
42.
NAUK HLG 133/23, Lee Conservancy Board report to Rodda and Garnet, 25 August 1972, Parton, Lee Conservancy Board, to Rodda, 12 April 1973, DoE report, ‘The Thames Estuary: note on river quality’, June 1972.
43.
H. of C. Debs., vol. 588, cols. 1040–4, J.R. Bevins, ‘Rivers (Prevention of Pollution)’ Resolution, 19 May 1958.
44.
NAUK HLG 127/540, Beddoe to Waddell, 28 May 1959.
45.
UWMRC MSS 292/650.1/5, Erith and District Trades Council to TUC, 28 September 1955; Kent Federation of Trades Councils to TUC, 23 December 1955, Brighton, Hove and District Trades Council to MAFF, 17 October 1957.
46.
UWMRC MSS 292/650.1/5, Anglers’ Co-Operative Association to Tewson, enclos. Flyer, 18 June 1957.
47.
R. Bate, ‘Protecting English and Welsh Rivers: The Role of the Anglers’ Conservation Association’, in R.E. Meiners and A.P. Morriss (eds.), The Common Law and the Environment: Rethinking the Statutory Basis for Modern Environmental Law (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littefield, 1999), pp. 94–7.
48.
H. of C. Debs., vol. 481, col. 804, Aneurin Bevan, Rivers (Prevention of Pollution) Bill, Second Reading debate, 27 November 1950.
49.
H. of C. Debs., vol. 517, cols. 1854–5, Arthur Greenwood, Adjournment Debate, 13 July 1953.
50.
J. Hassan, The Seaside, Health and the Environment in England and Wales since 1800 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003), p. 138.
51.
NAUK HLG 50/2850, Romiley Anglers’ Society to MHLG, 1 June 1957, Tawe and Tributaries Angling Association to MHLG, Preston Working Men’s Angling Association to MHLG, 3 June 1957, and other correspondence on file. The quotation is from ‘IO2’ social club, angling section, Derby, to MHLG, 1 May 1957.
52.
H. of C. Debs., vol. 571, cols. 208–9, James Johnson, oral questions, ‘Pollution of River Avon’, 28 May 1957, vol. 571 col. 1067, ‘River pollution – England and Wales’, 4 June 1957; Cmnd. 193, Report of the Ministry of Housing and Local Government for 1956 (June 1957), p. 35.
53.
‘Pollution Becomes Election Issue’, Angling Times, 2 October 1959; ‘Election Gains and Losses’, Angling Times, 16 October 1959.
54.
LPA HART 14/14, Hugh Burns, President, Avon Angling Club, to Hart, (January?) 1973; NAS DD 13/2680, Ross to McKay, 30 October 1974, Stott to Osborne, Secretary, Firth of Forth Fishermen’s Association, 2 September 1974; ‘Wye Authority Chairman Slams Water Policy’, The Hereford Times, 11 March 1972.
55.
C. Hall, Running Water: The Essential Guide to the Water Services (London: Robertson McCarta, 1989), pp. 86–7.
56.
On such opposition see NAUK HLG 127/1353, Maher, Country Landowners’ Association, to Beddoe, 8 August 1972.
57.
NAUK HLG 127/1352, DoE meeting with National Anglers’ Council, minutes, 2 November 1972, Griffiths to Wilson, 7 November 1972, Wilson to Griffiths, 15 November 1972; see NAUK HLG 127/1364, Wilson circular to Anglers’ Co-Operative Association members, ‘Our common law rights in the balance’, n.d. but filed in 1972.
58.
Kinnersley, Coming Clean, pp. 43–4; Craine, Innovations, p. 75.
59.
H. of C. Debs.vol. 637, cols. 828–9, John Temple, Rivers Pollution Bill, Third Reading Debate, 24 March 1961.
60.
NAS DD 13/1977, Scottish Development Department memorandum to Mabon, ‘Rivers (Prevention of Pollution) Scotland Bill’, 26 January 1965.
61.
W. Howarth and D. McGillivray, Water Pollution and Water Quality Law (Crayford: Shaw and Sons, 2001), pp. 86–7; Sewell, Coppock and Pitkethly, Scottish Experience, p. 77; NAS DD 13/2626, SDD Circular 27/1966, ‘Rivers (Prevention of Pollution) (Scotland) Act 1965’, 3 August 1966.
62.
Benidickson, Culture of Flushing, pp. 298–300.
63.
H. of C. Debs., vol. 481, col. 809, Walter Elliot, Rivers (Prevention of Pollution) Bill, Second Reading debate, 27 November 1950.
64.
Labour Party, Pollution and Our Environment, p. 9.
65.
Central Advisory Water Committee, Future Management, pp. 34–5.
66.
Hall, Running Water, pp. 75–7.
67.
Labour Party, Report of the Labour Party Conference 1969 (London: Labour Party, 1969), p. 111.
68.
NAUK AT 3/327, MHLG press release, ‘Minister appoints Mrs Lena Jeger’, 11 February 1969.
69.
CCAC Kennet Papers, ‘Pollution – machinery’ file, Kennet to Greenwood, October 1968.
70.
NAUK AT 3/327, Water Resources Board memorandum to the Working Party on Sewage Disposal, 30 May 1969.
71.
LSE Jeger 9/1/1, Crosland to Jeger, 23 April 1970; see Jeger draft speech notes, 29 July 1970, where she recalls ‘a quick look…[to] throw our thoughts into the pool of public thinking’.
72.
MHLG, Taken for Granted: The Report of the Working Party on Sewage Disposal (London: HMSO, 1970), esp. pp. 52–3.
73.
NAUK AT 3/328, Officials’ response to conclusions of the Working Party on Sewage Disposal, draft, October 1970, ARA reply to MHLG comments, November 1970; NAUK AT 49/26, MHLG Circular 10/72, ‘Report of the Working Party on Sewage Disposal’, 8 February 1972. See ‘A Few Ripples, Some Debris After the Jeger Report’, Municipal Engineering, 14 August 1970, p. 1685.
74.
NAS DD 13/2626, e.g. SDD Circular 88/1967, ‘Trade and sewage effluents’, 12 December 1967, MHLG Circular 64/68, ‘Industrial effluents’, 4 December 1968; MHLG, Standards of Effluents to Rivers with Particular Reference to Industrial Effluents (London: HMSO, 1968), esp. pp. 3–6, 21.
75.
CCAC Kennet Papers, ‘Pollution’ file, Conservative Party press release, ‘European conservation or conversation year?’, n.d. but 1970.
76.
NAUK HLG 154/106, Draft circular, revise, ‘Local expenditure’, text and notes, January 1968, Welsh Office Circular 8/68, ‘Local expenditure’, 7 February 1968, Cowan, Scottish Development Department, to Crocker, 9 February 1968.
77.
‘Lack of Cash Puts Poison Back in our Rivers’, Sunday Times, 26 December 1969.
78.
NAUK PREM 13/3260, Crosland to Wilson, 23 December 1969.
79.
‘Pollution…The Troubled Waters’, Sunday Times, 14 December 1969.
80.
For which see J. Boswell and J. Peters, Capitalism in Contention: Business Leaders and Political Economy in Modern Britain (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), esp. pp. 35–47.
81.
UWMRC MSS 200/C/1/16/1, Water and Effluent Panel, minutes, 7 November 1967.
82.
NAUK HLG 50/2875, Kipping to Douglas, 22 January 1948, Titherley to Armer, 26 January 1948, River Boards Bill, ‘Notes for reply to Second Reading Debate’, n.d. but filed in 1948.
83.
NAUK HLG 127/962, CBI memorandum, ‘River pollution and cost of effluent disposal’, 17 October 1966, CBI meeting with MHLG, minutes, 17 October 1966.
84.
NAUK AT 3/327, CBI memorandum to the Working Party on Sewage Disposal, August 1969.
85.
UWMRC MSS 200/C/1/16/1, Trade Effluent and Water Supply Panels joint meeting, minutes, 21 February 1966, Water and Effluent Panel, minutes, 27 July 1967.
86.
NAS DD 13/2626, CBI memorandum for SDD, ‘River pollution and cost of effluent disposal’, 19 October 1966.
87.
NAUK HLG 127/962, MHLG Circular 64/67, ‘Trade and Sewage Effluents’, 10 October 1967, Biggs to Rayner, 24 April 1967, Dyson, Bell and Co., on behalf of the Association of River Authorities, to Rayner, 7 June 1967.
88.
NAUK AT 3/35, Welland and Nene River Authority to Department of Environment, 7 January 1972.
89.
M. Newson, Land, Water and Development: Sustainable and Adaptive Management of Rivers (London: Routledge, 3rd edn., 2009), pp. 280–1.
90.
Porter, Water Management, pp. 30, 140–41.
91.
‘Troubled Times Ahead For Ten Headless Monsters’, Municipal Engineering, 10 December 1971, pp. 2360–1; NAUK AT 3/36, Issac, Hamlin and O’Donnell, Newcastle and Birmingham Universities, and Imperial College, record of letter to The Times, 13 December 1971.
92.
K. Hawkins, Environment and Enforcement: Regulation and the Social Definition of Pollution (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2011 pbk edn.; orig. pub. 1984), pp. 18, 27.
93.
Department of the Environment/ Welsh Office, Review of the Water Industry in England and Wales: A Consultative Document (London: HMSO, 1976), pp. 7–9.
94.
Defra/ Ofwat, The Development of the Water Industry in England and Wales (London: Defra, 2006), p. 27.
95.
A. Jordan, ‘Integrated Pollution Control and the Evolving Style and Structure of Environmental Regulation in the UK’, Environmental Politics 2, 3 (1993), p. 415.
96.
NAUK AT 33/19, Allan to Edmonds, 28 February 1975, Holmes to Jenkyns, 26 February 1975.
97.
NAUK HLG 127/1364, Vincent Ellis, clerk, East Suffolk and Norfolk River Authority, to DoE, 6 September 1972.
98.
NAUK HLG 127/1353, Clerk of the Council, Barrow-Upon-Soar Rural District Council, to Ash, 21 July 1972.
99.
NAUK HLG 127/1351, NFU memoranda to MHLG, March 1973 and n.d. but filed in October 1973; NAUK HLG 127/1352, CBI memorandum, ‘Water pollution control paper no. 5’, 17 August 1972.
100.
NAUK HLG 127/1365, Keeble, Chemical Industries Association, to DoE, 23 February 1973; the NFU concurred, as in ibid ., Sly, NFU, to Ash, 15 February 1973.
101.
NAUK AT 33/19, Draft letter to water authorities, ‘Control of Pollution Act’, n.d. but filed in 1975.
102.
MHLG (Key Report), Report of the Technical Committee on the Disposal of Solid Toxic Waste (London: HMSO, 1970), pp. 91–2.
103.
J. Tinker, ‘River Pollution: The Midlands Dirty Dozen’, New Scientist, 6 March 1975, pp. 551–54.
104.
NAUK HLG 127/1374, DoE memorandum, ‘Waste disposal: a consultation document’, January 1973.
105.
NAUK HLG 133/45, Ministry of Housing and Local Government, ‘River pollution survey’, January 1959.
106.
Department of the Environment, Report of a River Pollution Survey of England and Wales 1970 (London: HMSO, 1971), table 4, p. 3 table 1, p. 1, and tables 7–8, pp. 12–13.
107.
NAUK HLG 127/1351, MHLG memorandum, ‘Surface water pollution control’, n.d. but filed in 1973.
108.
Scottish Development Department, Towards Cleaner Water: The Rivers Pollution Survey of Scotland (Edinburgh: Scottish Development Department, 1972), table 4, p. 10, tables 25a and 26a, p. 34. Untreated sewage flowed out into e.g. the Mosset Burn and Findhorn Bay even in northern Scotland: see ibid ., p. 22.
109.
T.C. Smout, ‘Garrett Hardin,The Tragedy of the Commons and the Firth of Forth’, Environment and History 17, 3 (2011), p. 377.
110.
CCAC Kennet Papers, ‘Pollution’ file, Kennet remarks to National Executives’ Conference on Water Pollution Abatement, ‘We must take stock of the incipient menace which we know well hangs over our whole race’, 1970.
111.
J. Brooks Flippen, Nixon and the Environment (Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press, 2000), pp. 50–2; A. Neuschatz, Managing the Environment, Volume 1 (Washington DC: Environmental Research Center, 1974), p. 116.
112.
CCAC Kennet Papers, ‘Pollution’ file, President Nixon, message to Congress, ‘A comprehensive pollution programme’, 10 February 1970.
113.
O.L. Graham, Toward a Planned Society: From Roosevelt to Nixon (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1976), p. 194.
114.
J.A. Hannigan, Environmental Sociology: A Social Constructivist Perspective (London: Routledge, 1995), p. 50.
115.
Johnson, Politics of Environment, p. 117; ‘Wealth, Filth and the Future’, The Guardian, 2 February 1970, and American reports in ‘Wilson Focuses on Social Problems’, The Free Lance Star, 27 January 1970 and ‘Wilson: Not Seeking Power But New Life’, Sarasota Journal, 27 January 1970.
116.
A. Howard, ‘London Diary’, New Statesman, 30 January 1970.
117.
Central Advisory Water Committee, Future Management, pp. 15, 24–5.
118.
B.W. Clapp, An Environmental History of Britain since the Industrial Revolution (London: Longman, 1994), p. 90 and table 4.1, p. 92; Hall, Running Water, p. 68.
119.
J. Purseglove, Taming the Flood: A History and Natural History of Rivers and Wetlands (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), pp. 82–3, 160–3.
120.
Hall, Running Water, pp. 66–7.
121.
Rose, Dirty Man, pp. 47–55.
122.
J. Stauffer, The Water Crisis: Constructing Solutions to Freshwater Pollution (London: Earthscan, 1998), pp. 8–11, 28–30, 34–5.
123.
P.A. Johnston, R. L. Stringer, and M. C. French, ‘Pollution of UK Estuaries: Historical and Current Problems’, Science of the Total Environment 106, 1 (1991), esp. pp. 56, 62–3.
124.
CCAC Kennet Papers, ‘Pollution’ file, Kennet remarks to National Executives’ Conference on Water Pollution Abatement, 1970.
125.
Rose, Dirty Man, pp. 44–5.
126.
J. Doxat, The Living Thames: The Restoration of a Great Tidal River (London: Hutchinson Benham, 1977), p. 90.
127.
Klein, River Pollution, Vol. III, p. 433.
128.
Hall, Running Water, p. 57; Porter, Water Management, table 4, p. 121.
129.
NAUK HLG 127/1379, Lloyd, North West Water Authority, to Hughes, 24 May 1976.
130.
J. Bugler, Polluting Britain: A Report (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1972), pp. 32–3.
131.
Hall, Running Water, pp. 112–3.
132.
Klein, River Pollution, Vol. III, p. 434.
133.
House of Commons Science and Technology Committee, First Report of Session 2013–14, Water Quality: Priority Substances (London: TSO, 2013), pp. 7–11, 15–17.
134.
P.J. Boon, ‘Revisiting the Case for River Conservation’, in P.J. Boon and P.J. Raven (eds.) River Conservation and Management (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012), fig. 1.1, p. 5; I.P. Vaughan and S.J. Ormerod, ‘A 20-Year View of Monitoring Ecological Quality in English and Welsh Rivers’, in ibid ., p. 80.
135.
A.R.G. Large, ‘Current and Future Challenges in Managing Natural System Variability for River Conservation in European River Basins’, in Boon and Raven (eds.), River Conservation, p. 386.
136.
Coates, Six Rivers, pp. 185–6.

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O’Hara, G. (2017). River Pollution. In: The Politics of Water in Post-War Britain. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-44640-4_4

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-44640-4_4
Published: 30 March 2017
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