“The Evenlode waters used to be crystal clear, then, one summer it seemed, they turned to look like oxtail soup. It is still obvious something is very wrong.” John Pratt – Catchment Champion for the ECP
The Evenlode Catchment Partnership (ECP) exists to return the Evenlode catchment to ‘good ecological status’. Our focus is on addressing key environmental challenges like raw sewage spills and pollution, which severely impact local biodiversity. Our wide-ranging projects have been dedicated to enhancing water quality, improving flood management, enriching biodiversity, and fostering greater community engagement in the Evenlode catchment.
We are coming to the end of our 4 years of funding from Thames Water for the “Smarter Catchment Programme”, so it is good time to reflect on the work we have achieved and make plans for the next 5 years.
Our volunteer citizen scientists cover nutrient testing, through the Fresh Water Watch programme, and riverfly surveying. Around 270 sites are sampled monthly for water quality. The picture for water quality hasn’t changed over this period, but we have refined our understanding of the main sources of pollution. Although the public outcry is over the discharging of raw sewage – and who can blame anyone thinking it is unbelievable that this disgusting practice is allowed to happen in high rainfall events – we have discovered that it is the chronic pollution from treated effluent that is causing the most damage.
The nineteen sewage treatment works pumping out treated effluent are a far worse pollution threat. The effluent from most of the catchment’s sewage treatment works does not have phosphate removed, and these works pump out high levels of phosphate and nitrate twice a day. We have shown from our sampling that this has its most damaging impact in times of low flow during the summer months, when the receiving streams have little dilution effect. It is no wonder that the rivers remain the colour of oxtail soup for so much of the warmer months.
Our positive message is that the local communities are realising the reasons for poor water quality and are volunteering to help monitor this and to lobby the government for change. Amazing postcards, coloured and filled in by schoolchildren, were delivered as a ‘message in a bottle’ to Minister Hardy at the DEFRA offices in Westminster in December. The postcards were a plea from the children for our rivers to be restored to good health.
Our outreach programme has been phenomenal. As well as fêtes, fairs and parish council events, the team has also engaged with Blenheim Estate to host events with refugees, the Friendship Café, Black2Nature, and a touch tour for the visually impaired.
Over 3500 school children have been the lucky recipients of field trips or classroom lessons, spreading the knowledge of how rivers work and what we can do to improve water quality. They are all now very well versed as to what you can and cannot flush down the toilet.
We have delivered several river restoration projects, the most impressive being at Cornwell where three new wetlands and a fish spawning bed were created. This has seen an influx of bird life with numerous snipe, mallard, teal and egrets feeding and roosting in the new wetland areas.
The Natural Flood Management measures we have delivered in the last few years were all in use after Storm Bert swept through the catchment in November last year. Unfortunately, Bledington was not saved from the floods and had their worst flooding to date, loaded with silt from the adjoining fields. We have struggled with landowner permission in the last couple of years, but we are hopeful that we will manage to persuade them to allow us to construct new temporary water retention areas.
There have been too many other projects to mention here but we are in a strong position to continue the great work, provided that we can secure funding.
With this in mind, we are launching the Green Match Fund through the Big Give which will run from 22nd-29th April 2025. Your donations will make all the difference and enable us to carry on this amazing work.
· Visit our website to learn more at www.evenlodecatchment.org.uk
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