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Pollution History

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It is not clear when pollution first became an issue for the River Trent, but in the late 1880s, it had a thriving salmon fishery, with the river producing an annual catch of some 3,000 fish, a decade later, this had fallen to 100.[1] The collapse of the fishery was due to the rapid population increase of the towns that developed following the Industrial Revolution. The tipping point being the introduction of piped water and a basic sewer network, which meant that effluent, which was previously stored in cesspits, was carried away through drains into the nearest brook.[1][2]

...the polluted state of the Trent is a terror to Trentham.

Duke of Sutherland, describing the river in his injunction of 1902.[3]

This was a particular problem in Stoke-on-Trent and the growing towns of the Potteries. Due to the relatively small size of the Trent and its tributaries such as the Fowlea Brook, which drained these towns, the river and brooks were unable to dilute the inflow of domestic sewage and soon became overwhelmed and badly polluted.[4]

At the downstream end of the Potteries was Trentham Hall, here pollution became so bad that the owner, the Duke of Sutherland, made a claim against the local Fenton council in 1902. He also took out an injunction against the council to prevent the ongoing contamination causing a "most foul and offensive stench", the river not even being suitable to water grazing cattle on the estate.[3]

Fowlea Brook - once a very heavily polluted tributary of the Trent

Although he provided land for a sewage works nearby at Strongford, the problems continued such that in 1905 the Levenson-Gower family left Trentham altogether and moved to their other properties, including Dunrobin Castle in Scotland.[5]

Until the outbreak of the Second World War, the main source of pollution continued to be the Potteries, although there was contamination from the Tame and other lower tributaries it was not as prominent. During the 1950s, however, the same problem of effluent dilution that occurred in Stoke began to become significant in Birmingham and the Black Country. Domestic effluent and polluting discharges from the metal working industries in the upper reaches, combined to affect the whole length of the tributary river Tame.[4]

The Tame pollution also reached the Trent as well, with one of the worse effected reaches being that downstream of the confluence with the Tame through Burton, this being exacerbated by its late introduction of sewage treatment, and the substantial wastewater arising from the breweries in the town.[6] Angling clubs in Burton used the Dove or local lakes for fishing, as the Trent through the town was absent of any fish. Downstream, the inflow of cleaner water from the Dove and then the Derwent meant that conditions improved enough to allow recreational coarse fishing in the lower reaches.[4][7]

The pollution of the "Trent catchment was probably at its worst in the late 1950s"[4], this being the result of the ongoing industrialisation of the urban areas, combined with the interruption and under investment caused by two world wars, which lead to only piecemeal improvements of the sewerage treatment infrastructure taking place. One effect of this pollution was that the upper and middle reaches were completely devoid of any fish life.[4]

I received this morning a letter from the secretary of a Burton rowing club.
Last Thursday, its senior eight were out rowing when
members of the crew were seized with pains in the chest.
This was caused by fumes rising from the river.

John Jennings MP for Burton-on-Trent, 1956.[8]

John Jennings, the local MP for Burton highlighted these problems in a speech to the House when he stated in 1956, that as in previous years the river had been declared unsafe for swimming on advice from the medical officer, and how its unhealthy condition affected a local rowing club.[8]

From the 1960s onwards, there were gradual but steady improvements to the inadequate sewage works and sewers built during the Victorian era in the urban areas, but this was expensive, and took time to complete. The changes were helped by the introduction of more stringent pollution control legislation, which required industrial waste to be discharged to sewers, and the formation of the Trent River Authority, which had new duties relating to managing water quality issues. Other changes, such as the replacement of town gas with natural gas, saw the end of the polluting and toxic coal tar emissions to rivers in 1963.[9][10]

In 1970, Mr Jennings again raised the issue of pollution through Burton, the River Tame continuing to be a source of the problem, and further improvements were promised.[11] The responsibility for sewage treatment works still belonged primarily to local authorities, which often meant an uncoordinated approach and a proliferation of small works. In 1974, these works were transferred to the regional water authorities, with the Severn Trent Water Authority taking over the role for the Trent catchment. This led to increased investment, the closure of older and smaller works, with sewage treatment being combined at larger modern works such as Strongford and Minworth.[4]

The economic recession in the 1970s meant that there was a considerable contraction of heavy industrial sectors, reducing pollution loadings from factories and foundries. Later improvements such as the series of purification lakes that were constructed on the Tame in the 1980s, which allowed contaminated sediment to settle out from the river, also reduced pollution levels, and lessened the impact of first flush runoff events in the lower Tame and the middle Trent.[12][4]

Caddisfly Larva, intolerant of pollution, it is used as an indicator species in the Trent Biotic index

The improvements in water quality along the Trent were recorded through the chemical monitoring of the river from the 1950s. Polluting substances such as ammonia showed a reduction, as did the biochemical oxygen demand, an indicator of the contamination present in the river. There were corresponding increases in dissolved oxygen, an indicator of a healthy river environment. The programme of monitoring also extended to taking biological samples, and one of the first biotic indices used for assessing the ecological rather than the chemical quality of rivers was developed by the local river board in the 1960s. Using invertebrates as an indicator of pollution levels, it was appropriately named the Trent Biotic index.[1][13]

By 2004, it was reported that the Trent was cleaner than it had been in the last 70-80 years, and that episodic incidents of pollution had also reduced considerably since the 1970s.[14] The river remains vulnerable to these pollution events, such as the one that occurred in October 2009 when an accidental release of cyanide from a factory into the sewer system in Stoke-on-Trent, affected the treatment works at Strongford. This resulted in the release of raw sewage and the chemical into the river, killing thousands of fish, and posing a health risk to river users as far south as Burton.[15][16]

Although now considered cleaner, there are still problems with diffuse pollution from agricultural runoff and urban areas, as well as point source contamination from sewage works.[17] The improvements that have taken place mean that the Trent can be used for public water consumption. Riverside lakes near Shardlow act as a reserve water source for Nottingham and Derby, and water is also abstracted at Torksey and Newton-on-Trent for supplies in Lincolnshire.[18][14]




River Conservation and Management 2012 [1] Lester - River Ecology 1975 [2] Wastewater Treatment: Evaluation and Implementation: Quality Improvements in the Trent Catchment. 1994 [4]


  • Stone, Richard (2005). The River Trent. Phillimore. ISBN 1-86077-356-7.
  1. ^ a b c d Langford; Worthington; Shaw; Kemp; Woolgar; Ferguson; Harding (2012). Boon; Raven (eds.). River Conservation and Management. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 9781119961819. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
  2. ^ a b Lester (1975). Whitton (ed.). Polluted River :River Trent,England. University of California Press. pp. 489–512. ISBN 9780520030169. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
  3. ^ a b "The Duke of Sutherland and River Trent Pollution". Sutherland Collection. sutherlandcollection.org.uk. Retrieved 10 July 2013.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h Martin; Brewin (1994). Rofe (ed.). Quality Improvements in the Trent Catchment. Thomas Telford. pp. 40–50. ISBN 9780727719911. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
  5. ^ Stone 2005, p. 14, 15
  6. ^ Nigel J. Tringham (Editor) (2003). "Burton-upon-Trent: Public services". A History of the County of Stafford: Volume 9: Burton-upon-Trent. Institute of Historical Research. Retrieved 23 September 2013. {{cite web}}: |author= has generic name (help)
  7. ^ Nigel J. Tringham (Editor) (2003). "Burton-upon-Trent: Economic history". A History of the County of Stafford: Volume 9: Burton-upon-Trent. Institute of Historical Research. Retrieved 24 July 2013. {{cite web}}: |author= has generic name (help)
  8. ^ a b "River Trent, Burton (Condition)". Hansard. 1956. Retrieved 1 March 2014.
  9. ^ Langford; Shaw (2010). Batty; Hallberg (eds.). Ecological recovery in a river polluted to its sources. Cambridge University Press. pp. 256–272. ISBN 9781139486163. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
  10. ^ Huntley; Leeks; Walling, eds. (2001). Land-ocean Interaction: Measuring and Modelling Fluxes from River Basins to Coastal Seas. IWA. p. 20. ISBN 9781900222105.
  11. ^ "River Trent, Pollution". Hansard. 1970. Retrieved 1 March 2014.
  12. ^ Petts; Heathcote; Martin, eds. (2002). Urban Rivers: Our Inheritance and Future. IWA Publishing. p. 108. ISBN 9781900222228.
  13. ^ Calow, Peter, ed. (2009). Rivers Handbook: The Science and Management of River Environments. John Wiley. p. 147. ISBN 9781444313864.
  14. ^ a b "A River on the mend". BBC News. bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 10 July 2013.
  15. ^ "Cyanide sparks River Trent pollution probe". independent.co.uk. Retrieved 18 October 2013.
  16. ^ "Fears over river cyanide effects". BBC News. bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 10 December 2013.
  17. ^ "Humber River Basin Management Plan". River Basin Management Plan: Humber River Basin District. environment agency. Retrieved 10 December 2013.
  18. ^ "Anglian Water's £44m reservoir scheme in Newton-on-Trent nears completion". BBC News. BBC. Retrieved 10 December 2013.
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