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Thursday, October 29, 2020 27

NEWBURYNEWS COUNTRYMATTERS

Newbury Weekly News

Google’s robots Coming clean over waterways EnvironmenAtgencyreportsthatallriversinEnglandareshowingsignsofpollution INTERNETgiant Goo gle has used its artificial intelligence research to branch out into farm robotics. Its X Development subsidiaryhas launched an autonomouselectric ‘plant buggy’ powered by solar panels.

COUNTRYMATTERS byANDREWD AVIS

Pow’ s shortondetail inform agronomicdecisions. If the laser technology being developed by others could be mountedon the buggy, it could be used to zap weeds without the need for herbicide. REBECCAPow, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at Defra with responsibilityfor the environment, spoke in a CLA webinar recently. It was a typical politician ’s contribution, full of aspiration, but very short on detail. She said she hoped that soil healthwould be recognised as a public good and attract grants in the forthcomingEnvironmental LandManagement Scheme. While the Agriculture Bill has almost finishedits passage through Parliament, the EnvironmentBill is someway behind. Wellbeingwebsites THERoyal Agricultural Benevolent Institution,has launched a new initiative to help with communitywellbeing. There are two websites, one for adults, one for 11- to 17-year-olds, offering advice on mental health. There is also access to one-to-one counselling. This comes at a time when signifi- cant stress is comingon three fronts – the Covid-19 pandemic, a very poor farming year causedby adverse weather and worry about the final Brexit implications. Driving through crops, it has camerasand sensors to count plants, identifyweeds and assess growth potential. When its findingsare combined with other data, such as soil analysis and weather predictions, they will provide information to

The othermajor producer in Hampshire is Vitacress on the Bourne, a tributary of the river Test, which says it is working very closely with the EnvironmentAgency to ensure it is compliantwith environmental permitting regulations. Our chalk streams are internationally important, not least because 85 per cent of the world’s chalk streams are in England. They are fed by springs from the aquifers in the chalk downlandand are thus very pure, have a relatively constant temperature and water flow. They provide an ideal habitat for native brown trout, sea trout and salmonamong many other species. The fact that we seem incapable of maintainingthem in good ecological and chemical conditionis a national disgrace. Climate change is probably the singlemost critical reasonwhy efforts to improve water qualityare failing. Heavy rainfall and floods overwhelm drains and the sewage systemso that raw sewage washes into water courses. This happenedon 200,000 occasions last year, according to The Guardian . New trunk roads such as the Newbury by-passmay have balancingponds built into the infrastructure, but on older roads and country lanes, flood water runs into drains or the surroundingcountryside. Those drains run into watercourses, taking a wide range of pollutingchemicals from the road surface. The Kennet throughNewbury has another problemwhere it joins the Kennet and Avon Canal at MarshBenham. Pollution from the canal thus comes straight into one of our finest chalk streams. Englandhas one of the worst records in Europe. In Scotland, 65.7 per cent of waterways are in good health, 64 per cent in Wales and 31.3 per cent in Northern Ireland. The average for EUmember states is 40 per cent, which makes England’s 16 per cent look very poor indeed.

Thefarmingcolumnand Countyr Mattersarticles arewrittenbyAndrew Davis,whowelcomes suggestedtopicsfor coverage.Hecanbe contactedon(01635) 564526,oremail:editor@ newbuyr news.co.uk

NOT a single river in England has good chemical status according to the latest report publishedby the Environment Agency last month. That shocking findinghas understandably attractedgreat media attention,with the implication that pollutionof rivers is gettingworse. However, closer reading of the report puts the conclusions into perspective. The EuropeanUnionWater Framework Directive came into force in 2000 and set the target for all waters to be in good ecological conditionby 2015. When it becameapparent that the target could not be met, the deadlinewas extendedto 2021 and then again to 2027. The target set by the BritishGovernment in its 25-year Environment Planwas for 75 per cent of surface and groundwaters to be in good ecological conditionby 2027, but even the EnvironmentAgency admits that is looks increasingly unlikely that the target can be met. In fact, the ecological status of rivers is unchanged since the last report in 2016. Fourteen per cent then as now were rated as of good ecological status, increasing to 16 per cent of all water bodies. But, in 2016, 97 per cent of rivers were rated as of good chemical status reducing to zero in the latest report. This is not evidenceof massive pollution, but a reflectionof testingmethods. The threshold for failure has been raised

ManyofEngland’s streamsarepolluted

for some chemicalswhile others have been brought within the testing regime for the first time. Nevertheless, the results are a damning indictmentof our water courses and show that greater action is required if the targets are to be met. Why is it proving so difficult to makes improvements? Over-abstractionis one issue, not a cause of pollutionin itself, but lower water flows result in less dilutionof pollutants. Eightyper cent of water is recycled through sewage treatment works, but water taken from the borehole at Axford, nearMarlborough, to supply Swindon, is returned to the Thames rather than the Kennet catchment. Much of the pollutioncomes from agriculture and sewage treatment plants. According to the report, 36 per cent of damage to the water environment is due to discharge from sewage works and 40 per cent is due to run-off from ‘agricultural industries’.

More needs to be done to reduce this, althoughit is interesting to note that both nitrate and phosphate levels have fallen since 2016. Climate change makes the problemmore acute, with heavier rainfall events. Soil structure is poor on many farms, with compactioncausinga reducedability to absorb rainfall, leading to run-off. In six days in September2012, more than 200,000 tonnes of primeHerefordshire topsoilwas washed into the river Lugg, the equivalent of 64 acres. Nutrientand pesticideresidueswere carried with soil particles into the river. In Hampshire, the growing of water cress threatens the Test and Itchen. The EnvironmentAgency has taken action against Bakkavor, which runs a water cress plant in Alresford, for dischargingneonicotinoidinsecticideinto the river Itchen. The plant is due to close at the end of the monthafterWaitrose, one of its biggest customers, stoppedbuying from it.

The devastation of ash trees is heartbreaking

NATURENOTES by NICOLA CHESTER ...................................... ContacNt icola t:https:// nicolachester.wordpress.com/ Twitter@nicolawriting oremaihl erat nicolawriting@gmail.com

A POIGNANT, devastating light is fallingon the ash trees, illuminating their grey skeletons. The sheer scale of the loss of themhas becomeobvious and widespread this year. There are ghosts in the woods. Chalaraash dieback was officially identifiedin the UK in 2012. The fungal spores that cause it probably blew in across the Channel, althoughits advance was accelerated by imported, infected nursery stock. The fungus originated in East Asia, where the species of ash tree there evolved to co-existwith it. Ash is our third most abundant tree and most commonhedgerow tree – whole woods will be lost; the landscape changed forever. The economicalcost alone is forecast at £15bn. High on the downs, where the view stretches full counties, it is suddenly easy to pinpoint swathes of dying trees, like smoke drifting from bonfires. Their canopieswere noticeably light this year and the black-spotted, curled leaves have fallen early. Some still clutch bunches of brown seed keys. The grey, deeply-fissured bark of one great tree, hundreds of years old, bears

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dark cankers and lesions along its limbs. A squirrel corkscrews up its trunk, like honeysuckle up a blackthorn stick, its tail glitching in a reverse questionmark. The shape of the ash is like no other. It falls into a graceful chandelier, the branches and twigs curvingupwards in a lilt at their tips. This one still has a few leaves. A breeze riffles lightly along a diseased bough. Right then, the end of the bough falls in front of me, brittle, almost hollow. Trees start shedding limbs at 50-per-cent leaf loss. Beside it, saplings have sprung up, but their ends appear scorched; browning, curling and dying. On the steep slope, the entire hanging wood is ash. I try to imagine it without them, and can ’t. We stand to lose so much more than the trees. Ash is a keystone species.

Emily Beardon writes in The Biologist that 950 species rely on ash trees. This national, natural disaster is creeping up on us and the thought almost prostrates me with grief. I love the lamp black buds like tiny deer’s feet on the smoothgrey twigs; I love the zingy green and copper fireworks of the flowers in spring, the airy, open trellis of the branches, the dappling of the little fish leaves. The filtering light of them. But in nature, and in our human ingenuity and will, there is always hope. We can expect to lose around 80 per cent of our ash trees, but not all. Much research is being done to find, map and breed from disease resistant trees. Wild Diary Find out more on ChalaraAsh Dieback here: https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/ You’ll also find a very useful app on tree identification.

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at Hillier Garden Centre, Hermitage, Nr Newbury RG18 9TG T: 01635 201623 E: kalehurstgm@aol.com www.kalehurst.co.uk