Tower and Town, April 2016

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Extraction, Pollution

Pollution and Water Extraction from the River Kennet.

The River Kennet is a precious, natural resource but that has not prevented water companies extracting significant amounts of water from it for domestic use. Will the building of a new pipeline make a difference?

Thames Water has been accused many times of over-abstraction of the water from the Kennet after stretches of the river have dried up. In late 2011, half a kilometre of the Kennet was completely dry. It is said that the last time that this stretch dried up so disastrously was in 1976. The company has a licence to take up to 2.9m gallons from the river’s aquifer each day; this is the same as five Olympic-sized swimming pools.

A new drinking water pipeline has been introduced next to the A346. This means that Thames Water is able to stop taking groundwater from the River Og, which feeds into the Kennet. It also allows them to halve the amount of groundwater it takes out of the Kennet catchment at Axford. Work on this pipeline began in August 2015 and is due to be finished by Christmas 2016. It is 18.2 km long and is part of a £25m project to protect the Kennet. The Environment Agency is passionate to ensure that this idea is successful as the river is one of only two hundred chalk streams in the world.

The Environment Agency also announced in July that it will be making changes to the Thames Water abstraction licence from April 2017. Thames Water put forward the idea of the pipeline in response to this announcement from the Environment Agency. They also believe that abstractions from the river are having a detrimental impact on it. Steve Tuck, who is the Thames Water abstraction manager, said “We’re always conscious of the need to provide our customers with a reliable source of water whilst also protecting the environment. We’re really pleased to be building a new pipeline that will help us both.” Tuck also agrees with the Environment Agency and ARK about needing to reduce their reliance on the Kennet and they believe that the pipeline will help to ensure a healthy future for the important chalk stream, which gives so much pleasure to so many people. ARK have been campaigning for twenty years on this cause.

There is a national initiative regularly monitoring water quality. Many members of the public are devoted to checking the health of the river and many are passionate about preserving its beauty. There are high hopes for the improvement of the quality of the river and many are excited for 2017 when the progression should begin to improve dramatically.

Phoebe Kemp