Diffuse Pollution
"End of pipe" or Point source pollution involves a single source of damage to water quality. Diffuse pollution is a more general malaise which affects the water quality of a river or a whole catchment. Examples in the Wye and Usk catchments would include acidification of headwaters, sediments being washed off potato fields into the River Lugg, together with low doses of pesticides and other noxious chemicals and aesthetic pollution from litter. It’s a cumulative effect. Diffuse pollution has been described as the death by a thousand cuts, rather than from a single wound.
Diffuse pollution is often more serious than point source pollution, because it is harder to detect and prevent. In fact, the people causing diffuse pollution may be unaware that they are causing a problem. Often the impact of their activity alone would not cause any significant damage, but combined it has a disastrous impact on fish and all other wildlife.
What is the solution to diffuse pollution? Education: we need to make it absolutely clear to farmers, foresters, gardeners, and builders that causing even small amounts of pollution to water contributes to the death of whole river systems. That's why the Wye & Usk Foundation spends so much time working with people whose actions can have an effect on the condition of the river. Over the last 10 years, we have advised nearly 450 land managers and given presentations to community groups with 1,000s of members. Our fencing and habitat work on the tributaries is designed to reduce the amount of sediment which ends up polluting the whole of the Wye and Usk river systems.
Some of our project funding (Lugg & River Arrow Project & Water Framework Directive) also allows us to correct such basic farming issues such as clean and dirty water separation but the reality is that different standards are applied between agricultural pollution (lax) and industrial (intensive).
The Water Framework Directive and EU law will require government agencies to ensure our SAC water bodies (rivers to most of us) have "good ecological status" by 2015 and the rest by 2027. They should not be allowed to deteriorate under this directive if sanctions are to be avoided. Diffuse pollution is one of the main reasons why this target is going to require all of us to take action to ensure that we are not contributing to water pollution, even in a small way.
If you think that a river is being polluted then you should always contact the Environment Agency immediately on 0800 80 70 60.