A statement issued by Mark Lloyd, Chief Executive of the Rivers Trust on 24 January.
It is very disappointing that the Prime Minister was so disparaging and dismissive about the need for acoustic fish deterrents on the water intakes for the new nuclear power station being built at Hinkley by EDF. Those intakes will suck in an Olympic swimming pool’s worth of water every 12 seconds, more than the normal flow of all the rivers flowing into the Severn Estuary, and without a deterrent mechanism will cause a vast slaughter of millions of tonnes of fish every year for the next 60 years.
This will cause the potential extinction of populations of rare and endangered species such as eel, shad and salmon which travel up rivers such as the Bristol Avon, Wye, Usk, Severn, Tawe, Taff and Neath to spawn. As the Severn Estuary is a vital fish nursery for the whole region, the strategic and economic impacts for marine fisheries throughout the Irish Sea will be devastating. That cannot be allowed to happen in an estuary which also has the highest levels of environmental protection in law because of its importance for wildlife and its sensitivity to human activity, not to mention fish stocks that have declined dramatically in recent decades.
EDF is trying to wriggle out of the requirements of its development consent order to install deterrents to reduce the damage of its water intakes. It would be an outrage if the development was allowed to go ahead without fish deterrents, whatever the Prime Minister’s own views of their importance.
It should also be said that EDF has made completely ham-fisted attempts to engage local communities to consult about its planned mitigation measures, and its proposals appear to be wholly inadequate. For example, it has proposed no measures at all on the Bristol Avon which is one of the rivers closest to the development site. All the good work being carried out by the Bristol Avon Rivers Trust to nurture recovering fish populations in the river could be undone if EDF – and planning regulators – don’t do the right thing.
