Chichester Gillian Keegan MP calls for an ‘immediate intervention’ to save the River Ems

Chichester MP Gillian Keegan has written to the new Environment Minister, Steve Double MP, calling for his immediate intervention to protect the river from drying out entirely after the recent drought conditions left the River Ems nearly dry.

The letter emphasised the importance of the habitat as one of only 200 chalk streams, saying current events are ‘catastrophic for the ecosystem’, and comes after years of supporting the community group Friends of the Ems in its effort to protect the river which runs through the village of Westbourne.

Her letter points to the impact of the abstraction of water from the river by Portsmouth Water and the MP is supporting the group’s efforts to encourage the Environment Agency to turn on a secondary augmentation point to ensure some water continues to flow downstream.

It says: “Their reason for not doing so is to avoid putting treated, and therefore chlorinated water into the system. Although I can understand the hesitancy to add treated water into the rover system, the fact remains some water is better then none.

"I would be grateful if you could look at this particular river and intervene to ensure water continues to flow in an effort to preserve the ecosystems it supports.”

However Portsmouth Water said it does not take water from the river and that it was ‘fully committed to continuing to work hard to protect the Ems’ and is working with the Environment Agency and the Friends of the Ems ‘in developing sustainable long term solutions’.

CEO of Portsmouth Water Bob Taylor said: “Just to be clear, we do not take water from the River Ems – in fact it’s quite the reverse – one of our local boreholes is no longer used for the public water supply and is instead used purely to pump water into the Ems in the summer when flows in the river need ‘topping up’.

"This facility has been in operation for some years and this year has been operational since 18th July, the date when the flows in the river reached the threshold set out in our license and the Environment Agency requested the borehole to be switched on. This ‘top up’ delivers over two million litres of water each day to help the Ems. So the key point here is that we have already repurposed a major element of our infrastructure purely to support the Ems which we continue to operate and maintain long term.

"However, our second borehole site in the vicinity of the Ems is used for the public water supply; this source cannot be used to top up the Ems because local water supplies could be impacted and the water itself contains the normal chlorine residual – something that is considered a pollutant and potentially damaging to the environment.

“We share the concern about the River Ems and have been working for the last year with local organisations such as Friends of the Ems and Greening Westbourne to identify the best course of action to support the health of the river. Much new environmental data has been collected with the help of a small army of local volunteers.

"Because it is a chalk stream and directly reliant on the level of water in the ground to support its flow, we know that the flows in the upper River Ems would naturally dry up in dry summers without our activities in the catchment; that said, we fully accept that our activities may exacerbate this natural situation.

“Rainfall is clearly another major influencing factor. In our studies to date we have discovered that the exact spot where we deliver the untreated ‘top up’ water into the river may not be as effective as envisaged by the Environment Agency and ourselves when the current license was issued, in 2016, and water may not be staying in the river – but instead draining back into the underground aquifer through geological features in the stream bed, which is obviously not ideal.

“As a trial in the short term to improve the effectiveness of our pumping, and in consultation with the Environment Agency, we have recently moved the point we put the water in the Ems by about 250m. In doing this we hope that the water enters the river over more clay-based geology, which will ensure more water will stay in the river to better protect the life it supports. We are monitoring the effectiveness of this adjustment, which so far looks promising, but will not draw any final conclusions until we can discuss the results of our monitoring with the Environment Agency. In the meantime, we will of course continue to pump water into the River Ems, until flows recover after the summer.”

Mr Taylor said that in the longer term he hoped that increased usage of the Havant Thicket Reservoir for the supply of water and ‘the movement of all our household customers to pay for the water they use through a meter’ will also help the river’s plight.

Chichester district councillor for Westbourne Roy Briscoe welcomed the Chichester MP’s plea for action and said it was important that the community and key groups work together to find the best way to save the river from drying out.

He said: “All of us who are fighting to protect this rare and beautiful habitat are extremely grateful for Gillian’s ongoing support.

"The River Ems is a hugely important habitat for our area and is a natural wildlife corridor, connecting the South Downs to the sea. Gillian, The Friends of The Ems, and I, will continue to work with Portsmouth Water, the Environment Agency, and others to come up with a long-term solution to protect this significant natural resource.”