The River Wye used to be full of wild salmon. Today it is full of algae. And the meandering waterway which has long attracted anglers, hikers and poets is now the subject of a major pollution lawsuit.
The case – against a British water company and two chicken producers, who all deny responsibility – has been launched on behalf of almost 4,000 people who say their lives are being negatively affected by river pollution. And while legal action brought against river polluters is not new, there has never been a UK case with this many claimants.
A large range of people suing can add legitimacy to a court case, making it harder to ignore than one brought by a small group of activists.
The case is also what’s known as a “strategic” lawsuit. The claimants in the Wye litigation (which also includes the Rivers Usk and Lugg), are suing not just to secure compensation for losses they say they have suffered as a result of the pollution. They’re also trying to draw attention to the plight of some of the UK’s most cherished waterways, and attempting to secure policy change to clean them up.
Similar legal tactics have frequently – and successfully – been used by large groups in a bid to tackle climate change, where strategic litigation has been brought against companies, notably big oil firms, to help portray them as the ones responsible for damaging the climate. The Wye pollution case is similarly aimed in large part at big food companies rather than holding individual farmers responsible.
At the centre of the Wye case is “nutrient overload” of the chemicals nitrogen and phosphorus into river water from agriculture and sewage. This causes excessive growth of algae, robbing the water of oxygen and killing off fish, plants and invertebrates.
Much of the nitrogen and phosphorus is said to come from the excrement of chickens farmed close to the River Wye, and the fertiliser made from it, which is used in other types of farming.
From a global climate change perspective, chicken, as a meat product, is a greener alternative to beef and lamb because of its much lower carbon footprint (chickens produce less methane than cows and sheep).
But campaigners argue that this ignores the local environmental picture, where the concentration of the chicken industry and its nutrients in one area is a major problem. It has been claimed that around a quarter of the UK’s chickens are produced close to the Wye.