Environment Agency launches initiative to improve water quality in north-east

The Environment Agency (EA) has announced it is launching a project to improve water quality in the north-east of England.

It will work alongside Tees Rivers Trust and the Tyne Rivers Trust to reduce the amount of silt in waterways in the area.

The group stated that the project is going ahead as some rivers in the Tees and Tyne catchments have produced poor water monitoring results and are less than 'good', according to European environmental legislation targets.

Tyne Rivers Trust director Malcolm Newson said: "Our rivers are the healthiest they have been for 20 years, but we need to do more to meet challenging EU standards."

He noted that catchment modelling is being applied at the moment, which identifies where silt will have greater affect on reducing the water quality of the rivers.

This will help them know in which areas to implement solutions to reduce this problem.

The EA has also been working on removing silt from a stream in County Durham this month in an attempt to reduce risk of flooding in the area.

Posted by Claire Manning