Association of Drainage Authorities The Association of Drainage 6 Electric Parade Surbiton Authorities response to NFU Surrey KT6 5NT information request: Telephone: +44 (0)20 8399 7350 Email: [email protected] Ministerial Drought Summit Website: www.ada.org.uk

Comments from the Community

About ADA

The Association of Drainage Authorities (ADA) is the association for water level management organisations in the , with over 200 members. ADA is recognised as the national representative of the 144 Internal Drainage Boards in and Wales. Internal Drainage Boards (IDBs) are local public bodies established in areas of special drainage need in England and Wales to undertake works to manage flood risk and water levels on behalf of their community.

Summary

• Most boards have observed a decreasing expenditure in pumping station maintenance and electricity this year and in 2011. • Boards are managing water levels in their systems based on their own telemetry and MET Office forecast information. • Most Boards manage their drains to Summer and Winter levels, Winter levels being lower to provide greater freeboard capacity for intense or prolonged rainfall. The majority of Boards who responded were either raising water levels gradually to Summer levels, or were planning to raise levels to summer levels/near summer levels in the next month, earlier than usual practice. Boards are balancing the current conditions with flood risk and water level adjustments will be dependent on the weather conditions over the next few weeks. Many had not reduced water levels to full Winter levels in many of their systems. • Across the Middle Level and South Level of the Fens, Boards had recently met with the Environment Agency to discuss the prevailing draught conditions and co-ordinate activity. The Boards concerned felt the meeting had been very helpful and clear communications between landowners/occupiers, IDBs and the EA will be critical going into Summer 2012. • Usual winter ‘flushing’ of the lowland systems hasn’t occurred potentially reducing water quality later in the 2012. • The invasive aquatic plant Azolla was prevalent across watercourses in the Fens and Somerset Levels during Autumn 2011 (also elsewhere in western Europe, e.g. Netherlands), the relatively mild winter and low flows could result in this providing further issues relating to water quality (and potentially even flood risk) during 2012 (photos attached, Appendix 1). • Winter levels are used by boards to conduct some essential maintenance operations that cannot be conducted at higher levels, thus they will have to balance the raising of levels in some systems with the need to complete such work. • Neither ADA, nor any IDB representative has been invited to the Drought Summit called by Caroline Spelman to ADA’s knowledge. This is disappointing considering a key outcome from the previous summit (10 June 2011) was to better engage with IDBs. Communication and co-operation is going to be essential this year.

Ministerial Drought Summit: Comments from the Internal Drainage Board Community Compiled by Ian Moodie ([email protected]), Association of Drainage Authorities Perspectives from Internal Drainage Boards

Drought in the South Level is something we have experienced quite a few times over the past few years and with a good and close working relationship with the Local EA office at Brampton we have always been able to manage the situation with more voluntary restrictions on abstraction than statutory bans which can be implemented and removed at short notice. Over the years the whole system has been fine-tuned year on year and has led, in the main, to a satisfactory way of managing the situation. In January IDBs from the South Level and Middle Level met with the EA at Brampton to discuss prospects for the coming year and concluded that the current system of dealing with the drought will be carried on. With my own Boards we are monitoring our Drain levels as we always do, but I meet on a weekly basis with my Operations Staff regarding levels and will make the decision to stop pumping completely and build up levels to full summer level when we consider it correct to do so taking into consideration all aspects including weather forecasts. This decision is not one that can be taken lightly bearing in mind what happened in Easter 1998. All ratepayers with winter storage reservoirs were informed of the situation in October last year and were asked to fill their reservoirs as soon as their licence conditions allowed. Everyone acted on this request and all have full reservoirs at the moment. I have also discussed with the Brampton Office of the EA the possibility of refilling winter storage reservoirs if needed during the summer period if summer rainfall occurs and IDB pumps are being used to evacuate excess water. This has had a favourable response. I hope you find the foregoing helpful, but, if you require any more information please do not hesitate to contact me. Gerald Allison, Downham Market Group of Boards (Norfolk)

I have to agree with the comments Gerald Allison of the Downham Market Group of IDBs has already made to you. Operational we are starting to slowly raise our drain levels, with the target of being at our summer level one month early. Again this will be dependent on the weather conditions over the next few weeks. We had a very dry spring last year and the situation was close to critical, before we had average rainfall in June, July and August. The current situation will be more challenging this year, as we have had no autumn or winter recharge, like we did last year. The current drought is a very serious issue for the Fens and if the situation does not change the Group’s resources and the water in the Fens may well be put under extreme pressure. Clear communication is key in managing this situation and the Boards in this area do have good contact with the local Environment Agency officers. If you require any more information, please contact me. Andrew Newton, Ely Group of IDBs (Cambridgeshire)

Looking to increase water levels in next few weeks across all systems. Never really went to full Winter levels (about half way from Summer levels). Levels being increased near to Summer levels already in two systems and others will be raised soon if prevailing conditions continue. Buffering effect of under saturated soil conditions should provide a buffering affect if suddenly get high intensity of rain, giving Board time to readjust levels. Stan Pywell, Welland and Deeping IDB ()

The Board have experienced it’s driest Autumn/Winter since our records began (in 1888). Winter flows are at the lowest we have seen. The usual autumn/winter flush of the system has not taken place – this refreshes the system, improving water quality and removes dead weed and other debris. Many watercourses saw high levels of the invasive weed azolla and we were hoping for decent flows and low temperatures to help remove it from the system. I anticipate that azolla will be a major problem in parts of the Fens this year unless conditions change. So far February has had below average rainfall and this looks set to continue. We have winter and summer retention levels in our system. Normally we would be at the lower winter level until April when we start to bring the levels up to our summer level by 1st May (an increase of approximately 1m) however we are already retaining water levels at around 200mm higher than usual. If there is no significant change in the weather we will start to raise our water levels in March (although we will need more rain for this to happen).

Ministerial Drought Summit: Comments from the Internal Drainage Board Community Compiled by Ian Moodie ([email protected]), Association of Drainage Authorities This early start gives cause for concern in respect to water quality – the longer the water stays in our system the worse the quality with a greater risk of algal blooms (e.g. blue/green algal dangerous to animals and primnesium dangerous to fish). We would rather fill our system later than earlier but may not have that luxury this year. In the absence of rainfall our main source of fresh water is the but this is a resource that has to be carefully managed by the EA and they may be in the same position as ourselves and not have additional flow for transfer. We have a problem with saline water ingress and sometimes rely on transfer from the Witham to flush it out. We also manage water transfer for irrigators (Water Transfer Limited) but I am concerned that a. the quality and quantity may not be available and b. the Board will have to refuse transfer if there is another outbreak of azolla in the Witham as we don’t want to transfer it to our system. The lack of water for irrigation either through low flows or prevention of invasive species transfer plus the possibility of high salinity levels will affect irrigators and potentially impact on supply to supermarkets. An additional problem for us is that we are carrying out essential de-silting of the approach to our main pumping station and this requires low water levels. This reduces our capacity to store water in the short term. British Rail are refurbishing a bridge in another catchment and that also requires a low water level so we have a bit of a balancing act going on at the moment! Andy Carrott, Witham Fourth District IDB (Lincolnshire)

Guy Hird, Assistant Engineer for Upper Witham IDB, evidences the rainfall by year (Upper Witham IDB covering an area from near Gainsborough in the north of Lincolnshire, Lincoln, around Newark, down to Grantham and further south to South Witham on the border with the county of Rutland) and commented on the low level of pump hours running to date until very recently. Our plan would be to run to the higher summer water levels as soon as is safe, given there will be high expectations from local farmers that they can extract water in the summer months (indeed, we have a water transfer agreement in relation to Lincoln). Jane Froggatt, Upper Witham, Witham 1st and 3rd IDBs (Lincolnshire)

The only thing that I can add [to Jane’s response] is that I attended a Water Transfer Annual Meeting and one of the members (an estate with a large land holding in the area) has been stopped from refilling some of his lagoons in one area and is seriously considering his crop rotation because if the lagoons remain "dry" (he would normally fill them at this time of year and at present, from memory, they are only 25% or so full), he may be looking at swapping fields to allow the use of allocations within the Transfer scheme to provide water for crops. This could be a major change to the cropping regime as the areas are miles apart and the other area has little or no summer abstraction licences. Ken Pratt, Upper Witham IDB (Lincolnshire)

Board staff were invited to a meeting of the farming community and others who hold irrigation licences held by the EA just before Christmas. EA staff informed those present that unless the area receives significant rainfall this winter there will be dire consequences for irrigators next summer. Romney Marsh is dependent upon water from the upland Rother to provide summer feed. Last year a drought order was considered but not imposed due to some late rain in the summer. We and the EA have conserved what water there is on the marsh by not removing stop boards, but the situation still remains serious. Some Irrigators have storage reservoirs which have been filled but many rely upon water within the ditch systems. David Oliver, Romney Marsh Area IDB (Kent)

Drought is impacting all 5 boards we manage, electrical costs for pumping are typically half of a normal winter. Gravity clough doors to main river [from the IDB drain] are silting up badly due to a lack of freshwater, not helped by the Environment Agency no longer de-silting these cloughs on a regular basis. Graham Bate, Lower Aire & Don Consortia of Drainage Boards (Yorkshire)

Apologies I have no data in this respect apart from noting decreased expenditure on pumping station maintenance & electricity for the year to date. Nigel Everard, Clerk, Selby Area IDB (Yorkshire)

Ministerial Drought Summit: Comments from the Internal Drainage Board Community Compiled by Ian Moodie ([email protected]), Association of Drainage Authorities Appendix 1: Azolla in the Witham catchment September/October 2011

(a) (b)

(c) (d)

(e) (f)

Photographs by Martin Redding (Witham Fourth District IDB) of Azolla during September/October 2011. On the: (a) River Witham, (b) confluence of the East and West Catchwater Drains, (c) Stonebridge Drain, (d) River Witham, (e) Moreton’s Leam, and (f) Nene Washlands SSSI.

Ministerial Drought Summit: Comments from the Internal Drainage Board Community Compiled by Ian Moodie ([email protected]), Association of Drainage Authorities