The year of 2011 will be a year of a variety of challenges for the Dacorum Environmental Forum Water Group to focus upon in support of many opportunities related to the local water infrastructure.

The recently published EA Dacorum Chalk Rivers Restoration Strategies have been several years in their preparation and deserve the utmost support of every local landowner and organisations associated with their management. The DEF Water Group will do its utmost to support and encourage these endeavours.

Berkhamsted Town Council took the lead a couple of years ago, with improvements to the Bulbourne where it passes Berkhamsted town centre, under the guidance of the Chilterns Chalk Stream Officer, Allen Beechey.

With the expected contribution of the current EA investigation into sustainable water abstraction at the head of the Bulbourne, it is to be hoped that, with the support of Northchurch Parish Council, improvements to the Bulbourne headwaters can be initiated.>

Recent improvements to the quality of water discharged into the canal at Berkhamsted Sewage Works, by way of the reed beds recently installed by Thames Water, provide some hope for the future of the lower Bulbourne. This subject previously received scant hope for the future within the EA 'Alleviation of Low Flows Study of 1997'. The Box Moor Trust is the major landowner associated with the lower Bulbourne prior to its joining the river Gade at Two Waters and the Trust is currently receiving advice from the Chilterns Chalk Stream Officer.

The river Gade has recently benefited from Veolia Water’s Sustainability Study on behalf of the EA, which included wide representation of the local community and which will be a wide basis for initiating improvements to the Upper Gade as identified within the EA Dacorum Chalk Rivers Restoration Strategies.

The river Ver is also included in this programme and is fortunate in the fact that the Ver Valley Society has been vigorously acting to the benefit of the river for many years. The DEF Water Group fully supports their endeavours and they reciprocate with their support of our endeavours for the Bulbourne and Gade.

Dacorum Borough Council have initiated their Two Waters Study as part of the Hemel 2020 regeneration plans for Hemel Hempstead. An important part of this Study includes both the Bulbourne and Gade together with the Grand Union Canal at Two Waters, and the adjacent Two Waters Lake (leased by Boxmoor & District Angling Society). The First Apsley Scouts lease their headquarters on this site, which was originally the watercress packing shed. Part of the site was originally the DBC nursery site. The river Gade skirts the site before passing through Frogmore Mill.

The DEFWG website clearly identifies its continuing endeavours to:

• seek sympathetic water abstraction policies;
• lobby for compulsory water metering;
• raise awareness of issues over water usage and water saving devices;
• lobby the local authority to achieve sustainable urban drainage systems in all new development;
• lobby bodies responsible for road and public space drainage to identify and rectify any issues with drains and silt traps that are causing river water quality issues;
• raise awareness of the cumulative impact of increased hard standing through the paving of private gardens;
• seek less agricultural use of pesticides;
• seek to undertake River Restoration Projects;
• lobby the local authority for enhancements through redevelopment adjacent to the chalk streams;
• to highlight enhancement opportunities and the creation and improvement of buffer zones;
• vigorously campaign for wetlands to be installed where possible in order to return water to the local aquifer;
• vigorously support the DBC Urban Nature Conservation Study; vigorously promote biodiversity improvement opportunities.

Finally, but definitely not least, there is the Buncefield Oil Terminal Disaster and its impact upon the local water aquifer. The legal disputes must surely be resolved in the near future, which will allow the issues to be itemised in order that policies to resolve the contamination to the local aquifer can be attempted.

Roger Hands, 28th February, 2011