Sustainability Spotlight: December 2024
Tackling Floating Pennywort (register for our webinar), have your say on ‘bathing waters’ designation, new National Storm Overflow Map and more!
Tackling Floating Pennywort together
We are delighted to introduce Pippa Rowlandson, who will be working with us a few days a month as our Invasive Plants Support Officer over the next six months, supported by the Thriving Waters Scheme.
Pippa says, “I love working with volunteer groups and really looking forward to meeting members of the rowing community and working with you all! I’m a paddle sport instructor and regular kayak racing paddler. I’ve been working on the River Lea with local communities and businesses, and engaging clubs to help with removing Floating Pennywort there.”
Pippa will be developing resources for clubs, with a particular focus on tackling the problem of Floating Pennywort. If you’d like to chat to Pippa about this, just email [email protected].
Webinar invitation: Managing Floating Pennywort
Come along to Pippa’s first webinar (registration required), on Tuesday, 15 January 2025 from 7-8pm to learn some tips and tricks for managing this invasive plant.
Government consultation on bathing waters designation – have your say
Designated ‘bathing waters’ are monitored by the Environment Agency and Natural Resources Wales, with annual ratings classifying each site as excellent, good, sufficient or poor on the basis of water quality.
The Government recently launched a public consultation to gather views from a wide range of recreational water users about how the regulations should be updated to reflect how people now use lakes and rivers in England and Wales. Proposals include: removing fixed season dates from regulations, and introducing multiple testing points at bathing water sites. Currently only swimmers are included in the definition of ‘bathers’, but that could change to include other water sports like rowers and surfers.
We encourage clubs and individual members to respond to the consultation by the deadline of 23 December 2024, and have drawn up suggested answers to questions to assist you in doing this:
National Sewage Outflow Map published
Water UK, the independent water industry trade body, has published a National Sewage Overflow Map for England. This brings together the separate water company sewage overflow maps onto a single map.
View the National Storm Overflow Map
The map is one resource within a new National Storm Overflow Hub. Having campaigned for real-time monitoring of sewage overflows, the Clean Water Sports Alliance, which includes British Rowing, welcomes the launch of the new map, which marks a significant step forward in increasing transparency and giving a fuller picture of the scale of pollution being caused by the water sector.
We, as part of the Clean Water Sports Alliance, are meeting with Water UK early in the New Year when we aim to work with them to refine the map further.
2024 British Rowing Environmental Sustainability Award
Nominations for this and other British Rowing Awards closed on 18 November 2024; we are delighted with the quality of nominations received.
Watch our website and socials for announcements about shortlists and winners from 13 December onwards!
