Waterways in England are being polluted by a toxic mix of oil, chemicals, and debris from roads, therefore contaminating rivers and streams. Heavy rain carries the runoff from roads, which can cause significant contamination, including just downstream of a filming location for “The Great British Bake Off.” England’s major road network features more than 18,000 drains or outflows, with National Highways taking responsibility for them. The Environment Agency holds responsibility for monitoring water pollution in England and does not monitor runoff regularly, but it tests for pollutants from roads as part of its general water monitoring, the agency said.
Campaigners have performed their own testing to highlight the scale of the issue, finding microplastics, heavy metals, toxic chemicals, and carcinogenic tyre compounds. Some of the pollutants affect DNA, the nervous system, and can cause cancer, according to Professor Alex Ford, an expert on the impact of water pollution at the University of Portsmouth. Arsenic and heavy metals were among the most alarming pollutants campaigners detected in waterways.
In addition to farmers and sewage, runoff from highways and urban areas is responsible for 18 percent of water quality failures in England and is the third most harmful water polluter after sewage and agriculture. Campaigners called attention to the ecological impact of runoff flow on waterways, which harms aquatic life, and potentially causes unconsciousness or death if ingested by individuals or animals. National Highways’ computer model must prioritise the 1,236 sites that are at risk; it has identified approximately 250 high-risk sites that need some form of mitigation and identified roughly 30 sites where it will mitigate risks by the end of the year
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