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WATER COMPANY SUCKS YORKSHIRE'S BEST WETLANDS DRY
5 September 1996
A report out yesterday from the official wildlife watchdog, English Nature, shows how 22 [1] of Yorkshire's best wildlife areas, Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs), such as the South Pennine Moors, are at risk from excessive water abstraction. Friends of the Earth has responded to the report's findings by calling on Yorkshire Water to stop destroying some of the country's finest habitats by taking too much water from the environment.
Some of the sites listed are of international importance. The South Pennine Moors SSSI,for example, features such significant populations of Golden plovers that it has been designated as a Special Protection Area under the EC Birds Directive. At the moment the site has a low risk from abstraction. But if Yorkshire Water gets its way, English Nature says the site will become a high risk site.
Other SPAs include Breighton Meadows and Derwent Ings which are home to 20,000 waterfowl every winter and to rare species, including the ground beetle Panagaeus cruxmajor a species which the Government has developed an action plan for in order to reverse its decline.
Thorne Moors has been designated as a Special Area of Conservation under the EC Habitats Directive and includes southern marsh orchid and large populations of Nightjar.
Matt Phillips of Friends of the Earth said:
NOTES TO EDITORS:
[1] The SSSIs at risk are: Hell Kettles, Barton and Barrow Clay Pits, Breighton Meadows, Broughton Alder Wood, Hoddy Cows Spring, Messingham Sand Quarry, Newbald Becksies, Derwent Ings, Upper Dunsforth Carrs, Denaby Ings and Hatfield Chase in Humberside; Thorne Moors, Bingley South Bog, Breary Marsh, North Yorkshire; Broadhead Clough, South Yorkshire; Norwood Bottoms, Seckar Wood, South Pennine Moors, Withens Clough, West Yorkshire.
The report is: English Nature. (1996). Impact of water abstraction on wetland SSSIs. English Nature, Peterborough.
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Published by Friends of the Earth Trust
Last modified: Sep 2008
