Friends of the Itchen Estuary's aims are to improve the natural value of the Itchen Estuary including its biodiversity, ecology, value for well-being, recreational value, and capacity to keep the city a little cooler during our increasingly hot summers.
We are crowdfunding to enable us to conduct a programme of intensive estuary water quality sampling and analysis to force a review of Southern Water's wholly inadequate treatment of the six Olympic Swimming Pools worth of sewage effluent, loaded with faecal bacteria, ammonia, and phosphates being poured into the Itchen Estuary every day.
Local environmental scientists and an industry expert advise that we have a good case to force a review of Southen Waters's lack of investment plans. In particular, the addition of tertiary treatment for St Denys (Portswood) sewage works could dramatically reduce estuary sewage pollution, the risk to the health of people taking part in water activities, and the ecological impacts of sewage. Southern Water has installed tertiary treatment at Woolston and Millbrook sewage works to reduce sewage pollution. They could do the same for St Denys sewage works but don't want to make the investment. Help us change their minds We will complete this project by late spring and will post updates on our Facebook page.