To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether his Department plans to take steps to remedy metal contamination of bed sediments in the Upper Mersey catchment that result from (a) industry and (b) urban development.

There are six existing voluntary mine-water treatment schemes to prevent metals from abandoned coal mine discharges entering watercourses within the Mersey Catchment, and there are currently two other prospective schemes in the National Mine-water Ranking Scheme.

There are no identified polluting metal mine discharges within the catchment of the River Mersey, and consequently no proposed schemes under that process.

Other sources of metals in river sediments are many and varied (mostly from historical industries and waste activities), but the Environment Agency (EA) only has a role in controlling discharges from current regulated activities (effluent discharges, waste management activities, landfill etc) and has no regulatory remit or resource to specifically extract metals from river sediments that have been affected by historical activities.

EA duties include regular and routine water quality monitoring on controlled waters (rivers, lakes, groundwater etc).