Otter River Catchment Action (ORCA)

Pristine Devon river is in bottom 20% of river habitats

The Otter should epitomise England’s ecologically rich and diverse river habitats. Unfortunately, the Middle and Lower sections of the River Otter and one of its key tributaries, the river Wolf Otter, are all classified by the Environment Agency (EA) as ‘Poor Ecological Status’. This places the River Otter in the worst 20% of the UK’s river systems, meaning significant impacts on plant life, wildlife and fish populations.

 

The EA identify the main pollutant types & key sources

  • Sewage discharges coming from South West Water’s (SWW) sewage systems. In 2024, SWW released  untreated sewage for 9,500 hours. This is 3x more untreated sewage hours into the River Otter than into Exmouth bay.
  • EA also highlight pollution from ‘Agriculture and Land Management’, specifically livestock, soil and nutrient management
  • High levels of phosphate cause algal blooms, eutrophication, and decreased oxygen levels in the water, leading to severe consequences for plant life, wildlife and fish populations.  In addition, high concentrations of pathogens create a hazard for human and animal health.

 

To do something about this, the OVA formed ORCA - a campaigning group focused on working with local villages, farming communities, associations, government bodies and South West Water to restore the river Otter back to the healthy river it should be and also to ensure that the ecology of the river catchment is abundant and thriving to it's greatest potential.   While sewage pollution if a major issue in the river, farming practices and historically constructed weirs are also an issue.  We want to work with the farming community and associations like the WestCountry Rivers Trust to enable long-term change.  We are also working with fishing associations such as the River Otter Fisheries Association to review structural issues within the river - such as effective weir management.

Our focus will take a number of different aspects:

  1. A testing program to look at water quality along the river Otter [ CLICK HERE ]
  2. Ongoing data analysis to ensure everyone has the facts relating to water quality along the river Otter
  3. Awareness building into the community to ensure everyone is aware of the issues facing people and nature in the catchment of the river Otter
  4. Campaigning to enable change (farming, house building, South West Water, Weir management, etc).

 

We welcome any input into our plans and of course any expressions of interest to join our group of water testers. Our goal is that by 2028 the ecological status of all sections of the river Otter should be classified ‘moderate’ or ideally ‘good’.

 

Published Articles of Interest:

The ORCA team have published, and will continue to publish, articles of interest concerning the state of the river.

 

 

The River Otter flows from its source in the Blackdown hills just north of Otterford, to the sea at Budleigh Salterton. During it’s course it is joined by three main tributaries - the Tale, the Wolf and the Love. The Otter should epitomise England’s ecologically rich and diverse river habitats. Unfortunately, the Middle and Lower sections of the River Otter are both classified by the Environment Agency (EA) as ‘Poor Ecological Status’. This puts the River Otter in the worst 20% of the UK’s rivers, with significant impacts on plant life, wildlife and fish populations.

So, the OVA setup the water quality group to explore how we can address the significant pollution issues in the river Otter catchment.  We currently meet every 6 weeks and have small groups working on water testing, farming , liaison with South West Water (SWW), planning, communications and partnerships.

It is clear from Environment Agency (EA)  reports that farming and pollution from sewage spills are the main factors affecting the water quality in the Otter. There is publicly available data regarding the number of hours of sewage spills. This shows that there are several sewage works with a high number of hours of untreated discharge.

The largest number of raw sewage discharge hours are from the Honiton treatment works, up 63% from 2,820 hrs in 2023 to 4,604 hrs in the first 10 months of 2024.  While we are showing here the top-5 in terms of discharges, it is worth noting that along the entire length of the river Otter there are 23 SWW assets – showing a 36% increase in the first 10 months of 2024 compared to the whole of 2023.

There is no requirement for South West water to measure the volume of sewage discharge just the number of hours. Honiton in particular is a large sewage works so we are concerned that very large quantities of untreated sewage is entering the Otter and impacting the ecology of the river. The types of farming along the Otter that are most likely to be negatively affecting the water quality are dairy farming, higher up the catchment and maize growing .