Hinkley Point C
The Missing Salmon Alliance (MSA), a collective of passionate conservation organisations focussed on salmon, is demanding greater fish protection measures and effective mitigation of major fish kills set to take place at EDF Energy Hinkley Point C.
In attendance at The UK River Summit 2024, MSA members came together and met with the Hinkley Point C Action group to discuss a route forward.
Image credit: Lucy Young Photos
Britain’s new nuclear power station at Hinkley Point C, already over budget and behind schedule, is set to draw a huge amount of water (132cumecs a day) from the Bristol Channel to cool nuclear reactors. This is the equivalent of twice the total daily flow of the River Thames. An EA study concluded that 178 tonnes of fish will be sucked into the pipes per year and an independent panel warned in a report to the Welsh government in 2021 that the power station could capture up to 182 million fish per year. It is likely that many of these will not survive.
The area surrounding Hinkley Point C is a highly designated Special Area of Conservation (SAC), Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), and Ramsar site, with a number of designated rivers that are home to several endangered, protected, and commercially important species such as Atlantic salmon, shad, Elver eel (critically endangered), Conger eel, brown shrimp, cod, bass, whiting, flounder, sole, and thornback ray.
There are only 4 spawning populations of Twait shad in the UK; in the Tywi, Usk, Wye, and Severn and data shows that there is significant risk of the scheme wiping these out. Acoustic tracking of the species from the River Tywi, funded by charities and universities with no financial input from EDF, shows that up to 33% of the population may be using the area around the Hinkley Point C abstraction zones.
The Missing Salmon Alliance is demanding greater protection and limited commercial fishing opportunities to be enacted within the area to increase the stocks of the populations at risk, as the only way to mitigate the situation directly now would be to create an abundance of stocks to sustain the fish kill.
Dylan Roberts, Head of Fisheries at MSA member, Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust said “Wild Atlantic salmon migrate through the Bristol channel each spring from a number of recognised rivers in the area. They are now classified as Endangered in Great Britain on the IUCN Red List. It is critical that a real-time assessment of salmon smolts migrating through the area is funded by EDF. Without this assessment, how can they say that the environmental risks are minimal? This is not solely about salmon, it’s a much broader remit. It’s about conserving our wider biodiversity against a massive state project which is steamrolling through and putting two fingers up to the environment.”
Stuart Singleton-White, Head of Campaigns at MSA member, Angling Trust said “This is a huge potential risk to salmon and a real risk to other protected diadromous fish like Twait shad and eels migrating from the River Parrott which is directly in line with the Hinkley Point C offtakes. Furthermore, the impact on marine species of fish is to be far greater than the already disastrous fish kill from the water intake for Hinkley B, because the intakes will now be on the seabed and not mid-water. The channel is not known for its pelagic fish, given the lack of clarity, so whilst fish will shoal and transit mid-water (hence the daily skips of dead fish from Hinkley B), most fish will be spending their time on the bottom of the seabed. In planning this scheme, the government has not paid due diligence to fish protection measures and the current compensatory measures will be inadequate. We are now asking for the next best-case scenario to be affected.”