Birmingham Friends of the Earth Action Briefing Dec 98/Jan 99

Water Campaign

Autumn has been quite busy for the water campaign.

As mentioned in the last Action Briefing, I attended the launch of Severn Trent Water's Environmental Stewardship report which summarises their environmental performance in the past year and sets their targets for the next year.

I was one of ten young environmentalists asked to comment on how STW operate and what sort of future they should be creating. The ten of us were photographed and I suppose you could describe the actual photo shoot as one of the more glamorous things I've done for Birmingham FOE because I had a war photographer taking about 10 rolls of film in different poses by the River Tame under Spaghetti Junction!

The report showed that STW are moving in the right direction and decreasing their environmental impact. I did pose a couple of questions at the launch, including one about their reclamation of some brownfield land on which a manufacturing facility for a company making automotive components will be sited. I didn't think this was a particularly green thing to do!

The launch was a good chance to do some networking and I hope that I will be getting involved with a large joint campaign with STW and the Wildlife Trusts, among others. This campaign has a working title of Pride in Our Rivers and will be community based. The idea is that we will enable local communities to improve their rivers by providing money and expertise. If you know of any suitable projects then please contact me via the Warehouse. This project is obviously in its infancy but I hope to have more to report in the New Year.

Laura Burrows