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Estuary water quality

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50 years ago the Tyne Estuary running through Newcastle, Gateshead, North Shields and South Shields was acknowledged to be dead. This was entirely due to the huge volumes of raw sewage and industrial effluent being discharged directly into the river. Some compounds were directly toxic (such as Tributyltins - TBT's) others created a huge demand for oxygen, thereby stripping the vital, life-sustaining properties of the water, leaving fish and other organisms unable to survive.

Today the Estuary is far cleaner and is home to an increasing array of fish, birds, crustaceans and microorganisms. The recovery is often demonstrated by the return of the iconic Atlantic Salmon (Salmo salar) as it migrates up the Tyne to spawn.

Monitoring buoy

However, the recovery is not yet complete. Fish still die in the Estuary in hot summers, a symptom of the lingering legacy of heavy industry and our continuing use of the river as a convenient disposal route for urban runoff.

The Trust believes that one of the key tasks to ensuring the Tyne continues to support a diverse and robust biodiversity is to continue to tackle the problems of water quality in the Estuary. We aim to do this through public awareness, specific projects to reduce and ameliorate urban runoff where possible and by bringing to the attention of regional decision makers the risk to the economic viability of the North East of having lower environmental quality in the economic heart.