Water: Pyridine

(asked on 20th May 2022) - View Source

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what recent assessment his Department has made of the levels of pyridine in UK waters.


Answered by
Rebecca Pow Portrait
Rebecca Pow
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
This question was answered on 1st June 2022

The Environment Agency (EA) is responsible for improving water quality in England. It monitors rivers and estuaries for a range of substances, including pyridine. Between 2005 and 2022, the EA has detected the presence of pyridine in coastal and estuarine waters of England on 30 occasions from a total of 5023 routine samples analysed. During this period, the EA has also analysed 21635 routine freshwater samples in England (this category includes: Rivers, Canals, Lakes/Ponds/Reservoir, and Land Drains) and detected pyridine in 64 of those samples.

This summary of the data suggests that to date there have been relatively few detections of pyridine in the aquatic environment, and we will continue to monitor it closely.

Reticulating Splines