Action on pollution from Pill

Measures to tackle the pollution that is causing half the male fish in Britain's lowland rivers to change sex will be announced by the Government's pollution watchdog this week.

The Environment Agency will announce on Tuesday that it is starting a hunt for clean-up technologies to remove a powerful form of oestrogen from sewage-works effluent, as the start of an anti-pollution campaign which the water industry expects will cost hundreds of millions of pounds and mean higher bills.

As reported in The Independent on Sunday last week, new research has shown that the hormone – ethanol oestradiol, from the contraceptive pill – is passing through sewage works and causing male fish to develop female reproductive ducts and eggs in their testes. In stretches of the rivers Aire and Nene all male fish have been feminised.

The research has raised concerns that the hormone may get into drinking-water supplies – many of which are taken from rivers below sewage works – and affect men's fertility.

Yesterday, Baroness Young, the chief executive of the agency, said she wanted to "control" the pollution but warned: "It is potentially an investment-heavy process."

The research, part of a five-year programme financed by the agency, the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Natural Environment Research Council, has also found that about one-tenth of male fish are sterile and about another quarter have damaged sperm.

On Tuesday the agency will announce a crash programme to identify the worst-affected stretches of rivers and another to find the best way of removing the oestrogen from the effluent. Then it plans to require sewage works to start cleaning up.